Against the odds, Pope Francis lived through Easter, and now we mourn him, comforted by the hope of the resurrection, knowing God has welcomed his faithful servant home. During his last weeks, he found the energy to go out several times, thanking the medical staff who nursed him, blessing inmates at a prison, and surprising visitors to St. Peter’s in his wheelchair, because he wanted to be with the faithful.

Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was always an outsider, from an immigrant family that escaped Mussolini’s fascism to immigrate to Argentina. He was the first pope from the Americas and the southern hemisphere, and the first Jesuit pope. He took the name of Francis of Assisi, the patron of the poor, and decided against living in the lavish Vatican palace. My favorite image is of him driving his own 1984 Renault around Rome.

During his twelve-year tenure, Francis embodied the Jesuit way of proceeding as he moved the Church in the direction of its people, loving the Church enough to improve it. With his trademark humility, he urged the global Church to become the dream of the Gospels, one in which a justice rooted in love prevails, one that listens to its people. He reminded us that we are “fratelli tutti”—brothers and sisters all. He begged us to love God’s creation and the Earth our home, to act quickly to change the dangerous trajectory of climate change. His voice was a clarion call to the world.

We at Fordham responded to his call. Our graduate students developed the Pope Francis Global Poverty Index, which they present annually, inspired by his call for us to make an impact on poverty and well-being. When he convened the three-year Synod on Synodality, a process of listening, dialogue, and discernment that included all the voices of the Church, Fordham sent a delegation of students to the Vatican. When Fordham hosted the Outreach Conference, he sent handwritten letters of support about the power of engagement. His emphasis on social justice, inclusion, and environmental stewardship leaves a lasting legacy—one that calls each of us to continue his work.

I was blessed to meet Pope Francis when I traveled to Rome with a group of Fordham trustees and faculty. Our board chair, Armando Nuñez, spoke to him in the Pope’s native Spanish and we presented him with a Fordham jersey. He smiled and blessed our great University.

As we mourn his passing, take some time today to read his profound writings and sit with his messages. Nothing can honor him more. Let us answer his call to care for the most vulnerable, to build bridges rather than barriers, and to live our faith with courage, mercy, and love.

With Prayers,

Tania Tetlow
President

As the 2024 film Conclave depicts, the death of a pope is a momentous event that triggers a series of carefully orchestrated rituals to ensure a smooth transition of papal authority. And according to Thomas Worcester, S.J., a papal expert and professor of history at Fordham who, like Pope Francis, is also a Jesuit priest, it’s anyone’s guess who will assume the papacy next. 

Here’s a primer on what happens after a pope dies and how the next pope will be chosen.
(Editor’s note: This story was updated on April 24 to reflect events and announcements since the pope’s death.)

What happens when the pope dies? 

First, the pope’s death is confirmed by the cardinal chamberlain, or camerlengo, in this case Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who becomes the acting administrator of the Vatican. Cardinal Farrell presided over the rite of the ascertainment of death and placement of Francis’ body in the coffin on Monday evening in the Chapel of the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican said.

Pope Francis’ remains were brought to St. Peter’s Basilica in a simple wooden coffin on Wednesday morning; his body lies in state for public viewing. Cardinal Farrell will preside over the rite of the sealing of Pope Francis’ coffin on Friday night.

The Funeral Mass for Pope Francis will be held in St. Peter’s Square on Saturday, presided by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals. After the Mass, the pope’s body will be taken into St. Peter’s Basilica and then to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, where he will be buried. The final resting place is a break with tradition; the basilica is a place where Pope Francis often when to pray in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary. It claims to have pieces of the crib where Jesus lay in Bethlehem. It’s also the place where St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, said his first Mass on Christmas morning.

When is the next pope chosen? 

The church will observe nine days of mourning, with the first day being the day of the funeral Mass, the Vatican said. Typically within 15 to 20 days after a pope’s death, the dean of the College of Cardinals will summon the cardinals from around the world for the conclave to elect Francis’ successor. 

According to Father Worcester, only cardinals under 80 are permitted to vote, a measure put in place by Pope Paul VI in 1970 to increase the odds of a more forward-looking candidate emerging. 

