@DrKwasniewski..Now that Francis is gone..an enormous burden has been lifted from the Church..All the same, it is never amiss to pray..If Francis died with a penitent heart, prompted by a secret grace of God, he may well be saved...
Pope Francis is dead. And there is no need to sugar-coat his departure with pious platitudes, as the mainstream catholic media will be doing ad nauseam ("a man with a shepherd's heart for the poor," etc.). In fact, I will try to limit my negative comments about this kind of autocanonization, familiar to us from six decades of Novus Ordo funerals. Time will be better spent in prayer and in reading deeper evaluations.
I have been praying for years that God would deliver us from the scourge of this pontificate, and understood that if He willed for it to continue, it must have been for our testing and purification, our strengthening in virtue, and especially our growth in awareness of the stark contrast between raw power and genuine authority, between the reign of novelty and the rights of tradition. Now that Francis is gone, it feels, quite honestly, as if an enormous burden has been lifted from the Church (and, indeed, from the world).
All the same, it is never amiss to pray for the repose of someone's soul, no matter how much evil he has done. As the Church teaches, a man's merits and demerits are known with certainty to God alone. If Francis died with a penitent heart, prompted by a secret grace of God, he may well be saved—but he may be consigned to the fires of Purgatory for thousands of years, the poorest of the poor souls. Just as we would want to be prayed for after we die, let us do the same for his soul. This is why I sincerely prayed this morning and will continue to pray: 𝑅𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑒𝑚 𝑎𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑚 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑎 𝑒𝑖, 𝐷𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒, 𝑒𝑡 𝑙𝑢𝑥 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑝𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑎 𝑙𝑢𝑐𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑒𝑖. 𝑅𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑒𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒.
No prayer is wasted. If it so happens that our prayers cannot benefit Francis (only God knows), they will still benefit the Mystical Body as an act of charity.
Let us also begin to pray earnestly for the upcoming conclave, which has every reason to be the most storm-tossed in centuries, as radically opposed visions of Catholicism vie for the cardinals' votes. We do not know what is ahead, but we know that the Lord is risen and remains with us always. Whether the chair of Peter is empty or occupied, He is the everlasting Head of the Church, and her only Head in heaven where we long to join Him. 𝑇𝑢 𝑛𝑜𝑏𝑖𝑠, 𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑅𝑒𝑥, 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑟𝑒.
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