Cardinal Timothy Dolan Responds To The Death Of Pope Francis

Forbes Breaking News

Cardinal Timothy Dolan reacts to Pope Francis’s death at  St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, New York.

Transcript

00:00Good morning everybody, have a nice day.

00:30Happy Easter.

00:32Thanks for showing up.

00:34Oh, there they are.

00:36Happy Easter, everybody.

00:37Good morning.

00:39Thank you for showing up.

00:40This gives me the chance to express publicly the sadness that we all feel at the passing

00:46of our beloved Holy Father, Pope Francis.

00:49And yet, also to try to give some expression to the hope that was crystallized yesterday

00:55morning, Easter morning, the hope of the resurrection.

00:59And to express gratitude to all of you and to this community that already is beginning

01:06to express sympathy and condolences to the Catholic family.

01:10So thank you.

01:12Can I just, look, I'm not much if I'm not a preacher.

01:16So here's the scoop.

01:18Get this.

01:19I get up.

01:21Joe Zwilling, my faithful communications man, wakes me up a little after four to tell me the

01:28somber news that the Holy Father had gone to the Lord.

01:31And so I turn to the Bible.

01:36We priests and bishops make a promise that every day we say what we call our divine office.

01:41And listen, here's the reading for today.

01:44It comes from St. Peter, whom we Catholics cherished as the first pope, the first bishop of Rome, named

01:53by Jesus when he said, you are Peter.

01:55And on this rock, I will build my church and I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

02:00Listen what Peter writes.

02:02Praise be the God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us new birth,

02:09a birth unto hope which draws its life from the resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

02:15a birth to an imperishable inheritance, incapable of fading or defilement, which is kept in heaven for you.

02:22Is that not providential, Joe?

02:24Is that not providential?

02:26That would be the passage from the Holy Bible that we would contemplate on this Easter Monday.

02:33And it says it all.

02:35This is, you know, in Italy, they call this la festa degli angeli, lunati degli angeli, the Monday of the angels, the day after Easter,

02:47because this is the day that the angels, we remember the angels announcing the resurrection.

02:52And remember what the angels said to the women.

02:54Why are you looking for the living among the dead?

02:57We're convinced that even though Pope Francis has passed over, passed over from this life to the next, he still lives.

03:06He still lives.

03:07Even though we have rock solid confidence in the mercy of Jesus, we never take it for granted.

03:13So we ask mercy upon his noble, eternal soul.

03:17You bet we do.

03:18He'd want us to.

03:19He was such an eloquent preacher in divine mercy.

03:22But we also offer gratitude to God for the gift, the gift that he was.

03:27We don't call him Holy Father for nothing.

03:30He's the father of our family.

03:32And there's a death in the family.

03:34And we're saddened.

03:36We use a Latin phrase these days, starting about five hours ago.

03:42Sede Bacante, the chair is empty.

03:47The empty chair.

03:49The chair of Peter is empty.

03:52Sede Bacante.

03:54All right.

03:55That's the chair he sat in when he visited New York.

03:59That's his portrait, obviously.

04:01That's the cross he carried.

04:03The chalice, the chalice that he gave me.

04:06Remember at Madison Square Garden?

04:08That's the chalice he gave me.

04:09So we have vivid, grateful memories of him.

04:12And I'm just so happy that you all are here.

04:15We couldn't, we can never choreograph our own birth or death, can we?

04:21That's always in God's hands.

04:23But if you could choreograph it, you couldn't choreograph it any better.

04:28Than what happened.

04:30The last time we saw him, Easter Sunday.

04:33The last words of blessed Easter, as he gave us his blessing.

04:38You couldn't, the day that we believe Jesus rose from the dead and shares that victory with us.

04:44In which we trust by divine mercy.

04:46Pope Francis now shares an abundance.

04:49You couldn't have choreographed it better.

04:51And we thank him for that.

04:53The way he lived and the way he died, he was a great teacher.

04:57A great teacher, a great teacher, which the Pope is always called to be.

05:02Thank you again for being here.

05:03Stick with me in the coming days if I can be of any service to you.

05:07Because I just appreciate you and the possibility of speaking to the wider community.

05:12Thank you, everybody.

05:13Joe, what do you do now?

05:15Question or two?

05:16Yes.

05:17Hi, Juliet.

05:18How you been?

05:19I'm okay.

05:20How are you?

05:21Likewise.

05:22Thank you very much.

05:23Happy Passover.

05:24Happy Easter.

05:25If you could talk about his stewardship and what he meant to Catholics and what he brought

05:31to the papacy.

05:32I love that word stewardship.

05:34Thanks for using it.

05:35Stewardship means we're aware, gratefully aware of the gifts that God has given us.

05:39Humbly aware.

05:40And we try to use it to the best of our ability.

05:43And he was a wonderful steward of the gifts that God gave him.

05:49I remember right after I was there in 2013 at the conclave and we elected him.

05:54And when we all left after we had blessed the crowd and we went over the Doma Santa Marta

05:59for lunch, and obviously he did the opening prayer, but before he's looking out at all

06:05of us and he says, God forgive you for what you did.