Father Worcester said cardinals over 80 do take part in informal discussions in the lead-up to the conclave, however. During this time, they may discuss issues within the church, or simply get to know each other. 

“There’s a kind of politicking that goes on. We like to think of it piously, as the Holy Spirit moving them, and I don’t deny that—but there’s also some politicking,” Father Worcester said. 

Where is the papal conclave held? 

The Church of Cardinals convenes in the Sistine Chapel, which hosted its first papal conclave in 1492. Sitting beneath Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, the cardinals cast silent, secret ballots—up to four a day—until they reach a two-thirds majority. 

How long does the conclave take? 

The longest papal election took place in the 13th century and lasted nearly three years, but modern papal conclaves are much shorter than that. According to Father Worcester, a few days is more likely. “Anything over four days would really be a shocker because it would mean the cardinals cannot agree,” he said.

Who will be the next pope? 

Several cardinals are being discussed as possible successors to Pope Francis. Father Worcester says that someone like Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state who visited Fordham last year, may be a contender, given his high office and talent for diplomacy. But he also notes that the church has been moving away from Italian popes in recent decades. 

Many media outlets have speculated about who the next pope will be. In this ABC News story, Cristina Traina, Ph.D., the Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. Chair of Catholic Theology at Fordham, discusses several front-runners.

One thing we’re unlikely to see in the near future, Father Worcester said, is another Jesuit in the role. He also does not expect the cardinal electors to choose a hard-line conservative, given that most of the cardinals appointed by Francis are progressives or moderates. 

What does the smoke mean? 

After each vote, the ballots are burned and a cloud of smoke rises from a chimney for the watchful eyes of the faithful gathered below. Black smoke signals that the cardinals have not reached a decision, while white smoke means the pope has been chosen. 

When the white smoke emerges it sets in motion a rush of excitement, said Father Worcester, who was in St. Peter’s Square for John Paul I’s election in 1978. 

“Over the next hour, the square filled completely with people. It was evening, the lights came up across the facade, the bells rang, and eventually [the pope]came out on the balcony,” he recalled. “It was an energizing moment.” 

“During his 12-year tenure, Francis embodied the Jesuit way of proceeding as he moved the Church in the direction of its people, loving the Church enough to improve it. With his trademark humility, he urged the global Church to become the dream of the Gospels, one in which a justice rooted in love prevails, one that listens to its people. He reminded us that we are ‘fratelli tutti‘—brothers and sisters all,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham.

“As we mourn his passing, take some time today to read his profound writings and sit with his messages. Nothing can honor him more,” President Tetlow said. “Let us answer his call to care for the most vulnerable, to build bridges rather than barriers, and to live our faith with courage, mercy, and love.”

Armando Nuñez, chair of the Fordham University Board of Trustees, said “the long-lasting impact of the first Jesuit pope on Fordham and all Jesuit institutions is profound.”

“Fordham joins the world in mourning his passing,” he said, “and pauses to give gratitude for his life of simplicity and encouragement to love God, our common home, and one another.”

‘Who Am I to Judge?’

It signaled change to the world when the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., was elected pope on March 13, 2013, soon after Pope Benedict XVI resigned from the papacy. Francis became not only the first pope from the Society of Jesus but also the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern hemisphere, and the first from outside Europe since the eighth century.

He chose to be called Francis after St. Francis of Assisi, known for his devotion to the poor, and he set a tone of openness and conciliation on social issues and human sexuality, even as he held fast to Church doctrines. In 2013 he famously responded “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay people serving as priests, and he elevated women to senior roles in the Vatican.

He evinced humility throughout his papacy: While celebrating Holy Thursday Mass at a prison in Rome last year, he washed and kissed the feet of 12 women inmates—moving them to tears, reportedly—even though he was confined to a wheelchair at the time.

This year he also appeared in a wheelchair to bless the crowds gathered at St. Peter’s Square on April 20, Easter Sunday, just one day before he died.

Doubling Down on Ignatian Discernment

Francis’ influence was felt in many corners of the University, either through his message or his initiatives. The pope “really gave us the impetus to … double down on our employment of Ignatian discernment” and promote listening, engagement, and dialogue among all members of the Fordham community, said John Cecero, S.J., vice president for mission integration and ministry at Fordham.

