Pope Francis: May His Memory Be For A Blessing
Friday, April 25, 2025
On Easter Sunday, a day before his death, you know what Pope Francis was thinking about? Perhaps suspecting his time was short, perhaps suspecting that this would be the last time he would bless the crowds in Saint Peter Square who had all come to pray for him, what was on his mind? His Jewish brothers and sisters in faith. In his Easter address, the pope called the growing climate of antisemitism around the world “worrisome,” while he also called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Both issues touch us to the core.
Pope Francis, who was 88 years old and will be buried tomorrow outside the walls of the Vatican, had served as pontiff since 2013. In that time, he met frequently with Jewish leaders and was intimately involved in interfaith dialogues. I have several colleagues who had met the pope on interfaith trips to Rome and were impressed – not just by his charm, but by his true, deep interest in their work.
Francis visited Israel in 2014 and was the first pope to lay a traditional wreath of yellow and white flowers at the grave of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism.[1] Also on that trip he prayed silently at the security barrier separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem. It’s no secret that Francis cared for the plight of Palestinians – in Sunday’s address saying that “I think of the people of Gaza, and its Chirstian community in particular.”[2]
But he also had met with a number of family members of hostages being held by terrorists in Gaza and repeatedly called for their release.
We may not always have agreed with his statements regarding Gaza and the Israeli incursion after the massacres of October 7, 2023. Last November, he referred to the situation in Gaza as having “the characteristics of a genocide,” a statement with which many of us would take umbrage.[3] Yet I think all of us can understand his love for, and concern for, Jews, Christians and Muslims. We can appreciate his desire for peace.
Francis often invoked the spirit of Nostra Aetate, the declaration by Pope Paul the Sixth in 1965 that, as the Forward wrote, “repudiated centuries of anti-Jewish theology and inaugurated a new era in Catholic Jewish relations.”[4] In fact, speaking to one international Jewish organization in 2013, he declared:
“Due to our common roots, a Christian cannot be anti-Semitic!” – a bold statement that came from deep in his soul.
For us, as Reform Jews, we recognized and appreciated the love he showed the stranger, the people who felt left out or alone or thought the world didn’t have a place for them. The way he hugged children and took delight in showing them great affection. His outreach to the LGBTQ community. His commitment to care for the earth. All of what we call tikkun olam – repairing the world.
Pope Francis reached out to all who needed his strength, his comfort, his grace, his blessing. Those he simply called “the faithful.”
I think we would see Francis as a true “Tzadik,” as a righteous person. A man whose main concern was to care for those who craved his gentle words and his soft embrace as a gateway to healing. This is the highest word we can use for a human being. To me, it’s both astonishing and comforting to know that, in his final hours, he thought about us with love.
Like the Catholic world, we Jews are in an in-between time on this Shabbat. We are in between the horror of Yom HaShoah, which honors those who were murdered in the Holocaust, and the unmitigated joy of Yom HaAtzmaut, celebrating the birth of the State of Israel. We call this Sabbath Yom Tekuma, The Shabbat of Revival, as we move from death to renewal.
We pray that our Catholic brothers and sisters in faith will, too, honor this weekend as a Yom Tekuma, moving from the Pope’s passing and burial into the future with healing and hope.
Zichrono livracha. May Pope Francis’ memory be for blessing. And let us say together: Amen
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©2025 Audrey R. Korotkin
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/world/middleeast/pope-francis-jerusalem.html
[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/pope-makes-easter-appearance-deplores-rising-world-antisemitism-and-deaths-in-gaza/
[3] https://forward.com/news/713626/pope-francis-who-advanced-churchs-relationships-with-jews-dies-at-88/
[4] Ibid.