Press Release - Statement on the Death of Pope Francis

April 21, 2025

Westerville, OH

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Within hours of celebrating the resurrection of our Lord, His Holiness, Pope Francis, passed from this life into the loving embrace of God. A bishop, priest, and man well known for his love and dedication to the marginalized of the world, he spoke the truth clearly to empires, powers, and dominions.

Announcing Pope Francis's death, Cardinal Kevin Farrell said, "He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God."

Pope Francis will be remembered for saying, when asked about the lives and ministry of members of the LGBTQIA+ community, "Who am I to judge?" Going even further, he acknowledged that the institutional Catholic Church owed an apology to the LGBTQIA+ community, having fallen short of its mission to welcome and affirm all people.

LOVEboldly sends a special message of sorrow to our Catholic siblings. We join you in mourning the loss of such great a leader and pastor, and we acknowledge how Pope Francis opened the church wide for people and communities often left out of its decision-making. We also know that the death of a pope, particularly a pope associated with seismic changes, comes with the uncertainty of the Church's direction and leadership moving forward.

Easter teaches us that death, darkness, and hate do not have the final word when God is involved. Resurrection light can break through each of these forces just as it did in the life and ministry of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) and radiate the love of God.

And so we pray: Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Francis. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

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This statement may be attributed to the Rev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp, Executive Director of LOVEboldly. The ending prayer is taken from the Book of Common Prayer 1979.

The Easter Experience

Monday, April 21, 2025

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Happy Easter and Happy Monday, my friends! Over the last week we’ve experienced the Easter narrative through Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the washing of the disciples’ feet, the betrayal of Jesus, his arrest and interrogation, Peter denying his association with Jesus, Jesus’ passion, his death, and, as he promised, his resurrection. We know the story well and I imagine few if any of us stopped to think about the range and variety of takes on the common story. Yet there are many interpretations of that story. There’s a traditional and theological narrative which places attention on Christ taking on the sins of the world in order to save humanity from the wrath of God. There’s also a progressive, social Gospel approach which names Jesus’ death as a consequence of standing up to empire and modeling how we too should resist the very real evil of our world. And, of course, almost every Christian tradition has its own nuance on the story from the institution of the Eucharist as the summit of the faith[1] of Catholics, Orthodox, and (some) Anglicans to the penal substitutionary atonement completed by Christ which form the foundation of the Protestant Solas.[2]

Both narratives start at the same place—Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday—and they end at the same place and time, the resurrection, but they view the events in that story from profoundly different perspectives. The traditional theological story begins with Jesus entering Jerusalem knowing that within the week he will be arrested and will die on a cross. Much like his birth, his entrance to Jerusalem is at once royal and simple. Yes, he rides into the city as people cheer and lay their cloaks on his path, but he rides a donkey and the people wave palm fronds. He orders his disciples to prepare for a meal at which he presents bread as his body and wine as his blood. This meal conveys the grace and forgiveness which Christ will impart by his death on the cross. He proceeds to pray where he begs God to “let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want” (Matthew 26:39). He’s then betrayed by Judas and arrested. He’s interrogated and the Roman governor, having found no guilt in him, is turned over to the crowd who shout for his condemnation. The theological narrative positions the crowd—the same people who welcomed Jesus into their city only days earlier—as humanity both before and after the time of Jesus who, through our sins, place Jesus on the cross and whose sins he died to forgive. He’s led away and tortured by his Roman guards who roundly mock the idea that he’s a king. Eventually he is led to Golgotha—the place of the skull—where, depending on which account you’re reading, he’s crucified between two criminals. He dies relatively quickly, and his body is placed in the tomb of one of his followers. While 2,000 years of art render much of the actual violence and suffering of Roman crucifixion out of the story, Jesus’ death, traditional readings maintain, had to occur. Humanity’s sins could only be redeemed and God’s perfect justice paid by the death of a perfect being. Thus, Jesus came into the world as that being and as a sacrifice.

Chronologically, the progressive, social gospel version of the story is identical to its traditional counterpart. It differs in how it considers and portrays several of the events. First, Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem is not a royal parade or victorious march, but a protest in which a crowd has assembled and calls for a change to the political, social, and religious order of their time. If the religious authorities, who already fear losing their power, are going to act against Jesus and his followers, they have to act now. Though the Romans are foreign occupiers who don’t need the local religious leaders for support and the religious factions would welcome the departure of their imperial overlords, the two groups form an uneasy symbiosis. This radical preacher could destabilize the system and mark the end of toleration which permit the chief priests and the elders to wield some power. Though the Romans either don’t understand the power of his message or they don’t care, Jesus preaches against them as much as he preached against religious corruption. The social gospel approach sees Jesus’ death as capital punishment; a state-sponsored execution as a consequence of standing up to empire and all its colonial evils. Before you argue that Jesus was killed not by the Romans, but his own ethnic and religious community, religion making bed with politics and defiling its most deeply held ideals was neither new in Jesus’ time nor is it in 2025.

