Monday, April 21, 2025, 9:10 a.m. — (Wilmington, Delaware) — The Most Reverend William E. Koenig, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, has released the following statement on the occasion of the death of His Holiness, Pope Francis:
The faithful of the Diocese of Wilmington mourn the passing today of our Holy Father, Pope Francis. Yesterday, in what would be his last message to us, the Holy Father addressed those in Saint Peter’s Square celebrating Easter and reminded us that Jesus and his resurrection from the dead “fills us with the certainty that we too are called to share in the life that knows no end.” It is with this sure and certain hope that we entrust our beloved Holy Father into the “strong and mighty hand” of God.
As the 266th successor of St. Peter and the first pope from Latin America, Pope Francis succeeded Pope Benedict XVI who, due to declining health and the physical and mental demands of the papacy, became the first pope in 600 years to resign the papacy.
In his remarks on the eve of the start of the 2013 conclave wherein the College of Cardinals were to elect him to succeed Pope Benedict, he called his brother cardinals to especially see that the church “is called to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents and all misery.”
His desire to bring the church to the peripheries has been witnessed to by the more than 45 papal trips he made over the twelve years of his papacy, his calling for the 2016 Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, his encyclical letters, teachings and messages on the ecology and environmental justice, his designation that the 16th General Assembly of the Synod be focused on synodality and be a time for clergy and laity from throughout the world to listen to and discern the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and his creation of new cardinals from diverse areas from throughout the world. Perhaps the image that most captured the vision that shaped Pope Francis’ papacy was that the church was called to serve God and the world as a field hospital whose mission was to care for the wounded.
As we mourn the passing of Pope Francis and prayerfully entrust him to the mercy of God, we are reminded of words of Pope Francis in announcing the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope: “The death and resurrection of Jesus is the heart of our faith and the basis of our hope … Christian hope consists precisely in this: that in facing death, which appears to be the end of everything, we have the certainty that, thanks to the grace of Christ imparted to us in baptism, ‘life is changed, not ended’, forever. Buried with Christ in baptism, we receive in his resurrection the gift of a new life that breaks down the walls of death, making it a passage to eternity” (SNC, 20).
With the gratitude of the faithful of Wilmington for his selfless service to the universal church and personal gratitude for appointing me the tenth Bishop of the Diocese of Wilmington, we especially join in prayer that Pope Francis’ passage to eternity may be completed and eternal light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace.
Bishop Koenig will celebrate a special Mass in honor of the passing of the Holy Father on Monday, April 28, 2025, at 12:10 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. Peter, Sixth and North West Streets, in Wilmington. The public is invited to attend. The Mass will be live-streamed on the Diocese of Wilmington’s YouTube channel – YouTube.com/DioceseofW.