Fr. Roger J. Landry
The Anchor
Editorial
March 7, 2025
Since Pope Francis was admitted to the Gemelli Hospital on February 14 — and especially since news that his condition was quite serious, with bronchitis, double-pneumonia, problems with kidney function, an episode of bronchiospams, aspiration, and mechanical ventilation — the entire Catholic family has been praying for him, joined by other Christians and non-Christians.
The most conspicuous form of those prayers for the Holy Father has been taking place each night in St. Peter’s Square, where a member of the college of Cardinals leads thousands present in the recitation of the Holy Rosary, imploring the intercession of our Lady Health of the Sick and Mother of the Church, as we turn with her to the Divine Physician, the blessed Fruit of her womb, for his vicar on earth.
It likewise took the form of Vice-President J.D. Vance’s publicly praying for him and his medical staff at the National Catholic Prayer breakfast last Friday in Washington, DC. Vance quoted at length Pope Francis’ homily on Jesus’ calming the storm at sea from an empty St. Peter’s Square during the worst of the COVID epidemic, as he praised and encouraged the “thousands of faithful Catholics in this room and millions of faithful Catholics in this country who are praying for [the pope] as he weathers his particular storm.”
Pope Francis on Sunday, in his Angelus message that was read for him to faithful who had assembled in St. Peter’s Square, expressed his appreciation for this indispensable spiritual support.
“I would like to thank you for the prayers, which rise up to the Lord from many parts of the world,” he stated. “I feel all your affection and closeness and, at this particular time, I feel as if I am ‘carried’ and supported by all God’s people. Thank you all!”
Since the beginning of his Pontificate, the twelfth anniversary of which will take place next Thursday, the 266th Peter has been making plain just how much he needs our prayers.
“I ask you to pray to the Lord that he will bless me,” he humbly implored the multitudes as he bowed his head in silence before a hushed St. Peter’s Square.
After giving us his blessing, he thanked us, wished us a good night, and repeated the petition, “Pray for me.”
He has been insistently asking us to pray for him ever since.
In his first airplane press conference, returning from World Youth Day in Brazil four months after his election, an inquiring journalist asked why he so often asked us for prayers. “We’re not used to hearing a Pope ask so often that people pray for him,” the reporter declared.
Pope Francis replied: “Because I sense that if the Lord does not help in this work of assisting the People of God to go forward, it can’t be done. I am truly conscious of my many limitations, with so many problems, and I am a sinner, as you know, and I have to ask for this. But it comes from within! I ask Our Lady, too, to pray to the Lord for me. It is a habit … that comes from my heart and also a real need in terms of my work.”
The Church, of course, prays for the Pope in every Mass from the rising of the sun to its setting. With 407,000 priests in the world, celebrating one or more Masses every day, the Pope likely has 600,000 to a million Masses being offered for him each day, with an average of about 20,000 Masses taking place every half hour across the time zones.
Since his hospitalization and the worsening of his condition, many of those Masses have used the prayers of the Mass that can be offered for the Pope in the Roman Missal. The three options of the Opening Prayer (or “Collect”) of that Mass are beautiful and certainly fitting to be recited by the faithful in their personal or communal prayers:
“O God, who in your providential design willed that your Church be built upon blessed Peter, whom you set over the other Apostles, look with favor, we pray, on Francis our Pope, and grant that he, whom you have made Peter’s successor, may be for your people a visible source and foundation of unity in faith and of communion.”
“O God, shepherd and ruler of all the faithful, look favorably on your servant Francis, whom you have set at the head of your Church as her shepherd; grant, we pray, that by word and example, he may be of service to those over whom he presides so that, together with the flock entrusted to his care, he may come to everlasting life.”
“O God, who chose your servant Francis in succession to the Apostle Peter as shepherd of the whole flock, look favorably on the supplications of your people and grant that, as Vicar of Christ on earth, he may confirm his brethren and that the whole Church may be in communion with him in the bond of unity, love and peace, so that in you, the shepherd of souls, all may know the truth and attain life eternal.”
Catholics, similarly, pray for the Pope in the petitions of the Liturgy of the Hours, at the beginning and end of the Rosary, and in various other spontaneous supplications made to the One whom he serves as earthly vicar.
The ancient prayer for the Pope, chanted regularly in the Vatican in Latin and found in prayer books and hymnals, is paraphrased from Ps 41:3: “May the Lord preserve him, give him a long life, make him blessed upon the earth, and not hand him over to the power of his enemies.”
The last part of the prayer is a blunt acknowledgement that some make themselves enemies of the Pope, like the warring leaders who twice kidnapped the popes and others, like Hitler, who schemed to do so, or the governments and terrorist groups that have sought to oppose and assassinate him. But it’s also an acknowledgement of the “principalities,” “powers,” “rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph 6:12) that similarly oppose him and all he and the Church stand for.
That’s why Jesus himself prayed for the first Pope personally on Holy Thursday, reminding him that Satan has desired to sift him like wheat. Christ prayed that Peter’s faith might not fail but he, in turn, might strengthen his brothers and sisters (Lk 22:31). To follow Jesus means, likewise, to imitate him in praying for the Peter and his successors.
In every papacy, there are some who are better at complaining about the Pope than praying for him. To pray for the Pope does not mean that one approves of every decision he’s made or even necessarily the general direction of his papacy. But it does mean that, as loyal spiritual sons and daughters, we conscious of the call to pray for our spiritual father more than protest.
It’s a sign that we recognize a fundamental Christian duty: if we’re called to love even enemies, pray for persecutors and do good to malefactors, we are certainly called to love, pray for and do good to our Holy Father.
That’s why, during the prayers of the Rosary in St. Peter’s Square, the appearance of some cardinals who have criticized or been criticized by the Holy Father is a sign of magnanimity, not to mention basic Catholic identity, faith and charity. Now is a time for the entire Catholic family to be united in sincere prayer.
In the Acts of the Apostles, when St. Peter was imprisoned, “prayer by the Church was fervently being made to God on his behalf,” leading eventually to the fisherman’s miraculous liberation (Acts 12:1-17).
Pope Francis is not bound by chains and bars in a Jerusalem prison, though he is sequestered on the tenth floor of a Roman hospital with arms bound to intravenous antibiotics and his nose filled with oxygen pumping cannulas.
It’s a time for the whole Church to pray to God fervently on his behalf for his liberation, so that just like Peter returned to the disciples gathered in prayer to continue his mission in leading them, so the praying Church now might experience the same gift — either on earth through his continued guidance, or, by God’s mercy, through his heavenly intercession with all his saintly predecessors.