As a Black man born and raised in the deep South, the pope was never at the center of my religious beliefs. I was brought up as mostly Baptist, but any Black church that met for somewhere between 4 and 24 hours on Sunday worked.
Jesus and the holy trinity were at the center of my religion, and they were apparently especially concerned about the sins of the flesh. Of course, all the talk about flesh made my young mind drift off, so maybe there was some other stuff in there too.
As I grew older, I became more critical of my religion and religion in general. The pope was already a figure in my distant brain crevices but still not a figure I thought about regularly, especially as my disdain for religion grew.
I remember when Pope John Paul II died in 2005. It was a big deal, but it didn’t feel personal for me. Still, he had been the pope my entire life up to that point, so it felt significant.
I remember Pope Benedict XVI resigning in 2013, but this felt even less significant.
The next pope was different. Part of the reason I became so disillusioned with religion is because Christianity, especially the white version, was so hypocritical. It felt like they ignored all the “turning the other cheek” and “casting the first stone” stuff to focus on hate and exclusion, cherry picking the sins they wanted to focus on while ignoring their own sins.
Pope Francis was all about loving everyone. Where I’m from, “love the sinner” is often used as a polite way to take a shot at someone. Pope Francis meant it. We are all sinners. We should all love each other.
A Christian who cares
“I am a sinner….This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.”
This was the pope’s response to a question asking him to describe himself only six months into his reign as pope.
This, to me, is key to a sympathetic Christian. There are many Christians who don’t believe they are sinners, and then many of the ones who will admit it, somehow believe their sins are “less bad” than someone else’s sins.
This is most apparent with the LGBTQ community. Christians and politicians love to make them a target for hate. Pope Francis said, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
Although this isn’t glowing support, it is a major step coming from the pope. People who hate LGBT people for a living should not claim Christianity as their reasoning.
He criticized demonizing other groups as well, including the Trump administration's hatred toward immigrants. He cared about the poor and warned against the dangers of capitalism.
Of course, some people, especially in America, tried to make it political. Of course, being kind to everyone is somehow political.
Pope Francis defined conservative as someone “…who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that…..It’s a suicidal attitude….Because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box.”
Pope Francis admitted mistakes. He encouraged his followers to speak up if they disagreed. He was the human pope. He was a pope who stood for the type of Christianity I yearn to see in the world.
When he died, I felt it.
The Antichrist and a dark future
Trump lackey and current vice president JD Vance visited the Vatican for Easter Sunday. Even though it seems Pope Francis attempted to skip the meeting, they ended up having a brief exchange.
The pope’s message to Trump has been clear. In his last public appearance on Easter Sunday he said, “How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants! On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life, and ideas.”
So many people claim to be Christians, yet this message isn’t obvious to them.
So many people claim to be Christians, yet they support a heartless administration.
I’m not saying Trump is the Antichrist, but if I were the type of person to get worked up over such things, I would be side-eyeing him a bit more. The signs are there, and it is clear Trump believes himself a god.
I also have to mention an old Nostradamus prediction I heard when Pope John Paul II died. It was something like we only had three popes left until the end of the world. I think it went foreign pope, old pope, Black pope.
Now, I mostly chalked it up to racism, but with Trump making Antichrist moves, I can see a Black pope being the perfect scapegoat for the downfall of humanity. While the animosity of the world is pointed toward the Black guy, the Trump administration can continue to gain power.
Hopefully, the next pope will continue to care about people. Hopefully, we will continue to move forward. Pope Francis was a positive light in a hard time. He left behind the legacy of being a good man, a truly rare trait.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of LG Ware's work on Medium.