Representing the condolences and affection of the International Forum of Catholic Action at the funeral of Pope Francis, tomorrow in St. Peter’s Square, will be the Ecclesiastical Assistant, Mons. Eduardo García, Bishop of San Justo (Argentina), and Giuseppe Notarstefano, President of Italian Catholic Action and member of the Secretariat that accompanies the coordinating body of over 50 Catholic Action associations worldwide.
Monsignor García was Vicar General of the Diocese of Buenos Aires when Archbishop Bergoglio was its head. ‘Francis,’ he said in his homily for the Mass in suffrage of the pontiff, which he presided over on 23 April in the Cathedral of San Justo, ‘was an Argentinian with a big heart and a sincere desire to carry the Church on his shoulders. And not just the Church on his shoulders as one who drags it along, but the Church on his shoulders as one who says: ‘Well, God has put me here. God knows why, and I want to know why’. And in that knowing why of his heart, like Mary Magdalene, he found the faces, the faces he had encountered during his life as a priest, his life as a bishop, the faces of the poor, the faces of the lonely, the faces of the marginalised, the faces of the discarded, those faces that are precisely those who need God’s tenderness’. Bergoglio ‘has put the Gospel at the centre of the Church’ and ‘has opened a breach, as the great figures of history leave a mark. The door of the Church that goes forth to meet the world. This door is a door that cannot be closed. He has taken an important step, and many others are needed. And if we are not capable of taking these steps forward, we run the risk of betraying the mission of the Church to be at the height of the times, of the heart of man and of the needs of his people. For this reason, in the midst of this sadness, our hearts are also filled with gratitude. There is true sadness when there is gratitude. No one is sad for what they do not have. And if we are sad, it is because at this moment we are missing something, we are missing Francis’ love for his people, for everyone, every day, in every word.
The emotion of the entire Catholic Action in Argentina is great at this time. On Saturday at 10 a.m. (3 p.m. in Italy), they will participate in a Mass in front of the Cathedral of Buenos Aires, which will end with a procession around Plaza de Mayo in thanksgiving for the life of the Pope. In recent days, it has organised numerous moments of prayer to commemorate the pastor, teacher and friend. ‘A great conciliar Pope,’ wrote President Claudia Carbajal de Inzaurraga, ‘who challenged us to open, to throw open the doors of the Church to embrace and proclaim to everyone, everyone, everyone, the mercy of God.’ ‘For Catholic Action,‘ she added, “which saw him as a young man in its group in San José de Flores, Buenos Aires, he left as Pope programmatic guidelines in a missionary key in response to the signs of the times and not ”to questions that no one asks anymore’. An enormous challenge! A good, wise man, close to us, has left us,’ concluded the President of AC Argentina. ’That inevitable sense of feeling orphaned, however, has been filled by his own announcement from the balcony where we saw him for the last time: Happy Easter! Jesus always comes first.’
IFCA Coordinator Eva Fernández Mateo, president of the Spanish Catholic Action, who will sign the book of condolences at the Apostolic Nunciature in Madrid, commemorates Pope Francis as follows: ‘A shepherd who carried out his ministry among the people, as Jesus did, embracing ‘life as it is’ in the forgotten ones of the world, making visible the indifference and rejection of a civilisation that privileges material goods and forgets human dignity. An undisputed world leader who prophesied care for our common home, fraternity and peace because ‘the world lacks a heart’. Every year on 8 June, through the initiative ‘A Minute for Peace’, IFCA commemorates the 2014 meeting in the Vatican Gardens between Pope Francis and Israeli and Palestinian leaders Simon Peres and Abu Mazen. IFCA will not allow this legacy to be forgotten and will remember it in prayer and in its commitment to fraternity among peoples and countries.
