The Death of Pope Francis: A Silence That Speaks Volumes

Reflection by Leivon Albert Lamkang PhD Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of Delhi

News of Pope Francis’ death did not feel like a headline. It felt like a silence. A rupture. Months earlier, I stood among thousands of youth at World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon. He appeared—frail, seated in a wheelchair, yet luminous in presence. The crowd grew still. No applause. Just awe.

It was reverence. Not born of fear or tradition, but of recognition. We weren’t looking at power. We were looking at mercy.

Changed by Reverence, Not Spectacle

I had gone to Lisbon as a priest and a scholar. But the experience changed me. From the opening Mass, the atmosphere was charged—not with spectacle, but anticipation. When Pope Francis appeared on the screens, a young French girl knelt. A boy from the Philippines removed his cap. An Indian group began praying the rosary.

These gestures weren’t rehearsed. They were instinctive. Reverence like this cannot be taught. It must be evoked.

And Pope Francis evoked it not by command, but by compassion. His visible frailty didn’t weaken him—it amplified his authenticity. He embodied a Church that was not triumphant, but truthful. For many, especially the young, that vulnerability mirrored their own longing: for sincerity over structure, presence over perfection.

Anchorage in a Shifting World

What I witnessed was not just spiritual. It was sociological.

We live in what sociologist Zygmunt Bauman called a “liquid modern” age—unstable, shifting, often disorienting. In such times, youth are said to be sceptical, disengaged. But Lisbon revealed something else: a generation hungry for anchorage. Pope Francis offered that—not through control, but through moral imagination.

He embodied what Anthony Giddens terms “reflexive modernity”: a leader willing to face the complexity of our times with humility and relational integrity.

And Charles Taylor reminds us in A Secular Age that our time is not without faith—it is full of tension between belief and doubt. The reverence in Lisbon was not blind piety. It was a response to a figure who could hold these tensions honestly. Francis didn’t offer certainties. He offered hope. And in doing so, he made faith feel possible again.

A Church That Kneels and Weeps

Pope Francis constantly redirected the Church’s gaze—from its own structures to the margins of the world. His dream of a “bruised, hurting and dirty Church” (Evangelii Gaudium, §49) was not just rhetoric. In Lisbon, it came alive.

I saw it in the inclusion of youth from war zones. In testimonies shared by the differently-abled. In the Pope’s bold declaration: “You are not the future of the Church—you are the now of God” (Christus Vivit, §178).

This vision resonated especially with those of us from places where the Church often feels distant or overly institutional. Here was a Pope who knelt with migrants, cried with survivors, and reminded us that wounds must be seen before they can be healed.

From Kneeling in Awe to Rising in Mission

The death of Pope Francis is not just an end—it is a beginning.

He did not inspire reverence through charisma or ceremony, but through moral courage. Now that he is gone, we face the question: will that reverence fade into memory, or grow into mission?

His legacy is not made of marble. It is made of mercy. It takes shape in small acts of accompaniment, ecological justice, interfaith dialogue, and listening to those at the edge. It lives in synodality—in walking together.

The youth who knelt in Lisbon must now rise. Rise into parishes, into the margins, into the complexity of the world—with the same tenderness Francis modelled.

Not a Memory to Preserve, but a Path to Follow

On the final day of World Youth Day, the sun rose slowly over a field of sleeping pilgrims turned worshippers. Pope Francis, seated in humility, lifted his eyes and blessed us. There were no fireworks. Just quiet grace.

I return to that moment now—not as a memory to preserve, but a path to follow.

For me, as a priest from a wounded land, as a researcher, and as one who walks with young people, that reverence must become responsibility. It must change the way I teach, the way I serve, the way I dream of the Church.

Pope Francis once said, “God is young.” If that is true, then to walk with the young in reverence is to walk with God in hope.

And that hope—quiet, steady, and merciful—is what he leaves us now.