Today a man named Pope has died. A soul among millions, who had the greatest task: to represent the divine under the weight of the human. And I, who do not believe in golden thrones, who do not see God in sumptuous vestments or in palaces surrounded by high walls and closed hearts, today I say goodbye to him.
I do not believe in the Church as an institution. I believe in the whispers inside empty churches, in the melted wax of candles that listen to wishes with downcast eyes. I believe in the knees that do not bend out of obedience, but out of love. I believe in the madmen, the pure, the wounded, who pray without knowing the name of their God but recognize him in the face of the hungry, the thirsty, the cold even in the middle of summer.
Wars are never holy, crosses should not weigh more than conscience, and love... love makes no distinctions. It does not divide, does not judge, does not impose. Pope Francis had the courage to wear a robe sewn with threads of duty and appearance. To walk with a staff made of symbols too old for a world that is hungry for new truths. And in his walk there was, at times, the attempt to be a man among men, more than a pontiff between earth and heaven. But the true Church, the one that has no roof or walls, the one that knows no dogmas or limits, is in the heart. There God dwells, the true one, the one who does not need to be defended, because he loves and nothing more.
Goodbye, Francis. May your return to the light be light, may your hands return to dust and your name, breath. And may one day, among the ruins of the temples built by power, a new spirituality flourish: one that speaks the language of the stars and the silence of children.
