The head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines on Monday called on the faithful to pray for the eternal repose of Pope Francis as well as carry forward the late pontiff’s call to become a “missionary synodal Church.”
In his message on the passing of the pope, Pablo Virgilio Cardinal David, the bishop of Kalookan, said “Pope Francis has now returned to the Father, but his legacy as a supreme pontiff—that is, as bridge-builder—will never be forgotten by the Church.”
David, one of three Filipino cardinals created by the late pope, said Francis was a “shepherd who walked with his people, often choosing the dusty road toward the peripheries rather than the comfort of the center.”
He recalled the late pope’s key messages in his apostolic exhortations and encyclicals, citing Evangelii Gaudium (2013) and Fratelli Tutti (2020) where Francis called for a more welcoming Church amid complex challenges faced by the world.
“[H]e reminded us that the heart of the Gospel beats most strongly where pain, poverty, and exclusion dwell. He invited us to be a listening Church—one that opens its ears to the cries of the people and its heart to the stirrings of the Spirit,” said David.
In Laudato Si (2015) and Laudate Deum (2023), Pope Francis “taught us to see the earth as our common home, entrusted to our care, especially for the sake of the generations to come,” the cardinal said.
David, who played a prominent role in the recent Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, said that “through his vision of synodality, Pope Francis challenged us to rediscover the Church not as a fortress, but as a field hospital—welcoming, healing, and journeying together.”
He also recalled the pontiff’s tribute to the Filipino diaspora during a milestone event in the Philippine Church — the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity in the islands in 2021.
“And with his characteristic wit and warmth, he once called our Overseas Filipino migrant workers ‘contrabandistas de la fe’—smugglers of the faith—reminding us that the witness of simple, faithful lives can cross borders and touch hearts where formal missionaries cannot go,” David said.
Noting that the pope’s death occurred at the beginning of the Eastertide, marked by the joy of Christ’s resurrection, David again recalled the late pontiff’s words to Filipinos: “It is okay to shed tears of sorrow during this joyful Easter Octave. After all, it was he who reminded us that ‘we can only see more clearly through eyes washed by tears.’”
It was the pope’s moving response to 12-year-old Glyzelle Palomar’s query about why God allowed suffering in the world, during a meeting with 30,000 young people at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila near the tail-end of his historic 2015 apostolic visit to the Philippines.
David, along with Manila Archbishop Jose Cardinal Advincula, is expected to travel to Rome to witness the pope’s funeral and join Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, the highest-ranking Filipino in the Vatican Curia.
