The Grandfather of the World

Pope Francis was more than the head of the globe's 1.4 billion catholics

“Have you seen the news?” Chris asked me when I came into the kitchen at 0630 this morning. “Pope Francis died over night, after Easter.”

Noooooooo!

He was my light, my hope, my inspiration to fight indifference in my heart and the heart of the world. To always be mindful of those less fortunate than ourselves, like my grandfather Pop used to say every night at grace. To do what’s right for the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the migrant, and our common home, the earth and all its creatures.

I feel like my grandfather has died all over again.

I spent every summer with Pop and Dee, my Italian grandmother, on their little Sonoma County ranch with a huge garden, swimming pool, and horses and cows until I was twenty years old. He opened a savings account for me when I was seven and introduced me to the tellers (he knew everyone at the bank from the custodian to the president) and would bring me there to deposit a gift of $5. He showed me how to saddle a horse and care for all kinds of animals. He taught me how to drive, check the oil and water, and change a tire on a car. He brought me to the mass each week at St. Joseph’s in the nearby town of Cotati, against my pre-teen and teenage will, where I always warmed at the sign of peace we exchanged with others. After mass, Pop would light a prayer candle at the wooden statue of St. Joseph on the right side of altar. I got to hold the long wooden taper myself and light it from a lit candle and then choose which candle in the little red glass votive holder I wanted to endow with my intention, my prayer. Then we would make the sign of the cross together. Pop made me feel seen, important, safe, and cherished when my own father often felt like a mirage.

St. Joseph, Jesus’ stepdad (the one who didn’t abandon Mary when she revealed she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit) is the patron saint of fathers (and workers, immigrants, the dying, and social justice). Pop’s own father, a French immigrant to San Francisco who opened a laundry, had died of influenza when he was four years old. Pop’s stepfather had given him his name, but never his affection. I was in college I think before I made the connection to Pop’s devotion to St. Joseph and the dead father he had never known. His longing for fathering.

Yesterday, on Easter morning, I woke up early in my old bedroom at Pop’s old ranch house and decided to go to the 0730 mass at St. Joseph’s. I hadn’t been to mass in St. Joseph’s for years. The church was packed for the Spanish language mass. I speak Italian, not Spanish, but it’s close enough that I could make out most of what native English-speaking priest said. After mass, I went to the statue of St. Joseph. There was no longer votive candles to light, just a kneeler about twenty feet away. I prayed to St. Joseph for Pop, for Chris (the father of our three children), and for my father, gone since 2016 and the subject of a memoir I am close to finishing. Thank you for the blessings of good fathers like Pop and Chris; please help fathers heal themselves; help me heal my father relationship as I write and those of future readers; please help father our broken world.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires was the first non-European ever chosen to lead the Catholic church. He was the first of the 266 popes to choose the name Francis, Francesco, Francisco, after St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis is the patron saint of my city, San Francisco and our namesake, taken from our Mission San Francisco de Asís. The 1776 adobe church founded by Franciscan friars when they colonized California for Spain. I am a Knight of St. Francis here in San Francisco, an interfaith group that serves the poor, the sick, and the environment and guards the Porziuncola Nuova, a replica of St. Francis’ Porziuncola chapel in Assisi.

Our world suffers for lack of good fathering. Of protection, guardrails, and the self-sacrifice required to raise humans who will do the same for others. Papa Francesco fathered me, fathered all of us, even non-Catholics and non-believers. I am happy that he gave us one last Easter blessing, imploring us to hope for peace, for respect, for love.