He also noted the importance of two encyclicals from Francis: Fratelli Tutti, in 2020, focused on inclusion and our common humanity, and for Fordham, drove home the importance of “educating in community” and embracing the neighborhoods beyond campus, Father Cecero said.

And Laudato Si’, in 2015, focusing on environmental justice, prompted the creation of Fordham’s council to carry out the seven-year effort toward greater sustainability that Francis called on all Catholic universities to pursue, he said.

“Those are three really significant ways in which he as a Jesuit and he as who he was, and the values that he stood for, really influenced who we are,” Father Cecero said.

In Sync with Fordham

Pope Francis “was Jesuit through and through,” said David Gibson, director of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture, who covered the Vatican as a journalist earlier in his career. The issues that the pope emphasized—like addressing climate change and welcoming migrants—“are so much in sync with what Fordham does and what Fordham is,” he said.

Under Francis’ leadership, the Church’s periodic synods, formerly limited to bishops, “have been astonishing in their openness and in their universality,” with attendance by lay people, nuns, and students—including delegations of Fordham students who attended two of them, he said. “He wanted to make them real listening sessions, real dialogues with everyone in the Church.” 

“In many ways, he was taking the entire Church on an Ignatian retreat, and it was about looking at ourselves, discerning the right way forward, so this global 1.3 billion-member Church has kind of been on this journey together,” he said.

A Passion for Education

Francis’ passion for education shined through at the World Congress of Catholic Education, hosted by Fordham in 2019. Giving a video address to a culminating session held at the United Nations, Francis “challenged educators to create a more just and humane world through transformative education,” said Gerald Cattaro, Ed.D., education professor and executive director of Fordham’s Center for Catholic School Leadership and Faith-Based Education.

Pope Francis conveyed that “true education must go beyond textbooks; it must touch the heart, engage the hands, and sharpen the mind,” Cattaro said. For Francis, he said, “education was not just about what we learn but how we live it, shaping individuals committed to service, justice, and the common good.”

A Focus on Poverty

Students in the International Political Economy and Development program established the Pope Francis Global Poverty Index after hearing him speak in 2015 at the United Nations, said the head of the program, Henry Schwalbenberg, Ph.D. Speaking about the need to address global poverty, Francis went beyond material needs to emphasize the dignity and humanity of the poor, inspiring the students.

Students present the report every year at the U.N. on the World Day of the Poor, established by Francis in 2017, said Schwalbenberg, who has traveled to Rome to personally present the findings to the pope. “I always tell him this is the work of the students,” he said, and during his most recent visit, the pope’s response was more animated and happy than usual—“maybe he got a kick out of how bad my Spanish was,” Schwalbenberg joked.

But the Vatican’s follow-up communications make the message clear: “They’re so appreciative of the students continuing the work of the pope in this area of trying to combat global poverty.”

During his visits, Schwalbenberg said, he saw that enthusiasm for Francis was running just as strong as when he assumed the papacy—even as he switched from walking into the room to using a wheelchair.

“The room just erupted” when Francis entered, he said. “It always erupted. And when he left, the room erupted again.”

Nuñez, Fordham’s board chairman, recalled meeting Francis as part of a delegation of trustees and others who traveled to Rome last year “to embrace our Ignatian mission and identity.” 

“We spoke in Spanish, and I had the honor of introducing our Argentinian pope to President Tetlow and the Fordham delegation,” he said. “Although our encounter with Papa Francesco at the Vatican was brief…meeting the Holy Father is something I will remember for the rest of my life.”

INTERVIEWER: Pope Francis is known for his tenacity, his desire to keep going no matter what— one of the reasons that that he so beloved around the world. We saw him making his regular appearances and duties and tours around the world just a few weeks ago, days actually, before this latest stint in hospital began. What are your thoughts on this?

DAVID GIBSON: Well, yes, it’s not surprising. You know, he pushes himself. He’s a very stubborn 88-year-old Jesuit priest. He admits it himself. He said, “I have a bad character. I’m a terrible patient.” He doesn’t listen to his doctors. [H]e had bronchitis, really serious bronchitis, for a week before this. He couldn’t read his his own speeches. He insisted on going to an outdoor event. So, you know, look, he’s the Pope. It’s hard to tell him, “You’ve got to go to the hospital, you’ve got to slow down, you’ve got to take care of yourself.” He’s like an old Jesuit missionary. He wants to die in the saddle.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think is happening in his inner circle and in the uppermost echelons of the Vatican right now? 

