Pope Francis is dead. The Polish church is goodbye to him

Polish Primate, thank you to the deceased Pope Francis for his teaching, which he used abundantly. The chairman of the Polish Episcopal Conference calls him a reformer, who “wanted primarily that the church would be more current for this time.” At noon, the bells in Toruń and Krakow killed.

On Monday, April 21 he died Pope Francis. The pope was 88 years old. He died during recovery after severe pneumonia, the day after he came to the blessing of Urbi et Orbi to greet the faithful.

The Pope also says goodbye to the Polish church.

Primate: he loved a man, he loved the church that built a community

In a recording published in social media, the Primate of Poland said that he learned about the death of the Pope in the morning after returning from the Holy Mass.

– Yesterday I was still accepting with all the apostolic blessing Urbi et Orbi (city and world – editor's note). We knew that the Pope was suffering, that he was sick, we knew that he was also fighting to be among us. But here God canceled him. So we are grateful, I am personally grateful to Pope Francis for all the meetings, for every conversation, for his presence, for his pastoral blessing, but in particular I thank him for his teaching, which I used so abundantly and which I gave with all my heart in my homilies – he emphasized.

Archbishop Polak noted that the Pope was above all a “special witness to faith, a witness who loved man, loved the Church who built a community and reminded that God was not far and unknown, but close and that in Jesus Christ he became one of us; that he truly and to the end he loved us.”

– So I thank the Pope for this his vivid testimony, for the fact that in the Church's community he also allowed us to discover each other, build relationships, create bridges that he often reminded us of forgiveness, mercy, about the fact that God would not bore the forgiveness, that he led us to God's mercy – he said.

According to the Primate of Poland, the years of papal ministry became for the whole Church “years of growth in faith, in hope and in the love of Christ.”

– They were also the days of our call to conversion, to find the motives of conversion, to change God's grace and God's mercy, what is weak, sinful, which is marked by our human egoism, our human weakness. So we want to thank the Pope for all this – he noted.

Archbishop Polak emphasized that on the day of the Pope's death “we want to love God in the Church's community for his life and his apostolic service.”

– We want to thank that at these times he gave us such a witness of faith, he gave us a man who, in various circumstances of his life, showed us the most important, the most important: that not only man is the path of the Church, but that the man in the Church demands a specific care and specific interest, bend over him with love – he said.

– We want this heritage that he left us fruit in us to give birth to blessed fruit – he added.

On Easter Monday at 18 in the Gniezno cathedral, a mass will be celebrated for the deceased Pope Francis under the leadership of the Primate of Poland Archbishop. Wojciech Polak.

The primate announced that during Mass. He will thank for “the one whom God gave us as a pope for those times.”

After the mass, a thanksgiving Easter oratory is planned for the pontificate of Pope Francis.

Archbishop Wojda: He tried to show new roads

– It was a peace pope, a pope of reconciliation, a pope of hope. Even the Holy Year, which he began last year to remind us of the need to build our faith, return to Christ, and admit Christ to his life. It is a pope who still said that you have to go to people, to those who need hope, need faith – says tadeusz tadeusz Wojda, chairman of the Polish Episcopal Conference.

In his opinion, Pope Francis can be called a reformer. – First of all, he wanted the Church to be more current for today, more sensitive to those challenges, which are very much in the Church today, so that the Church would not be too much behind. That is why he tried to show these new roads, just reaching with a good word, hopefully to today's man – he explains.

In his opinion, Franciszek's pontificate touched the whole church very much, forcing clergy and secular to change their thinking about the institution and its place in the modern world, in which a stronger process of secularization is observed.

– Through personal decisions, issued documents, reform of the Roman Curia and the synodal process, the Pope showed us that the Church was a community consisting of both clergy, consecrated and secular, in which you not only need to talk, but also take a specific responsibility for it – added the hierarch.

In his opinion, something completely new, even surprising – was the introduction by Francis to key positions in Vatican women. The Pope appointed, for example, Sr. Simon Brambilla with the prefect of the dicasteries for institutes of consecrated life and the Associations of Apostolic Life, and the sister of Raffaella Petrini's new chairman of the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican State and chairwoman of the governor of the Vatican City State. – This is something that has never been before the Catholic Church – said Archbishop Wojda.

According to the chairman of the KEP, the next action of the Pope, which permanently changed the face of the Church, is the process of decentralization of the institution. – We are used to the pyramidal structure, in which everything depends on the successor of Saint. Peter and Vatican dykaster. However, Franciszek first made the dicasteries of the Roman Curia institutions in the service of not only his, but also the Episcopal Conference. Then he donated some of his current competences to the level of local churches, i.e. the conference of the episcopates of individual states or regions – said Archbishop Wojda.

A step towards decentralization, according to the chairman of the Polish Episcopate, was, among others Lasting from 2021 to 2024, a synod about synodality, during which the clergy and secular learned to build relationships, starting from this cell, which is the parish.

The chairman of the Episcopate pointed out that Franciszek bravely faced the problem of pedophilia in the church, developing specific legal solutions.

Archbishop Galbas: Thank God for his life and service

On Easter day, the Lord of life and death took our beloved Holy Father Francis. Let us thank God for his life and service to the Church – wrote the Warsaw Metropolitan Archbishop Adrian Galbas in a message posted on the Archdiocese's website.