@Orthocat I fear that when one looks out over the course of human history, and especially at very critical, portentous, and world-cataclysmic times such as this age in which we live today, one will find that men — and women — like Pope Francis often are able mysteriously to maintain and hold on to the spark of life far, far longer than most other men (or women) in this world are capable of. Somehow they are able to defy and beat back the dark shadow of death that, for anyone else, would extinguish life’s spark and clip the cord that connects them to their earthly existence, even as they are assaulted by illnesses and afflictions. They seem to have some sort of diabolically supernatural energy that enhances their life-sustaining abilities against all odds; clawing for that very last breath and expanding their lifetime beyond what should otherwise be reasonably hoped for. And, to our great bewilderment and often galling disappointment, clearly the Lord allows it to be so. Thus, I’m not quite certain that we will soon be bidding His Holiness farewell, with the hopeful and greatly anticipated convening of a new Papal Conclave to elect the next Vicar of Christ on Earth. Things have a way of not “working out” the way we think is best. Personally, I believe we have a great deal more suffering to do — a much more intensely painful passion that we must share with Our Lord before we see the Light of victory, a season of horrific spiritual suffering for the whole Church which will occur whether or not Pope Francis is sitting upon the Throne of Saint Peter. His demise is not the sole answer to the Church’s monumentally vast array of deeply rooted problems, although I do believe it must start there: with a holy and zealous Roman Pontiff. But the absence of Pope Francis will not bring the salvation and deliverance we so desperately seek and need. That would be far too convenient of a solution.