“Mar Uachatarán na hÉireann, as President of Ireland, may I join with all those across the world, from their different stations in life, who have expressed such profound sadness on learning of the death of Pope Francis.
Pope Francis, in his important messages and in the presentation of his Papacy with a unique humility, sought to show in the most striking and moving of ways the extraordinary importance of the spiritual as a powerful source of global ethics in the challenges of contemporary life.
On the vital issues of our time – such as global hunger and poverty, of climate change and justice, of the plight of migrants and indigenous peoples, of the dispossessed, of the fundamental necessity of global peace and dip-lomacy – Pope Francis’ voice constituted a con-sistent invocation of a shared humanity that is represented by acknow-ledgement of the essential dignity of each human person.
These issues I had the privilege of discussing at length with Pope Francis across our five meetings over the course of his Papacy.
Pope Francis’ last visit to Ireland was as part of the World Meeting of Families in 2018. I was pleased on that occasion to welcome Pope Francis to Áras an Uachtaráin, where we continued the discussions which we had begun upon his Installation in 2013 and in the Vatican in 2017, and subsequently continued in our further discussions there in 2021 and 2023. The warmth and encour-agement offered by Pope Francis was greatly valued by Sabina and myself.
There was a warmth to Pope Francis and an abolition of any distance between himself and those with whom he was engaged. In reflecting on his Papacy, I think of Pope Francis’ own words in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti with regard to Francis of Assisi, after whom he chose his name:
“Francis felt himself a brother to the sun, the sea and the wind, yet he knew that he was even closer to those of his own flesh. Wherever he went, he sowed seeds of peace and walked alongside the poor, the abandoned, the infirm and the outcast, the least of his brothers and sisters.”
May I express my deepest sympathies to the Apostolic Nuncio, to Archbishop Eamon Martin and all religious in Ireland, to members of the Catholic faith throughout Ireland and across the world, to all those who will particularly feel his loss in his native Argentina and across South and Central America, and to all those of all faiths and none who were so inspired by his life and work.”