‘We were watching a dying Pope yesterday’ – McAleese
Former president of Ireland Mary McAleese said Pope Francis’ great legacy will be of “a man comfortable with a big debate”.
When asked if shocked, she said when watching Pope Francis yesterday on TV at Easter Sunday mass in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican, she said to her husband: “he looks like a man that might die today”.
“He looked to me like a man that was about to spend his last breath doing the thing he wanted to do. As he went around in the pope mobile the young priest was constantly checking with him. We were watching a dying Pope yesterday,” she said.
Ms McAleese acknowledged that she had a number of issues with Pope Francis, and that he had a “pile of letters” from her, concerning issues he was doing right and wrong.
“One of the most salient things about him, and he was very much beloved by people, was his great love for the poor and for migrants,” she said.
She described his love for the poor as his “most extraordinary characteristic” and credited his love for both nature and the Earth.
“He exuded for me two things. A sense of the sacredness of the human person and a sense of the sacred Earth, which wasn’t negotiable either,” she told RTÉ Radio 1.
However, she said that he wasn’t the world’s greatest strategist, saying that he could “flip and flop” which could be “infuriating”.
“In a pope it can be disconcerting when you are not quite sure where he stands on things,” she said, referencing women in the church.
She described the Argentine as “old fashioned” in relation to women in the church.
Ms McAleese said that Pope Francis closed down the argument on women priests only a few months ago. “But in the next breath he said that it could be studied, that the theology has not been perfectly argued.”
“He was a great man for leaving doors open, that needed to be opened… he would go some of the distance,” she said.
However, she stressed that he did not change many of the controversial teachings of the church.
“But in the other hand, he did seem to rebel and relish a 1.4 billion people church, that was full of people with different opinions… he was very comfortable with that.”
When asked if he was a good pope, the former president said she thought he was a “good man”.
“Was he a good pope? I think he tried his level best. Did he stop the haemorrhage in the church? No. In many ways, that was well advanced by the time he became pope.
“The church is a very old institution, that moves in centuries, not decades. He will be looked at as someone that helped the church to be better, to become better…
“Was he good for the church? I think he was. Was he the person that solved all the problems? No. As that would have defeated a team of popes. But he was a good man.”
Cian O’Broin
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