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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Hey, everybody, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark here. Pope Francis died this morning on Easter Monday. Born Jorge Bergoglio, he was the first Jesuit pope. Shout out to the Jesuits. First Latin American pope. And we are lucky to have our congressional correspondent, Joe Perdicone in Rome for a wedding. Weddings and funerals, you know, there's always a connection. How you doing, Joe?
- [00:24]
Joe Perdicone
I'm very sad, but very happy because it's my wedding. But then the sadness of learning about the death of Pope Francis, someone who I admire greatly, was a big shock, you know, And I found out when I was 5 minutes walking distance from the Vatican. And so I was like, let's walk over. And we sort of knew, right? Like, we knew beforehand because we're sickos who check our phones all the time. But most of the people there didn't appear to know. It was, like, not a lot of crowds because it was early in the morning. And then I started watching people and nuns, priests, you know, tourists, you know, Jews, Muslims. There's tons of people there just as tourists. And you start seeing people look at their phones, and then you see people gasp. And then you start seeing people, like, tearing up a bit. And then suddenly I turn around and what was five people behind me was hundreds, thousands, you know, a sea of people just all walking over to pay their respects, to wait to see what happens. So it was like kind of a shocking moment, but it was very powerful.
- [01:46]
Tim Miller
You talk a little bit more about the mood. I mean, Reverential D, you sent a picture to our slack of a couple folks doing the rosary. A very familiar picture to Catholic schoolboy like me. But Catholics also, you know, funerals are a mixed emotion with Catholics, right? I mean, you're going home to God. It's a little bit less of. It's less dour, maybe, than in some funerals I've been to and some other faiths. What was the mood like in the square?
- [02:11]
Joe Perdicone
Because we were there, like, right when it happened. There was just a lot of shock because he had been sick for a long time, but then he had really looked like he turned the corner. And this past week was Holy Week, so he was doing public events. He did Stations of the cross. We snubbed J.D. vance and then met with him very briefly last night. And so there was, you know, this. He drove in the Pope mobile through St. Peter's Square just yesterday. So he was doing a lot more events. So people thought he had turned the corner. So it was not surprising. But I think the abruptness and especially the morning After Easter. And so here in Italy, Monday after Easter is pasc, which is the, it's another national holiday. So there's not a lot going along, a lot, a lot of stores are closed. So it was just like very, very sudden. People expected, you know, if he was going to die, was going to be in the same kind of dramatic fashion that the several months prior to him getting better were, they would be more expected.
- [03:17]
Tim Miller
Well, since you mentioned it, we have to at least do the brief on the rank politics of Our Vice President J.D. vance, having briefly met with him yesterday. If you have any elderly in your life, probably keep them away from JD Vance. JD Tweeted this morning about how he got to meet the Pope yesterday, the day before his death. I don't know if there's any, anything more to say about that. Do you have any other, anything else on the JD of the situation here?
- [03:44]
Joe Perdicone
Here's a quote. So Vance was, I guess wanted to meet with the Pope like any Catholic would. And J.D. vance converted to Catholicism just a handful of years ago. And then the Vatican just said, no, you're going to meet with the Secretary of State of the Vatican. That's it. And Pope Francis then did his Good Friday Stations of the Cross in which he, he gave a long series of remarks. One of them stuck out to me, which you can read in morning shots, was a very obvious critique of the west and of the United States right now. He said, today's builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers and that those who fall along the way are losers. Theirs is the construction site of hell. And that really was another example of how Pope Francis was very critical of right wing governments, of overly aggressive discompassionate capitalist governments. And for him to be talking that way to the very end and then to give Vance a very brief meeting, this was just like an exchange of pleasantries. Gave a couple Easter eggs for Vance's kids. He gave JD A pie or something and was just like, great. And the photos, the Vatican release, he's sitting there like. And Vance is, you know, giddy as anyone and any Catholic would be meeting the Pope. But Vance's politics and differ greatly. And Pope Francis is a huge, huge advocate for migrants, which this administration is an active danger to all migrants. And so the politics are there and they're going to be throughout the, especially throughout the selection process for the new Pope. Because Pope Francis, people think, oh, there are so many conservatives in, in the American Catholic Church that they'll, they don't want another, you know, progressive Like Pope Francis, I don't think that's true. He's really remade the, the College of Cardinals in a way that very much mimics his idea that you place priority on the poor and on migrants. And so you might see a continuation of his style of leadership. If you look at the preferredi, which is, you know, the guys who they expect to be in the running, you know, the final four to be the next popes, you know, a lot of them are very similar to, to Pope Francis ideologically. And so if their personality is similar to his, which is very unafraid of very powerful people outside the church, you know, you can expect that to continue. And you can expect the divide between, you know, these very new Catholics like Vance who practice things that aren't, aren't, aren't Catholic at all, really don't really align with Jesus's teachings. And so the politics are still going to be there and you're going to hear from a lot of them as this process goes forward.