GIBSON: They’re praying for the best and preparing for the worst. They want to be very clear—and they have in these last 24 hours—to quash any rumors of resignation or even of a conclave. The problem is that the shark starts circling as soon as the pope indicates that [he] might resign. It gets really, you know, gnarly in terms of internal Vatican politics. Listen, go look at the Oscar-nominated film Conclave. … It’s a little bit dramatized, but not totally wrong. When Pope Francis was first elected, he followed Pope Benedict, who was the first pope to resign in 600 years. Initially, Pope Francis said that should be normal. Popes one day will, as a matter of course, resign when they feel they can’t do the job anymore. But when he started saying that, all this speculation, all these machinations, started happening. So in recent years and in recent months, he said, “Look, I’m not going to resign. That’s not the way this is going to go, basically, I’ll die with my boots on, because they want it.” They [the inner circle] want to quash all of that politicking that goes on that’s unseemly in one aspect, and also it’s not the image that they want to project around the pope at this time. They just want people to be praying for the health of the pope. And hey, he may recover. 

Dear President Tetlow; Father Rector; professors, staff, and students; dear friends,

The page of the  Gospel that has just been proclaimed is part of the itinerary of Jesus toward Jerusalem, which unfolds as a succession of teachings and recommendations.

The question posed by John: “We saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us,” describes well the rigid pattern within which they, like us, would like to imprison the freedom of the Spirit, who always blows where and how he wills.

It is interesting to note that in the previous passage the disciples divided themselves from each other in the name of their individual “I.” Here they separate from others in the name of their collective “we.” One’s own name, whether individual or collective, is the principle of division; only the “Name,” only the “Name,” which is the name of Jesus, is a source of unity among all.

We all know that he who loves enjoys the good of others, while the egoist does not enjoy the good, but only his own possession, and hurts the good of others. Egoism produces suffering proportional to suffering. Through it, death entered the world.

Selfishness, envy and pride can have both the personal and collective forms. The latter, much more harmful, can grow so vast and apparent that it turns invisible to the individual, who can continue to live by dedication, service, and humility towards his “we”—like a bandit remains loyal to the gang.

Our true unity is to go after Him, who leads us out of all fences and opens us to others, starting with the most distant and excluded. Being with Him, the Son, unites us to the Father and to our brothers and sisters, and forms a “we” that is not confined by a hedge of ownership, but driven by an internal drive of sympathy towards all.

In the name of Jesus, the church embraces everyone and excludes no one. This means that no one in the church can remain anonymous—that is, without, or even worse, not in Jesus’ name, and consequently without knowledge of him. In other names, personal or collective, ghettos, partisan spirits, sects and exclusions are born.

But he who excludes one, excludes Him who has made himself the last of all. In doing so, he fails to be Catholic, universal, and even Christian: He does not yet have the Spirit of the Son who, knowing the Father’s love, died for all brothers and sisters.

The stronger our union with Him, the stronger the unity among us. This unity in full freedom—our our own and that of others.

The disciples form a community, a “we,” which is the church. Yet, the church does not have its centre in itself. It does not take a census to feel strong, nor does it seek its own glory. It serves only the Lord, and is open to all, with willingness and humility.

As long as it seeks unity in Him, it is one and remains free, liberating and Catholic. However, it must always beware of collective pride, typical of the weak that becomes gregarious. This is how divisions arise among believers who consider themselves better and more faithful to the truth, thinking they have God with them.

We Christians are not the masters of salvation, given to us by Christ. Although we have different responsibilities or better vocations within the church, we Christians only have the task of making the person of Christ encounter, among ourselves and others, through our witness, our word, and our actions.

As Christians we are called to follow the example, the teaching and the generosity of Jesus, who assures at that the simplest deed done for Him or His Kingdom will not go unrewarded even if it is as simple and natural as giving a glass of water to someone who is thirsty.

