During the first five days after the death of Pope Francis, the most constant feeling I had was that the world had lost a deep source of energy. I do not know how to describe this effect, except that it seemed that a light had been extinguished.
I found myself asking myself how a person can inspire this feeling in others, what it takes to be a light holder. Someone who illuminates opportunities for transforming the mind and mind. Someone who highlights new peace possibilities. I think that is what Pope Francis was: a man of faith who believed that because of – and despite – his own humanity, he could live in such a way that God's light could radiate him to create a vision of hope for the world.
I met Pope Francis twice, in 2023. Once in a private meeting room at the Vatican, and once in the Sistine Chapel. I remember very well with his visual contact, the mixture of heat and direct concentration. It was well practiced in seeing it: not only what was present but also what could be. This is why it is logical that Pope Francis is a lover of the arts and understood the role of culture in the expression of the human condition, even when it is difficult.
The two occasions, the Pope talked about the power and the need for artists. He said: “An artist is (one) who, with the eyes, looks (s) and at the same time dreams, sees deeper prophecies, announces a different way of seeing and understanding the things that are before our eyes.”
As a Catholic cradle that spent endless Sundays at mass during childhood, I have always felt a link between the idea of the sacred and the reality of the arts. Art offers me a way of trying to see and understand the physical and spiritual aspects of the world. This is perhaps one of the reasons why I was so moved by the presence of Pope Francis at the head of the Catholic Church. Because in my mind, an ability to recognize the power of the arts goes hand in hand with an understanding of the need for stories that represent a multiplicity of truths on what human being means.
It is not surprising for me that Pope Francis had a special place in his heart for Caravaggio. The Italian artist at the end of the 16th / early 17th century is known as much for his rebellious nature as for his narration through paintings which often represented the disturbing realities of life. Caravaggio was not afraid to represent things as he saw them, and his art was a way of named the darkest truths that exist in the world.
Pope Francis, the first pontiff to take the name of the 18th century brother and founder of the Franciscan order, chose to center his ministry on the poor and the marginalized. The artist and pontiff had a unique way of calling the power of light to shed light on the human condition and the possibilities of renewal and redemption for the most improbable characters in the most improbable circumstances.
The favorite painting of Francis Caravaggio was “The Calling of St Matthew” (1599-1600), which hangs in the contarelli chapel of the San Luigi dei Francesi church in Rome with “The inspiration of St Matthew” and “The martyrdom of Saint-Matthew”. This painting represents a section of Matthew's Gospel which tells the moment when Jesus sees Matthew in a tax stand and calls him to become a disciple. In the biblical passage, the meeting seems to occur quickly and without delay. But Caravaggio presents a more dramatic and complicated scene, a spiritual moment wrapped in the reality of resistance and negotiation of the cost of the appeal to a completely new life.
The composition almost divides painting in half. On the right side, Jesus stands slightly behind Peter. His face is illuminated by a rod of light from the upper corner of the paint. There is a weak ring suggesting a halo above its head. Everything else on Jesus remains in the shadow, with the exception of his right hand, which points to Matthieu in a gesture recalling the hand of Adam who stands out towards God in “the creation of Adam” of Michelangelo. A group of tax collectors and silver counters are seated on the left. Art historians debate on what represents Matthew, although most people – me including – identify him as the central character which was being directed towards himself while the other claws of the pieces of the table.
The two men to the right of Matthew are so busy counting the money that they do not even look for the table. The two figures on the left of Matthew turn to visitors but with different expressions and postures. The boy relying on Matthew seems uncertain and yet at the same time not threatened. The man seated with the sword leans towards Saint-Pierre, his left hand apparently reaching the weapon. But St Peter points to him as in the warning. There are so many things in this scene that I imagine resonating with Pope Francis, and that helps many of us to question our own life.
As well as being the first American Latin To direct the Catholic church, Pope Francis was also the first Jesuit. This order, known as the Society of Jesus and founded in 1540 by St Ignace de Loyola, believes that God can be found in all things and everywhere, from the natural world to simple acts of service to others. There is no too ordinary space for the saint to live and everyday life can be imbued with spiritual meaning. Caravaggio establishes the call of Saint-Matthew in a tavern, a place easily associated with the shabby transactions where one would not expect a divine meeting. But thanks to its use of chiaroscuro, Caravaggio suggests, as Francis believed, that the transformative light of redemption could touch everyone.
For me and, I suggest, for a man like Pope Francis, there is no one unfit for divine love and badly adapted person to play a role in the modification of the world for the best. It is a beautiful perspective, but strangely also a perspective which can easily offend those who believe more in judgment than in grace. I imagine that is why Francis was a controversial figure. Whenever he sought to welcome and protect those whose life and human rights were threatened for various reasons, many called him too liberal or too lax, or accused him of moving away from theological lessons.
It was certainly not perfect, as a man or in his ideologies. No one is. Like all of us, he had to have his own difficulties, his own doubts about what to do sometimes. Matthew's Caravaggio's painting shows a man struggling with conflicting desires: maintaining the status quo while being able to accept the spiritual invitation to a new life. The pope said about this painting: “It is Matthew's gesture that strikes me … He holds his money as if to say:” No, not me! No, this money is mine. “Here, it is me, a sinner on whom the Lord turned his gaze, and that is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as a pontiff.”
I think Pope Francis understood that he could have been one of the characters on the left side of Caravaggio's painting. Those who have also taken their own aspirations and ways to see a call for objectives beyond themselves. The one like the boy with the white feathered cap, perhaps too immature to be able to discern when life offers you a chance of transformation. The one ready to fight against an invitation to new possibilities living for life due to the potential sacrifice. And whoever clearly recognizes the value of the opportunity but must always find the courage to say yes.
Perhaps the pontiff also understood that it could be on the right side of caravan painting. He believed that everyone was a child of God, no matter where they came from, what they looked like, who they loved, what they did with their body or what they did in life. Everyone was like Jesus in this way, beloved. But I think that Pope Francis admitted that he could stand where Saint-Pierre-Peter was located whose story is full of denial and redemption, like the one who had a heart committed for God but who was not above making mistakes, whether we saw this part of him or not. Maybe one of Francis's gifts was to be able to see himself as he was, but also as he could be.
Who knows how many times he has been held or sat before this work of art. He seemed to understand that seeing time, and that we have to look again and again, not only to art but also to ourselves and to the world that we help to shape. The more we can see, the more we can head towards the invitation to love: act with love, to be received by love. It was ultimately the question of Matthew's call. And I think that is what Pope Francis always tried to encourage the world – himself included – to aim.
Enuma Okoro will appear at the FT Weekend Festival: US Edition in Washington DC on Saturday May 10 usftweekendfestival.live.ft.com
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