Pope Francis: Pope of the Periphery 

Pope Francis has passed away. The whole world mourns his passing. Acclamations and expressions of grief continue to pour in from dignitaries of different religious faiths and persuasion, sovereigns and national political leaders. He responds in silence. He now prays for us in heaven.

Mine is a small voice, with words from the heart. He chose me, an archbishop from a small archdiocese in Bangsamoro territory, to be one of the first group of Cardinals he created on 22 February 2014. It was like a strike of lightning after dusk, so sudden, so unexpected.

Not known to many, for four years the new Cardinal of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and I worked together with a group of 15 in Rome as the Ordinary Council of the Synod of Bishops from 2001 to 2004. During that time, we became friends.  

He was soft-spoken and apparently looked forward to chatting with the small Filipino Archbishop from Cotabato. As one educated for several years by Jesuits, I gravitated toward this extremely kind Jesuit Cardinal, so different in many ways from the other Jesuit in the Council, the tall scholarly looking Cardinal Carlo Martini of Milan.

His interventions at our Council discussions were usually about bringing the Gospel to the people in the peripheries, the poor and the needy. Go to the periphery was his clarion call to the Church and her pastors. He himself was from the peripheries, not from Rome but from far away Argentina. 

Later as Pope, he wanted to send the Church out of its comfort zone to the dry and dusty or wet and muddy streets of the poor in the world – a Church that is sent forth, “bruised and muddied.” This was at the heart of his Apostolic Exhortation, “Joy in the Gospel,” “Evangelii Gaudium.”

The social teachings of the Church were once upon a time labelled as “the best kept secret” in the Church, especially the teaching on “option for the poor,” which expresses God’s special predilection for the poor. This was somewhere in the periphery of church social teaching. As a pastor he brought it to the center, dramatizing this teaching by serving in the peripheries, among the poor and the needy, and calling for social justice. 

He went beyond the care of the poor to the care of our common home, threatened by environmental disaster. He reminded us that Creation is God’s dwelling place, his temple, that God is unutterably present in creation — a central lesson of his Encyclical, “Laudato Si’.”

His vision of a “Synodal Church” brings us back to Christ and his disciples in the first century. Jesus chose his disciples from among the poor, walked together with them through the dusty roads of Palestine, teaching them, and proclaiming together with them the Good News of salvation in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

And the disciples learned what he taught. They created synodal communities, whose members were of one mind and heart, poor and rich alike, in the breaking of the bread, in serving one another, and going beyond themselves — towards a world of solidarity and mutual responsibility. This is a central point in his Encyclical, “Fratelli tutti.”  

Pope Francis was a Pope of extraordinary compassion and kindness, of profound humility. His voice never rose, even when passionate. He spoke softly, with great wisdom. He was very spiritual, truly a son of Ignatius.

At my first Consistory in 2014, a general assembly of all the Cardinals, I wondered if he remembered me from our work in the Ordinary Council of the Synod of Bishops. 

As he passed through the General Assembly door, he saw me and greeted me, “Quevedo,’ and then at coffee break, he greeted me again with his papal sense of humor, “Il grande Quevedo,” eliciting laughter from other Cardinals.

When he visited Manila, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai and I waited on a stage set on the grounds of the University of Santo Tomas. It had rained. He was making his way to the stage when a group of women met him and embraced him. As we met him, I remarked, “Holy Father, you have lipstick on your shoulder.” He softly laughed and said, “Oh, las mujeres, las mujeres.” 

Pope Francis was truly a messenger and a sign of peace and hope for the world, a man of humor, who personifies the compassion and kindness of Jesus and demonstrates option for the poor – a just, simple, and holy man, the Pope of the periphery. 

History will consider him one of our greatest Popes. 

(Cotabato Archbishop Orlando B. Quevedo, OMI, was named Mindanao’s first Cardinal by Pope Francis in 2014. He served as President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines from 1999 to 2003.  He is now Archbishop Emeritus of Cotabato).