Unfortunately, too often we behave like the Apostles in this passage—we are less generous than our Lord. We are less generous than our Lord. Even worse, our one concern becomes the hoarding of the grace of God, refusing to give freely what we received freely. Sometimes, we even envy the good done by others, as if their good deeds diminish our own or make us appear less virtuous. Our duty as Christians is to extend to others the grace we have received and to encourage the good that is being done, regardless of whether we receive credit for it.

There is a latin proverb that says: bonum diffusivum est sui, that is, goodness spreads itself. God, in His nature, shines with goodness, and spreads goodness. He is always surrounding us with signs of His love, always seeking to fill our hearts with wisdom, grace, mercy, and virtue.

But if Jesus is so generous, why do we so often fail to experience His generosity? If God’s goodness is like the sun, shining brightly and constantly all around us, why do we so often find ourselves in darkness, sadness, and difficulty?

Often, we fail to see God’s light shining in our lives, because we don’t bother to open the shutters. It can be a bright, beautiful day outside, but if we lock ourselves up in our room behind closed shutters and drawn curtains, we will not benefit from the light.

God is respectful of our freedom. He wants our friendship, not blind obedience. He gives us countless opportunities and instruments to receive His generous grace, but He does not force us to use them. He gives us the Sacred Scriptures, the gift of prayer, the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession, each one of which is a flowing fountain of grace and spiritual strength—but it is up to us to come frequently and drink deeply from this spring.

Dear friends, God is generous, and His infinite generosity calls for openness and unity, including within the Fordham community. On your website, one can read that one of your core principles is to care for others. The Gospel reminds us not to hinder those who do good in His name and to stay vigilant over our own hearts. The Holy Spirit desires welcoming communities, and Fordham, as a Catholic university following the Jesuit traditions in this city of New York, is uniquely positioned to appreciate and foster the creativity with which God acts.

As we experience God’s generosity in this Holy Mass, let us therefore thank Him from the bottom of our hearts and seek the grace and courage to open the shutters of our souls, embracing openness and support.

Nothing would please Him more. Amen.

“It’s a great improvement from the time when the pope was just a king in his throne surrounded by a royal court,” he said. “But with such expectations can any pope govern into his 80s and even 90s and be effective?”

“The effort to change the rigidly top-down nature of governance in Catholicism is the main reform project of the Francis papacy and its success or failure will likely be his chief legacy,” said Fordham’s Gibson. He said the jury was still out on whether it would succeed, since the transition period is “messy and absolutely exhausting.” 

“Will the sense of exhaustion overcome the inspiration that invigorates so many?” he asked.

Drawing from his experience as a former journalist who extensively covered Pope Francis, Gibson provided valuable commentary on the pope’s motivations and intentions behind the memoir.

According to Gibson, Pope Francis aims to humanize himself, emphasizing his relatability and shared experiences with everyday people. “He’s as surprised to find himself pope as anybody else, and he wants people to know that he’s had the ordinary experiences of everyone else,” said Gibson.

Thompson posed the question of whether this memoir is Pope Francis’ attempt to shape his legacy, to which Gibson responded affirmatively, “Yes, this really is Pope Francis trying to write his own legacy, set the record straight, and say, ‘This is what I meant. This is what I tried to do as pope. This is how I saw the church and the world at this time. That’s the record. That’s it.’”

Watch Pope Francis attempts to demystify Catholic Church in new memoir.

The gathering was convened by the pope so that representatives from all areas of the church, from cardinals to lay people, could focus on synodality–the process of working together on how the church will move forward. This meeting is the first of its kind to include women as voting delegates.

“I feel so blessed to be a part of this,” said Mollie Clark, a Fordham junior.

“Women’s voices are being honored and heard for the first time in the synodal process. This is such an affirming thing,” said Clark, who acknowledged “a lot of internal struggle at times” with the church’s stance on women’s participation. “I know that God is listening to my voice.”

A Global Conference

David Gibson, director of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture and a former Vatican reporter who will accompany the group, said, “It’s simply a global conversation that is the fruit of two years of listening.” 

Pope Francis asked for churches and dioceses all over the world to survey clergy and lay members alike as a prelude to the meeting, which he opened on Oct. 4. As part of this process of synodality, or “journeying together,” the same discussions were happening in nations across the globe about how to be a more inclusive church, a less clerical church, said Gibson, as well as how to increase the role of women and young people.

