Until the end, the pontificate of Pope Francis, died Monday April 21 at the age of 88, will have had the brilliance of the extraordinary. “He left in style”even whispers a religious who apologizes for the frivolity of the image. But how can we qualify this death in the aftermath of Easter, the most sacred celebration of the year for Christians, on the occasion of which François had even granted himself a crowd bath in papamobile, a last public gesture which, retrospectively, took a farewell look?
Besides, the Pope was a little more than the simple head of the Catholic Roman Church – one of these leaders for whom the world takes a passion, between global stretch and seeking a moral compass. François knew it, played it: his image, that of a humble pastor, was one of his main instruments to address the world and to a Church which he will have greatly jostled.
His voice was faulty after serious respiratory problems led to a hospitalization of five weeks. Whatever, he was shown, as much as his forces allowed him, without consideration for the two months of convalescence recommended by his doctors, and without ever seeking to obscure his condition of an old sick man. Sunday, at the end of the Easter mass and before crossing the crowd, he had slightly praised the faithful, from the Balcony of the Saint-Pierre Basilica, and was content to wish joyful Easter to his “Dear brothers and sisters”.
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Source: Lemonde