The United States is participating in the global prayer campaign for Pope Francis’ speedy recovery, with YouTube and Instagram videos, daily homilies, appeals on diocesan websites and Facebook pages. “We are constantly following the news updates,” said Andrea from St Mary’s parish in Miami. Another parishioner said he was praying for the Pope every day, adding: “We know he is in critical condition, but we have not lost hope. The archbishop of San Diego, Cardinal Robert McElroy, opened the diocese’s website with the prayer that the US bishops’ conference has encouraged everyone to recite: “O God, shepherd and ruler of all the faithful, look favorably on your servant Francis, whom you have set at the head of your Church as her shepherd.” At the end of the prayer is included a link to the latest updates on the Pope’s health.
The Bishop of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas, has released a video message asking his parishioners to pray the rosary for the Pope while “his body is experiencing a weakness of health.” “We want him to know that we are close to him and that we’re praying for him as he has prayed for all of us during these years,” Bishop Michael Mulvey said in a YouTube video. Recalling that at the end of every public meeting the Pope invites everyone to pray for him, Bishop Mulvey urged to do the same, to remember him “perhaps even with a short prayer or a thought for him during the day. I’m sure he feels that closeness.” America Magazine, a review published by the Jesuits of the United States, featured a prayer written by Father James Martin for Pope Francis and the emblematic nature of his pontificate. “As Francis, our beloved pope, suffers from grave illnesses, we come before you in prayer”, writes Father Martin, noting that Francis “showed love, mercy and compassion to all he encountered in his public ministry, especially those who were poor or in any way struggling.” The prayer is extended to “the doctors, nurses and medical team who care for him”. The prayer asks that God grant Pope Francis “grace in enduring any pain and help him to heal quickly,” and that the Holy Spirit send his “own breath into his weakened lungs.”
The aisles of New York’s St Patrick’s Cathedral were completely packed for Sunday’s Holy Mass, celebrated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who offered prayers for the recovery of Pope Francis. After reading an update on the Pope’s health from the Vatican, Cardinal Dolan noted that the Holy Father has overcome various health issues over the years, continuing to serve as Supreme Pontiff. “He keeps the grit and determination, the resilience, and he’s really taught us… the transformative redemptive value of suffering,” the cardinal said. Also present at the celebration was Barbara, an 87-year-old woman from New York. She joined in the prayer with her Jewish husband, Donald.
Professor Daniel Rober, chairman of the Department of Catholic Studies at the University of the Sacred Heart in Connecticut, recalled in an article in Commonweal magazine that Francis’s increasingly “fragile health certainly augurs the last phase of his pontificate, whether measured in days, months or years.” He noted that Francis’ health crisis has taken place “at a fraught time for the Church and the world.” Rober points out that the Pope’s latest pastoral instruction, before his hospitalisation, was the Letter to the Bishops of the United States, in which he offers the figure of the Good Samaritan as an example of “the love that builds a fraternity open to all without exception”, and rebukes “in all but name Vice President J.D. Vance for his use of the ordo amoris to justify the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies.” Francis has entered “directly” into the fray of US Catholic politics, perhaps aware that he has “nothing to lose” and that this could be his last battle.