Fordham is the only Jesuit university to send a student group to Rome for this synod convened by Pope Francis–the first Jesuit pope.

Church on the Go

In the spring, Vanessa Rotondo, Fordham adjunct professor and deputy chief of staff to the  University’s president, Tania Tetlow, organized a screening of the Hulu documentary The Pope: Answers and was amazed at the high student turnout.

That event inspired her to propose a course called Church on the GO: Theology in a Global Synod to further “develop student understanding of the postmodern church in tandem with and in light of the Synod on Synodality.” Earlier this year, she traveled to Rome to pursue permission for its students to take part in synod-related events.

Student Itinerary

Rotondo and Gibson developed a series of activities for the students while they are in Rome. They will hear from synodal leaders such as Sister Nathalie Becquart, a voting member who helped facilitate the pope’s canvassing of church members worldwide; join press conferences; and take part in community engagement projects with both Villa Nazareth, a house of humanistic and spiritual formation for college students, and Sant’Egidio, a social service agency focused on global peace and interfaith dialogue. The group will also spend time at the School of Peace, where they will participate in an interfaith prayer service and prepare and distribute meals to people experiencing hunger and homelessness. 

Rotondo also devised two leadership sessions with the grassroots organization Discerning Deacons that are rooted in active listening and the synodal process. The goal is to give the students a sense of how the synod is working and train them in Ignatian reflection so they can devise an action plan to enhance Fordham’s mission and Catholic identity when they return.

‘Our Church is Alive’

AnnaMarie Pacione, a Fordham sophomore in the group, said the synod gives her hope.

“Our church is alive, and it’s growing, and it’s breathing and listening to everyone, as it should,” she said. “It’s more reflective of God’s love, Jesus’s love, as I know it, with this commitment and responsibility to listen to voices that have been suppressed in the past.”

A Blog for Dispatches

The students will post to the Sapientia blog of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture throughout their weeklong trip and will document their experience on the Instagram account @synodalfordham.

In addition to Clark and Pacione, the Fordham students include Eli Taylor, a theology master’s student; Fordham College at Rose Hill seniors Augustine Preziosi and Sean Power; Fordham College at Rose Hill junior James Haddad; Fordham College at Rose Hill sophomores Abigail Adams, Seamus Dougherty, Jay Doherty, and Kaitlyn Squyres; and Fordham College at Lincoln Center junior William Gualtiere.

John Cecero, S.J., Fordham’s vice president for mission integration and ministry, and Michael Lee, Ph.D., director of the Francis & Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, are accompanying the group.

Increasing extreme weather conditions like record-high temperatures and devastating droughts are undoubtedly the result of “unchecked human intervention on nature,” Pope Francis declared in a letter published today expanding on his 2015 Laudato Si’ encyclical.

Since that publication, he said, “I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”

Pope Francis called out the United States, specifically, in this new apostolic exhortation, titled Laudate Deum, issued on the first day of the Synod on Synodality.

“If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” he said. 

“The ethical decadence of real power is disguised thanks to marketing and false information, useful tools in the hands of those with greater resources to employ them to shape public opinion,” he wrote.

Pope Francis’s Specificity Is ‘Not Accidental’

Christiana Zenner, an associate professor of theology, science, and ethics at Fordham, said, “This is a document that doubles down morally on the centrality of climate crises and the immediate responsibility of ‘all people of good will’ to address them.” 

“Pope Francis first dismantles climate denialism by careful arguments, data, precision of terms, and strategic citation of the climate-recidivistic U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,” Zenner said. “And the penultimate paragraph of the exhortation likewise identifies the ways that U.S.-based climate exceptionalism is problematic. This is as specific about national responsibilities as a pope ever gets, and it is definitely not accidental here.”

The publication coincides with the upcoming U.N. climate change conference that will convene in Dubai in November, much like the release of the 2015 encyclical ahead of the Paris climate conference. The pontiff laments that the Paris Agreement has been poorly implemented, lacking effective tools to force compliance. 

“International negotiations cannot make significant progress due to positions taken by countries which place their national interests above the global common good,” he wrote.

