For the first five days after the passing of Pope Francis, the most consistent feeling I had was that the world had lost a profound source of energy. I do not know how else to describe this effect, other than it seemed like a light had been switched off.
I have found myself wondering about how a person can inspire that feeling in others, what it takes to be a light-bearer. Someone who illuminates opportunities for the transformation of mind and spirit. Someone who shines a light on new possibilities for peace. 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 the light of God might radiate off him to create a vision of hope for the world.
I met Pope Francis twice, in 2023. Once in a private meeting room in the Vatican, and once in the Sistine Chapel. I vividly remember his eye contact, the mix of warmth and direct focus. He was well practised in seeing: not only what was present but also what could be. Which is why it makes sense that Pope Francis was a lover of the arts and understood the role of culture in expressing the human condition, even when it is challenging.
On both occasions, the pope spoke about the power and necessity of artists. He said: “An artist is [one] who with eyes look[s] and at the same time dream[s], sees deeper prophecies, announces a different way of seeing and understanding the things that are before our eyes.”
As a cradle Catholic who spent endless Sundays at Mass during childhood, I have always sensed a connection between the idea of the sacred and the reality of the arts. Art offers me a way of trying to see and understand both the physical and spiritual aspects of the world. Perhaps that is one reason I was so moved by the presence of Pope Francis as head of the Catholic Church. Because in my mind, an ability to recognise the power of the arts goes hand-in-hand with an understanding of the need for stories that represent a multiplicity of truths about what it means to be human.
It is no surprise to me that Pope Francis had a special place in his heart for Caravaggio. The late-16th/early-17th-century Italian artist is known as much for his rebellious nature as for his storytelling through paintings that often depicted the disturbing realities of life. Caravaggio was not afraid of depicting things as he saw them, and his art was a way of naming the darker truths that exist in the world.
Pope Francis, the first pontiff to take the name of the 13th-century friar and founder of the Franciscan Order, chose to centre his ministry on the poor and the marginalised. Both artist and pontiff had a unique way of calling on the power of light to illuminate the human condition, and the possibilities of renewal and redemption for the most unlikely characters in the most unlikely circumstances.
Francis’s favourite Caravaggio painting was “The Calling of St Matthew” (1599-1600), which that hangs in the Contarelli Chapel of the San Luigi dei Francesi Church in Rome together with “The Inspiration of St Matthew” and “The Martyrdom of St Matthew”. This painting depicts a section of the Gospel of Matthew that recounts the moment when Jesus sees Matthew in a tax booth and calls him to become a disciple. In the biblical passage, the encounter seems to happen quickly and without delay. But Caravaggio presents a more dramatic and complicated scene, a spiritual moment enveloped in the reality of resisting and negotiating the cost of the call to a completely new life.
The composition almost splits the painting in two. On the right side, Jesus stands slightly behind Peter. His face is illuminated by a shaft of light coming from the top corner of the painting. There is a faint ring suggesting a halo above his head. Everything else about Jesus remains in the shadows, except for his right hand, which points towards Matthew in a gesture reminiscent of Adam’s hand reaching out towards God in Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”. A group of tax collectors and money counters are seated on the left. Art historians debate which figure represents Matthew, although most people — myself included — identify him as the central character gesturing towards himself with one hand while the other clutches at the coins on the table.
The two men on Matthew’s right are so busy counting the money that they do not even look up from the table. The two figures on Matthew’s left look towards the visitors but with differing expressions and postures. The boy leaning on Matthew seems uncertain and yet at the same time unthreatened. The seated man with the sword leans towards St Peter, his left hand seemingly reaching for the weapon. But St Peter points towards him as if in warning. There is so much in this scene that I imagine resonated with Pope Francis, and that helps many of us to question our own lives.
As well as being the first Latin American to head the Catholic Church, Pope Francis was also the first Jesuit. This order, known as the Society of Jesus and founded in 1540 by St Ignatius of Loyola, believes that God can be found in all things and everywhere, from the natural world to simple acts of service towards others. There is no place too ordinary for the holy to dwell and daily life can be infused with spiritual significance. Caravaggio sets the calling of St Matthew in a tavern, a place easily associated with seedy dealings where one would not expect a divine encounter. But through his use of chiaroscuro, Caravaggio suggests, as Francis believed, that the transforming 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 no one ill-suited to play a part in altering the world for better. This is a beautiful perspective but strangely also one that can easily offend those who believe more in judgment than in grace. I imagine this is why Francis was a controversial figure. Whenever he sought to welcome and protect those whose lives and human rights were being threatened for a variety of reasons, many called him too liberal or too lax, or accused him of moving away from theological teachings.
He certainly was not perfect, as a man or in his ideologies. No one is. Like all of us, he must have had his own struggles, his own doubts about what to do at times. Caravaggio’s painting of Matthew shows a man grappling with conflicting desires: to maintain the status quo while also being able to accept the spiritual invitation to new life. The pope said of this painting: “It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me . . . he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze, and this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff.”
I think Pope Francis understood that he could have been any of the characters on the left side of Caravaggio’s painting. The ones too caught up in their own longings and ways of seeing to notice a calling to purposes 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 at transformation. The one ready to fight against an invitation to new life-giving possibilities because of the potential sacrifice. And the one who clearly recognises the value of the opportunity but still needs to find the courage to say yes.
Perhaps the pontiff also understood that he could be on the right side of Caravaggio’s painting too. He believed everyone was a child of God, no matter where they came from, what they looked like, who they loved, what they did with their bodies or what they did for a living. Everyone was like Jesus in that way, beloved. But I think Pope Francis recognised that he could stand where St Peter stood — Peter whose story is full of denials and redemption, as one who had a committed heart for God but who was not above making mistakes whether we saw that part of him or not. Maybe one of Francis’s gifts was being able to see himself as he was, but also as he could be.
Who knows how many times he stood or sat before this work of art. He seemed to understand that to see takes time, and that we must look again and again, not just at art but also at ourselves and at the world we help to shape. The more we can see, the more we can move towards the invitation to love: to act with love, to be received by love. That was ultimately what Matthew’s calling was about. And I think it is what Pope Francis was always trying to encourage the world — himself included — to aim for.
Enuma Okoro will be appearing at the FT Weekend Festival: US Edition in Washington DC on Saturday 10 May usftweekendfestival.live.ft.com
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