Argentine religious figures, Nobel laureate pay tribute to Francis
April 24, 2025
Argentine Jewish and Protestant leaders, joined by a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, paid tribute to Pope Francis in the April 23 edition of the Vatican newspaper.
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L’Osservatore Romano reprinted “When a Friend Leaves,” a tribute by Rabbi Abraham Skorka, rector emeritus of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires and coauthor, with the future Pope, of On Heaven and Earth.
Following personal recollections, Rabbi Skorka wrote:
Francis aimed to purify both his Church and the world. With a very human mix of achievements and missteps, he earnestly sought to create a path along which the presence of God could be more apparent among all people ... Francis’s affection, humility, and exceptional sensitivity toward the poor, the weak, and those in need will continue to shine through the lasting legacy he has left behind.
Marcelo Figueroa, a Presbyterian minister who became the director of the Argentine edition of L’Osservatore Romano, wrote that “Bergoglio was a friend of Jesus, Jesus is a friend of Bergoglio. Today these two friends are together, with the Father.”
“I say goodbye to a friend,” he continued. “My heart bleeds dry in pain, in nostalgia, in infinite sadness ... In the meantime, I can only say to the friend of Jesus: infinite thanks from this humble Protestant friend!”
In his tribute, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980 for his human rights advocacy, said that “Francis remains among us, in the conscience of the world with his word taken from the Gospel and on the journey together with the poor, the rejected, and the disinherited of the world. I knew him in his pastoral ministry, always alongside the poor.”
He added:
Francis was the first non-European Pope and the first Jesuit, a Latin American man who shared with the world his spirituality, his knowledge and the commitment to social justice of the Church alongside the people of God. He opened his fraternal arms to the ecumenism of brothers and sisters who live the faith of their peoples and their cultures, he shared bread and freedom, he denounced injustices, going to the island of Lampedusa, denouncing the situation of refugees, asking European countries to take into consideration and help the thousands of people who flee their lands because of wars, hunger, poverty and misery ...
By choosing the name Francis, Bergoglio chose to follow the path and spirituality of Francis of Assisi. In his life he serenely endured many attacks, slanders and betrayals. He took on the responsibility of defending human rights, Mother Earth, unity, and fraternity as necessary tools to build peace.
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