, professor of theology and the McGrath-Cavadini Director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, studies the history of Christianity as well as Christianity and Judaism in antiquity. He discusses how Pope Francis was a leader who called for a "revolution of tenderness.”
“He left us so many memorable images to help us understand what he meant: images of him breaking protocol at a general audience to reach out to the severely disabled, who could never have even thought of approaching him; images of him hugging a Down's Syndrome child; images of him consoling the disaster-stricken on site, the refugee and the homeless. Images, too, of him visiting prisoners and of him touching people whom many consider untouchable, at least by a Pope; images of him feeding a hungry man; and so many more. These images served as a kind of continuous formation in the revolution of tenderness.
“Pope Francis even created "missionaries of mercy" intended to be apostles of tenderness, sent out to evangelize with the healing message of the tenderness of God's own heart and of the soulfulness of God. The images of devotion that Pope Francis painted included those that could be found vividly illustrated in his writing. For example, in his contemplation of the mystery of Mary, Mother of the Church, her maternal tenderness towards the scorned of history and the suffering of the world stood out. And his fervent devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus flowed into and enlivened his beautiful encyclical Dilexit nos, exhorting us all to allow the utter tenderness of that Heart to form our own hearts. Francis thought of such devotions as part of our regimen of formation in God's own tenderness, and not as exercises in an individualistic piety.
“There were also images of his own devotion, for example, in random visits to the Blessed Sacrament, dressed up or not. Especially in the more informal images, we saw a devotion that came from the heart and did not stand on formality, though he did not, of dismiss formality as irrelevant. People are not always formal, and it's important to be with them anyway. Pope Francis wanted to exemplify the ideal in the Vatican II document on the priesthood, *Presbyterorum Ordinis*, namely that the priest is ‘set apart’ by his ordination, but set apart ‘for’ the People of God, not ‘for’ himself, not to be aloof, not to be distant. But ‘set apart for,’ set apart to accompany, in tenderness, in mercy, in compassion, all of those trying to make their way in this troubled world.
“Above anything else, I would say that Pope Francis's pontificate emphasized the personal, he would say the ‘real,’ because ultimately it is the personal, not the abstract; the person, not the aggregate; the vulnerable, not the self-styled self-sufficient; that will constitute the Kingdom of Heaven. To which, as Pope, he felt called to be the first and most public witness.
“May he rest in peace.”