No matter how traditional or progressive your reading of the events of Holy Week and Easter, the resurrection confounds our ideas and interpretations of those events as much now as they did when Mary Magdelene wept outside the tomb thinking someone had stolen Jesus’ body. The idea that anyone, even God, could defeat death and could return to life is simply extraordinary. And for that reason, the resurrection remains both a mystery and a stumbling block for Christians. Should we believe that Jesus really did return from the dead or perhaps his body was moved and hidden? Is his resurrection an allegory for killing people, but not being able to kill an idea? Is it something more mundane or maybe, just maybe, even more miraculous? Whatever the truth of the resurrection and of the celebration of Easter, we have entered a time of hope when even the machinations of state-induced chaos and fear cannot make us see the shimmer of new days ahead and hear the still small voice of love.

How do you look at the events of Holy Week and of Easter? For what are you hoping?

Let us pray: God, you gave us your son to model the moral courage of resisting empire and, when necessary, offering his own body and his life in service to those you created. Grant us the strength and grace to follow his example even when it’s dangerous for us to do like Jesus did. We ask this in the name of Jesus, our liberator. Amen.

Blessings on your weeks, my friends! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Faithfully,

Ben

[1] Inasmuch as the Eucharist conveys the sacrifice of Jesus and through which the faithful participate in his death and resurrection.

[2] sola scriptura, solus Christus, sola fide, sola gratia, and soli Deo gloria (Scripture alone, Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone, and glory to God alone)

Resurrection in the Shadow of Injustice

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Easter Sunday

Heidi Weaver-Smith (she/her)

Founder, LOVEboldly

Allied Christian

The past year has held many losses for LGBTQIA+ rights in my home state of Ohio, and sadly, around the country at large. The passing of Don’t Say Gay Bills, and bans on bathrooms, sports, and healthcare for the trans community attack basic human rights for the LGBTQIA+ community. Beneath the shadow of these injustices, it may be difficult to find one iota of celebration to remember and rejoice in the resurrection of Easter. How can we rejoice in seasons of

injustice? What has Easter to say to us when we feel stuck within the hours of darkness, crying out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

The hope of resurrection is that our liberation is just around the corner. We may suffer as we wait, but we can hold fast to this promise. Liberation form injustice was central to the message Jesus proclaimed. At the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry he declared, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim

release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19, NRSV).

We can trust that our liberation is just around the corner, that we will in fact rise again with life filling our broken bodies, because Jesus showed us that death will not win. Christ’s life, death, and resurrection point us towards the liberative future of shalom he has accomplished for us, the already-but-not-yet Kingdom of God which breaks into our world daily yet has not finalized its work. In the midst of a world where we continue to experience injustices which strip away basic human rights, we can turn ourselves to both lamenting that things are not as they ought to be and we can continue to hope in a God who themself was unjustly accused, targeted by violent statesmen and hate-filled religious leaders grasping at power to protect their own reputations, ideologies, and senses of law and order.

Our resurrected God knows the system is not worthy of our trust. As followers of a God who was treated unjustly, we can remind ourselves that our faith was never in a justice system so fraught by injustice. We follow a God who, himself, suffered until death from the injustices levied against him by the very authorities who were meant to protect society.

God has, is, and will make all things new. His liberation will not be thwarted - it is just around the bend.

Together, we await our third day, when life, light, and God’s miraculous power will restore and heal us from the powers of death.

Prayer

God of justice, bring your resurrection power to care for those who suffer injustice today. Comfort them with your solidarity of one who suffered unfairly, and may we find our peace in knowing you will make all things new again. Restore those who suffer the loss of their rights, who are unfairly maligned and accused, and who are treated with contempt. May your kin-dom come on earth as it is in heaven. We pray for your justice to overcome the broken systems of our world filled with inequity.

Lead us into a season where we will see the “goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” once again.

Reflection and Action

This prayerful reflection can be practiced alone or with a friend or ally who can hold space with you and support you during this process. As always, only try this exercise if it feels life-giving and aligned with what God is nudging you to do in this moment. It may not be for everyone at every part of their journey.

1. In what ways has our political or justice system failed you, your family, or your loved ones? Write down a list of these injustices and what their effect has been on you personally.

2. Take a moment to light a candle, play some soft music, or just sit quietly. Breathe deeply and pray through the list one by one by saying, “God in your mercy, hear my lament for the injustices of                                   . Hold me in the light of your resurrection, even while I suffer. I trust in your coming kin-dom where all that is wrong will be undone, and we will be liberated to experience your freedom."