The funeral was followed by a Requiem Mass at the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, bringing together parishioners and members of the wider Catholic community in prayer and remembrance.
Fr Dominic, parish priest at Farm Street, described the moment of Francis’s election in 2013 as “a ground-breaking moment” for the Society of Jesus and for the wider Church.
“Many people actually did not know who Jorge Mario Bergoglio was,” he recalled, "and then very quickly we got to know what he was about.”
Speaking to the distinctively Jesuit character of Francis’s papacy, Fr Dominic continued: “We got to know that this was a man who really listened to others… who took very carefully what we mean by discernment, which is a very Jesuit thing — finding God in all things, discerning the best way forward, taking time to make decisions and consulting.”
Reflecting on Francis’s early ministry in Argentina, he said: “He was very much involved in the option for the poor… doing pastoral work, living in community. And even though he later left communal life when he became a bishop, there was something very Jesuit about him all the way through.”
Fr Dominic also addressed the challenges facing the Church at the time of Francis’s election — from clerical abuse to financial corruption — and the humility and integrity with which the new pope responded: “We needed Francis to address that and to be a man who really humbled himself into simplicity.”
He added that Francis’s choice of name, after St Francis of Assisi, was a powerful sign of his priorities: “Francis — that was Saint Francis of Assisi, who was this crazy person living poverty radically, in touch with the earth, in touch with the integrity of creation. And this was the man for the time.”
Looking ahead, Fr Dominic concluded: “I’m praying for a pope who’s right for this time, for this age.”
