Editor’s note: Following the death of Pope Francis on April 21, 2025, the editors of Where Peter Is received many tributes to his life and reflections on his influence from past and current contributors, as well as podcast guests and friends of the site from all over the world. We will publish a few of these reflections every day leading up to the conclave. —ML
He Stood by Me in Times of Trial: Remembering my friend, Pope Francis
By Rodrigo Guerra
We entered the Domus Santa Marta at night. Everything looked the same, yet everything felt different. There was a line to enter the chapel. We waited a few minutes, and suddenly, there it was: the coffin with Francis’s body. His fingers were stiff, but his face looked like that of a man peacefully asleep.
He was a dear friend and a true father who stood by me in moments of trial. Warm, humorous, sharp-witted, and without a doubt, a man full of evangelical charity and patience. I first met him back in 2006 — it feels like a lifetime ago. We met again in 2007, during our work on the Aparecida document.
Later, we grew even closer, especially when the controversy over Amoris Laetitia erupted and I responded to the “dubia” raised by a group of cardinals. Francis knew well how the ultra-conservative and fundamentalist groups accused me of being “progressive,” “modernist,” and other labels. Then came criticism from the opposite side. In such moments, he would often say to me, “I get hit in the face and you get hit on the sides.”
Over the years, our correspondence deepened. I shared concerns with him — sometimes personal, sometimes about the Church — and he would write back, his opinions scrawled in his tiny handwriting. Today, as I reread some of those letters, I’m moved by their charity and insight. He was always a pastor, always near.
I was deeply struck by how much he detested the kind of extreme conservatism that quickly hardens into pseudo-orthodox rigor, moralism, or far-right politics. Yet just as striking was how wary he was of Gnostic or Pelagian-style progressivism, which strips away the supernatural heart of the Christian faith and turns it into something bland and shallow, dressed up as “modern.”
The fact that Pope Francis was criticized by both progressives and ultra-conservatives did not mean that he liked to sail in lukewarm waters. Francis was a radical — but radical in his bold affirmation of forgiveness, compassion, and mercy as his method. He was radical in his rediscovery of a truly evangelical, non-worldly way of life.
He was deeply moved by missionaries who lived among the poorest of the poor. He admired those willing to take risks, venturing to the Church’s geographical and existential peripheries. He once told me that what is true, what is of God, is born from the people, from the heart of the Church, from the final frontier. Conversely, what is born solely from ideas — no matter how perfect — has no life and eventually dies.
Pope Francis was no postmodern irrationalist. He loved doctrine, but he rejected easy, bourgeois intellectualism. He cherished closeness to God in prayer, and at the same time, he cherished closeness to his people, whom he saw as a true theological presence. Again and again, in season and out of season, he insisted on the need to be people of prayer, of compassion, of “incomplete thought” — able to learn and be surprised by the truth of the world and of God.
I was present at the altar during the funeral Mass presided over by Cardinal Re. I was also there later, on Divine Mercy Sunday, celebrated by Cardinal Parolin. In both cases, over 200,000 people gathered. I thank God that the faithful, by this outpouring of affection, recognized a providential man who set us on the road to deeper and fuller assimilation of the Second Vatican Council.
My dear Pope Francis, with an aching heart full of tears, I give thanks for your life and your fatherhood, which rescued me from darkness. I give thanks because, for so many, you gave us the opportunity to find, amid the hardships of our battered world, a path to true redemption and liberation. A path to true faith. You have gone to heaven, but you remain deep within. Amen.
Francis led me to deeper conversion
By Adam Stengel
How is it possible that a man I never met can feel so tenderly close to me? After twelve years of reading and being inspired by his writings and reflections, it seems that there are two primary ways he has led me to a deeper conversion. In Patris Corde, he speaks of chaste love as being love that doesn’t seek to control the other. During his pontificate, I quickly learned that I had, up to that point, had a very unchaste love of the Church. Through my obsession with apologetics and “reform of the reform,” I had sought to transform and guide the Church instead of allowing it to transform and guide me.
The second way is through his teaching of “creative tension,” which was a very novel idea for me. However, our faith is full of such paradoxes, and it is at the very core of the majority of the central dogmas. Many of Pope Francis’s teachings originally caused great tension in me, but they rang true both to the Gospel and my own pastoral experience as a missionary. I quickly realized that it was my deep-seated politics (not actual tenets of the faith) that was the obstacle to me being able to receive his instruction.
The combination of these two concepts finally allowed me to rest in the arms of Mother Church and trust her even when she doesn’t do what I think is best. The depth of this conversion and the peace it has introduced into my life was something unfathomable before. My recommendation to anyone who is feeling nervous about the results of the upcoming conclave is to trust your Mother Church. She is a divine institution guided by the Spirit.
Sometimes, we do not get what we would prefer, but Pope Francis proved to me that we always get what we need.
Thank you Pope Francis. Like a good father, you taught me to love and trust my Mother, and this is a gift that will forever leave me changed.
If you would like to add your own reflection to this series, please send it via email by clicking on the “Article Submissions” tab above, with the subject line “Reflection.” The recommended length is 200-300 words. Longer submissions will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and may be subject to editing. We may not be able to publish all submissions, but we are working to pick up the pace in publishing as many of these reflections as possible in the coming days.
Image: Vatican Media
Rodrigo Guerra López is the secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
Originally from Mexico City, he graduated in philosophy from the Free Popular University of the State of Puebla, Mexico; he was then awarded a higher degree in university humanism from the Ibero-American University, Mexico, and a doctorate in philosophy from the International Academy of Philosophy of the Principality of Liechtenstein.
He has held the role of academic coordinator of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute in Mexico City and has served as professor of metaphysics, bioethics, and philosophy of law at the PanAmerican University, Mexico. In 2013 he held the Karol Wojtyla Memorial Lectures at the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland.
From 2004 to 2007 he directed the Observatorio Socio Pastoral of the Latin American Episcopal Council. In 2008 he founded the Centro de Investigación Social Avanzada (CISAV), of which he is professor-researcher of the Division of Philosophy and member of the Consejo de Gobierno.
He is a member of the theological commission of the Latin American Episcopal Council and of the Pontifical Academy for Life, and is the author of numerous publications in the field of anthropology, bioethics, and social philosophy.
Adam Stengel started out studying to be a medical doctor, then moved to Honduras to start a family and pursue a love for missionary work. He now lives in rural Arkansas with his wife and three children and is employed as a custom cabinet maker in a family owned shop.
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