EL Catholics Reflect on Pope Francis, Future of Church
More than 1.4 billion Catholics are mourning the death of Pope Francis, the 266th leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
ELi spoke with two leaders of East Lansing’s St. Thomas Aquinas Parish. They discussed the impact Francis had on the 2,000-year-old church and their thoughts on the future of the faith.
“He was a bit of a dark horse in the last conclave,” said Father Gordon Reigle. “I wasn’t aware of him until he came out as pope. He was not on my radar at all. He was the first Latin American pope [which was] a beautiful thing to have someone from the southern hemisphere, where the church had been growing.”
Reigle has been in the priesthood for 20 years and a pastor in East Lansing for nearly seven.
“The Lord always sends whoever you need at the time,” he said. “When we had Pope John Paul II, you knew Benedict was the heir apparent. We had two huge theologians back-to-back [and Francis] was a non-theologian, a non-European, a southern hemisphere. He had a much more informal style which appealed to a lot of people and maybe connected in ways the predecessors didn’t.”
Father Riley O’Shea is the Parochial Vicar of the parish and is one of those who felt connected to the pontiff.
“Pope Francis has always kind of been the pope,” O’Shea said. “I remember when he was elected [because] I was in college. That was about [the time] I started considering the priesthood.
“Just having someone who is this model of servant leadership, just the very sense of humility. He could have basically anything he wanted as a pope and just realizing [that] he was not self-seeking but rather self-giving.”
When asked to describe the works of Francis’s papacy, O’Shea highlighted his ability to build bridges with other faith communities.
“He was a man of unity,” he said. “He wanted to see unity amongst not only Christians but amongst everyone really.”
Almost immediately after Francis’ passing, the media began speculating about the next man to sit in the seat of Saint Peter. ELi asked Reigle and O’Shea to contemplate the future.
“I don’t know what tomorrow brings,” Reigle said. “We have an unstable world and you don’t know what is going to erupt next. We got Pope John Paul in 1978. What a brilliant surprise to have a Polish pope. You needed someone who grew up under Communism to battle Communism. And that’s what he did in a bloodless coup.”
He said that most popes over the last 2,000 years had been from the Italian peninsula or Central Europe.
“Most importantly,” he said, “may the Lord give you the person you need. You don’t know what the great pastoral challenges will be.”
O’Shea is looking for qualities similar to those held by Francis.
“Certainly someone who’s [a] servant leader,” he said. “We [don’t] need people who are in it for themselves but are seeking the greater good of the church and of the world, Someone who’s unabashedly proclaiming the Gospel.
“Pope Francis certainly was a man of the Gospel. He preached the Gospel of Christ and we need someone who doesn’t shy away from the truth of the Gospel; someone who’s very clearly articulating what the truth of the gospel is and the truths of the faith.”
Reigle and O’Shea are both unsure about who the next pope will be.
“I don’t claim to have a forecast of vision,” O’Shea said. “But I was inspired this past weekend. We had, I think, 33 people in East Lansing become Catholic at our Easter Vigil. Just welcoming them into the Catholic Church…that was quite a privilege to usher them in through the sacrament of baptism.”
“Recently in the news,” Reigle said, “the Catholic Church reached the mark of 1.4 billion [members]. We’re starting to see people in the younger generation…there’s an aimlessness that Gen Z and the late millennials are struggling with. Where nothing is right, nothing is wrong. They’re looking for something to give them truth and meaning.
“Many are looking to the church.”