James Martin, SJ

I did not know Pope Francis as well as many others did. Certainly not as well as some mutual friends who had known him since his days as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Nor did I know him as well as the cardinals, bishops, priests and religious men and women who worked with him in the Vatican. And certainly not as well as our Superior General, Father Arturo Sosa, SJ. For one thing, I don’t speak Spanish well and Pope Francis’s English was halting. So, I cannot say that we were close friends.

But I did know Pope Francis and we were friends. And knowing him was one of the greatest and most unexpected graces of my life. Over the course of his papacy, I met with him privately four or five times in his office in the Apostolic Palace and his residence at Casa Santa Marta, exchanged notes and emails with him several times a year and then had the chance to chat with him every few days during the Synod of Bishops, which met in Rome during October 2023 and October 2024.

My first private audience with him was a surprise that was built on a surprise. In 2017, a journalist friend texted me early one morning and said, “Congratulations!” I wrote back, “For what?” He wrote, “The Pope just appointed you to be a consultor for the Dicastery for Communication.” In my ignorance of Vatican things, I assumed that my Jesuit Provincial Superior (and perhaps even the Jesuit Curia) must have known beforehand. My Provincial did not but texted me and said, “Congratulations!” Apparently, the Pope simply appoints people. Why not? After all, he’s the Pope and doesn’t need anyone’s permission!

A few months later I was at a plenary session for the Dicastery in Rome and a friend of the Pope’s said, “Would you like to meet the Pope?” I said, “of course”. But the more important question was whether he was open to meeting me. By this time, I had started ministering, with my Jesuit superior’s permission, to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Catholics. The next my friend said, “Pope Francis said he would like to meet you.”

I was delighted but flummoxed. How would a meeting be arranged? “Don’t worry”, said my friend who knew him from his Argentine days. “He wants to meet you, so he’ll meet you. Just introduce yourself when you greet him.”

So during the larger audience for the Dicastery, I waited my turn in line and then, feeling somewhat foolish, introduced myself in Spanish. “Ah,” said Pope Francis smiling, “I want an audience with you!” (In reality, I only heard the word “audiencia” and figured out the rest.) The Pope directed me to a man standing in the room, who asked me where I was staying and wrote down my phone number. A few days later at the Jesuit Curia, Andrea, the friendly porter at the front door, handed me an envelope containing an invitation from the papal household and said, “Auguri!”

That first meeting in the Apostolic Palace changed my life. I was nervous of course, and hardly slept the night before, but need not have been. My overwhelming impression was that I was with the kindest priest I had ever met, the most open-minded Jesuit and the most caring Jesuit Provincial. After he greeted me with a smile and a firm handshake, a few photos were snapped and, thanks to a translator, we got down to business.

A cardinal friend had told me that since the Pope invited me, I should say, “Holy Father, what do you want to talk about?” In response the Pope laughed, spread his arms wide and said, “What do you want to talk about?” There followed 30 minutes of speaking about ministering to LGBT Catholics, a topic he was very much engaged in.

Towards the end of the meeting, I realized, to my horror, that I was dominating the conversation. I suddenly realized that I perhaps needed to allow him to talk about what he wanted to talk about. Maybe he wanted to speak about something else entirely. So, I said, “Holy Father, what can I do for you?” And he said, “You can continue your ministry in peace.” Those words have consoled me ever since.

Pope Francis was, I believe, a saint. I’m not sure if or when he will be canonized, but I’m certain of his holiness. And that holiness was characterized by great freedom. Obviously rooted in the faith of the Church and in Catholic tradition, Francis nonetheless did not feel bound by what he considered the non-essentials and never let a sense of newness dissuade him from responding to the “signs of the times”. His openness to LGBT Catholics was just one example of that.

So were countless other initiatives he took: his framing climate change as not simply a scientific or political issue but a spiritual one, in Laudato si’; his intense, almost laser-like, focus on the poor and marginalized, mentioned in almost every homily, address or speech he gave; and perhaps his most lasting achievement, including lay men and women, priests and members of religious orders for the first time in a Synod of Bishops (We were called “non-bishops”). During the Synod, one bishop leaned over to me as a brilliant lay woman theologian was speaking to the group and said, “There is no going back after this.”

But what I will most remember was an encounter that revealed his holiness in a dramatic way.

In the year before his death, Pope Francis was reported to have made some “homophobic” slurs. It seemed so out of character with the man I had come to know. A few months later, I was in Rome for a meeting of comics and comedians, which I helped with, and a cardinal friend urged me to bring up the Pope’s comments with him. I was, again, tremendously nervous, though need not have been.

So along with two friends who acted as translators, we talked about it. It turned out that Francis wasn’t fully aware of the Italian words that he used. He apologized and said he shouldn’t have said them. I was struck by how relaxed he was and how unafraid he was of being challenged. After a minute or two, the conversation moved on to other topics.

A few days later, I was in the papal audience for comedians in the Vatican. After everyone had finished shaking the Pope’s hand, I approached him. His face brightened and he laughed and joked, “Ah, a famous American comedian!” I started to pull my hand away, but he pulled me back and said, “Thank you for that meeting the other day. I needed to hear that! It helped me!” Then he gave me a “thumbs up”.

I thought: Who does that? Who thanks someone for being challenged? Only someone who is free, humble and holy. A saint does that, I thought finally. I will miss him a great deal.