- [06:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'll put a link in the notes here. There's a very long. The pillar is just a very good Catholic media outlet that had a very long obit that I read this morning of Francis. And he really does position it as like Francis was not like the radical left pope that like the, you know, that the maga maga bishops in America like tried to make him out to be like the very politicized American church. Right. And we see this in a lot of, you know, kind of different areas. I the Denver where my family as my brother works at the Jesuit school, you know, the, a bishop there, Archbishop is, you know, extremely far right doctrinaire pro trump bishop. It's kind of like what is that? It's a rather new thing, this influx in the American Catholic Church. But like that is not really how Francis is seen. Obviously he's not seen as a far right and he didn't identify as that. And obviously he focused more on the poor. Like his changes around, you know, giving a blessing to same sex couples or whatever are like a lot more were a lot more mild than what a lot of folks wanted to paint him out to be. And it was more about, you know, kind of his focus on the poor and his image. And he became, he came into, you know, recognition as, as archbishop in Argentina, like doing the, you know, going to the slums, right like washing the feet of AIDS patients and you know, doing the types of lowering himself that is so counter to kind of this whatever faux masculine, faux tough guy sort of element that we're seeing on the right to that point, there isn't one other political kind of element here. Tom Homan, the immigration czar for Trump. Ike went after Pope Francis not just a few months ago, saying, saying, I've got harsh words for the Pope. The Pope ought to fix the Catholic Church. And so, you know, you are going to see I, I think a very kind of politicized treatment of this, you know, from, from this White House and from Maga World. I don't know if you have anything else on that.
- [09:01]
Joe Perdicone
Yeah. And you, you could have seen it on, on Thursday. Every Holy Thursday, Pope Francis visits a prison outside of Rome where he washes the feet of the inmates, which is a very symbolic gesture because back in olden times, if you didn't take care of your feet, you were as good as dead. And so now it's more of a symbolic thing of washing the feet. And he would, he goes into these prisons every year and he, and this year he said, every time I come here, I ask, you know, why them and not me? And at that same day, you had Republican members of Congress, even one who claims to be a practicing Catholic, like Riley Moore from West Virginia, doing the thumbs up pose at the world famous torture prison in El Salvador. And so there, there is that huge divide. I think when we look at the way that Pope Francis approached things. A lot of people liked to make him in their image. And so they would say things like, oh, he's this, you know, radical liberal or he's this huge progressive that's sort of misreading the situation. When he would say, oh, I want to give blessings to LGBT people or I, you know, want women to be treated fairly. He wasn't saying, well, let's have some, you know, purple haired woke priest now. You know, he didn't change.
- [10:26]
Tim Miller
There's no women in the priesthood now. You know, like, there's like a lot of things that didn't change. Right.
- [10:31]
Joe Perdicone
And, and most Catholics aren't demanding that what right. And he's just made it a more inclusive for, you know, the worshiper, which is the most important thing. That's what affects the most people. And that's what stuck out to me and the way that he's cared for the poor. Like he, he made this quote. So right around inauguration time, I read this quote from Pope Francis where he said, when you give money to the poor, don't just drop a coin in their cup and keep walking. Stop and make eye contact with them. That's the more important thing you can do than anything. And When I was walking to the January six year inaugural ball, which I wrote a piece about, there's a homeless man outside, everyone was ignoring him. And I stopped and I gave him, I think it was 10 bucks. And I looked him in the eye and I was like, he's 100% right. That is much more meaningful. Um, and then I went into the January 6 inaugural ball and that, that was another story.
- [11:35]
Tim Miller
But were you making eye contact in there?
- [11:39]
Joe Perdicone
Yeah, like that eye contact was a lot more uncomfortable. Um, but like, you know, having like even the smallest amount or changing, calibrating the way you view the most vulnerable people, that was a huge theme of his message. And that was something that I think a lot of people, especially over in St. Peter's Square, where I just was like that, that was the vibe is that this was a very decent man in a very indecent period in history.
- [12:11]
Tim Miller
Well, I mean, he named himself the Francis, comes after St. Francis Assisi, who's kind of a hot saint when we were growing up, but besides that, known for, you know, care of animals mostly, but. But really for society's outcasts. Right. And that's like how he tried to, to frame himself. Did you get to hear the bells? Were the bells tolling at the St. Peter's Basilica?
- [12:32]
Joe Perdicone
Yeah, they do their like standard bells at 11am but they were kind of going off and on throughout the morning. I'm gonna try and head back there later this evening when the camera lingo, which is essentially the Susie Wiles of the Vatican, will lay him out and, and, and, well, you know, a much nicer version of Suzy Wells, basically the chief of staff. Yeah. And I'm gonna try and go there. That'll. I'm expecting a much bigger crowd even than I saw this morning because more people will get word, more people are going to come in from out of town and, and right now Too is every 25 years in the Catholic Church, it's called the Jubilee. And. Oh yeah, it's like a, it's a period of where everyone floods to Italy. And so it's more packed in general with especially religious people. All the people on my flight, you know, half, half, maybe two thirds of them were just, you know, church groups making the 25 year pilgrimage to Italy. You know, there were huge groups and you could tell. And so it's going to be really packed. And this is going to make it even more packed.
- [13:43]
Tim Miller
I did not realize it was the Jubilee. I remember the 2000 Jubilee as a, as a Catholic schoolboy. Vividly. Anyway. Joe Pritikin will give us more if you go there later tonight. Do it. Give us a little video of the scene. We can post it on the page here and appreciate it. Congrats on the wedding, and thanks for doing a little work on your wedding week. All right, everybody else, subscribe to the feed. We got a man in. We got a man in Rome. The least you can do is subscribe to the feed. We'll be back here later today with more. See you soon.