06:09So there was a humility and a sense of humor there from the beginning.

06:14Those were gifts that he had.

06:16He'd be the first to admit, you know, when you think of the towering intellects of John

06:21Paul II and Benedict XVI.

06:24He'd be the first to admit that perhaps the abundant gifts that God had given him were

06:29evident elsewhere in his simplicity, in his humility, in his easy going-ness.

06:35These were, these were, boy, these were gifts that he stewarded so well.

06:43But yet here's a, here's a biggie too.

06:46He taught us, he taught us at the end by allowing us to watch him die.

06:52He taught us that, he taught us that who we are is more important than what we can do.

07:01He couldn't do much.

07:02He could barely raise his hand yesterday.

07:04Did you see?

07:05He could barely speak.

07:07He couldn't do much.

07:08But what he was as a child of God created in God's image and likeness, destined for all eternity,

07:16given the high office of the successor of Peter, what he was was so much more important than what he could do.

07:24All right.

07:25He did a lot, believe me.

07:27But in those final months, I think that's when he had the most eloquent pulpit ever.

07:31So, thanks.

07:33All right.

07:34Good question.

07:35Yeah, thank you.

07:36What's the next step for you?

07:37When do you go to Rome?

07:39The next step for me is to pack.

07:41All right.

07:42So, this is interesting because I was to leave for Rome tomorrow anyway with about 200 pilgrims

07:49from the Archdiocese of New York at the invitation of Pope Francis.

07:53This is the Jubilee year, 2025.

07:55Pope Francis had invited people from all over the world to visit the city of Peter and Paul.

08:00So, I said, let's go.

08:02Let's take the invitation of Pope Francis seriously.

08:04So, we start our pilgrimage.

08:06I'm leaving tomorrow on that pilgrimage.

08:08So, kind of providential, kind of opportune.

08:12Is there any schedule yet for conflict?

08:15No.

08:16No.

08:17We got a text.

08:18See how modern, we used to get telegrams.

08:21We got a text announcing to the College of Cardinals that the Holy Father had passed

08:26over.

08:27But we haven't gotten any other further information on the protocol.

08:31The protocol is pretty well set down, as you know.

08:33There will be some days of mourning.

08:35The funeral continued days of mourning.

08:38The Cardinals would then meet in what they call the congregational meetings every day.

08:42And the conclave would then begin.

08:44So, thank you everybody.

08:46Stick with me.

08:47Anybody bring donuts or anything?

08:50Cardinal Dolan, can I ask you a question?

08:52If you can just share a personal memory that you had.

08:55Your face sort of lit up when you talked about the chalice that he gave you.

08:58Yeah, see.

08:59What do you fondly remember?

09:00We've heard you talk about him as the head of the church, right?

09:03But what about you on a personal level?

09:05I remember when he called me when my mom died.

09:09I remember when he called me during COVID to find out how God's people here in New York were doing.

09:17I remember when I was in Rome on October 7th after the vicious attack on the people of Israel.

09:26When he called me when we were there together, he called me up at the Senate and he said,

09:32How is the Jewish community in New York?

09:36And give them my love and my solidarity.

09:39These are, I remember when I first was over in Rome after he was Pope,

09:45when I told him about my brother-in-law, Fred, who was dying of cancer.

09:50And he said, I will write him a note.

09:53Tell me what to write him in English.

09:55I remember that note being near Fred's casket when he died.

09:59Those are those touching moments.

10:01He was a real father, see?

10:02Yeah.

10:03He's a successor of Peter, but he's also our Holy Father.

10:06Thanks for asking.

10:09All right.

10:10Any other, just one more question?

10:12Was she the dean or what?

10:13You're like Helen Thomas at the greenhouse or something.

10:16I'll take that.

10:18Any recollections that you have of his visit to New York?

10:21What that was like?

10:22Yeah, you know, see, he had never been to New York before.

10:24Right.

10:25And he was, he was overwhelmed.

10:27He was overwhelmed just by the size of the city.

10:30And he, I remember when I was jammed into the back of that little Fiat,

10:34he, he said, what are all those buildings?

10:36They said, Holy Father, that's where people live.

10:38And he was just looking right.

10:40He was also, he was also amazed at the enthusiastic reception that he got.

10:46He said, I remember as we got out of the Popemobile in front of St. Patrick's after that tumultuous drive down Fifth Avenue.

10:55He said, I thought Americans didn't like religion.

10:58That was the caricature that we have.

11:00We know how different.

11:02That's not true at all.

11:03He was overwhelmed by the warmth and the embrace of the city.

11:06And some personal memories.

11:08I'll be thinking of a lot of them.

11:10All right.

11:11Thank you very much.

11:13All right.

11:43That's amazing.

11:44I heard you.

11:45I got a movement.

11:49What you get?

11:50I appreciate it.

11:53You're welcome.

11:54I appreciate it.

11:56Oh my God, no.

12:00Yeah, sure.

12:02I hope I wasn't in the way.

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