Never Mind the Bedroom, ‘the Entire House Will Burn Down’

David Gibson, director of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture, said the new publication shifts the controversy among American Catholics from sex to climate change—which has the potential to be even more contentious. 

“The focus and controversy in the church that Pope Francis leads has lately been directed toward issues of sex and sexuality and his efforts to make Catholicism more inclusive. The irony is that this papal exhortation will likely be even more controversial for Americans than any issue of sexuality because it demands fundamental changes in our consumerist lifestyles.”

Gibson added, “Many American Catholics want the church to focus on what people do in the bedroom. Pope Francis is saying the entire house will burn down if we don’t change our behavior in every other aspect of our lives.”

In the hand-written note to James Martin, S.J., editor of the Outreach website, the pope mentions Fordham by name and sends his prayers and best wishes for presenters and attendees.

“I send my best regards to the members of the meeting at Fordham University,” reads the translation of the letter, which Pope Francis wrote in Spanish and dated May 6, 2023.  “Thank you for delivering it to them. In my prayers and good wishes are you and all who are working at the Outreach Conference.”

It’s the third letter that Pope Francis has written in support of an Outreach conference.

“I’m grateful for the Holy Father’s warm letter, which is a wonderful blessing for everyone joining us this weekend at the conference,” said Father Martin. “And it’s a special grace for LGBTQ Catholics to know that the pope is praying for them.”

Fordham President Tania Tetlow will be a keynote speaker at this year’s event, which will also feature a representative from the Vatican.

Read more on the Outreach website. 

The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination, which took place May 25-27, featured a private audience with Pope Francis, who in his remarks encouraged attendees to “not domesticate Jesus” in their works.

Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, associate director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, agreed with Francis and said that his comments were the highlight of the conference for her.

“There is a sense in which, over the centuries, we have received many images of Christ. But the true Christ escapes any attempt at trying to domesticate him, to capture him and say, ‘This is Jesus, and only this is Jesus,’” she said.

A ‘Superabundant’ Experience

She said the conference’s watchword was “superabundant,” a word Pope Francis used to describe the place where people experience God, “like a continually overflowing basin.”

O’Donnell was moved by Francis’ challenge to “go beyond set bounds, to be creative without downplaying your own spiritual restlessness and that of humanity, to embrace poetically the anxious yearnings present in the human heart.”

Her own writing is often set in the context of her Catholic faith, and at the conference, she participated in three panels, Contemporary Catholic Poetry, The Presence of Dante in the Contemporary Catholic Imagination, and The Global Reach of Flannery O’Connor.

Exploring the ways Christ is present across cultures was a key aspect of the conference, as it was the first international iteration of a series of gatherings dedicated to the Catholic literary imagination that began in 2015, and which Fordham hosted in 2017.

Scorsese’s New York

A close second high point for O’Donnell was Scorsese’s lengthy conversation with Antonio Spadaro, S.J., editor-in-chief of the journal Civilta Cattolica which, along with the Curran Center and the office of Mission & Ministry at Georgetown University, and Loyola University Chicago’s Hank Center for Catholic Intellectual Heritage, sponsored the conference.

Scorsese shared memories of growing up in New York City’s Little Italy and aspiring to follow in the footsteps of a priest at the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. He reflected on films such as Mean Streets, in which actor Harvey Keitel’s character asserts that “you don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets,” He also made news by announcing that he is planning to follow up his 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ with a new movie about Jesus.

Tempted by the Ordinary

O’Donnell was particularly moved by his thoughts on The Last Temptation of Christ. The last part of the movie features Jesus imagining what would have happened if, instead of giving himself up for death, he’d married Mary Magdalene and started a family.

“What Scorsese said about this, which I thought was so beautiful, was, Satan offers Jesus food, money, and all the power in the world, and he’s not tempted by that,” O’Donnell said.

“What he’s finally tempted by is the beauty of ordinary human life. He doesn’t give in to that temptation, but nonetheless, this is a very affirming vision of what it is to be a human being.

“I was very struck that [Scorsese] … acknowledges that human life is very beautiful, especially as he’s made movies that incorporate violence, suffering, and all the very dark elements of human experience.”