The Pope and the Pandemic

Catholic Media Association Award Winner   /  Pope Francis   “When leaders live up to their solemn responsibilities and commitments, they can be the difference between light and darkness, hope and despair, life and death for the people whom they have the privilege of serving and protecting. In the final analysis, true leadership is forged in the vicarious crucible of crisis.”   Through an examination of Pope Francis’s words and actions during the coronavirus pandemic, Fr. Orobator finds a model of leadership for a suffering world.   Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator is dean and professor of theology at Santa Clara University, CA. He grew up in Benin City, Nigeria, practicing traditional African religion. After visiting the local Jesuit parish as a teen for Easter vigil Mass, he became enamored with Catholicism and the Jesuit Order. He saw the works of the American Jesuits as fully devoted to the service of others, resonant of an African anthropology of Ubuntu that teaches “a person is a pers