‘Very, very kind': St. Petersburg bishop remembers Pope Francis after his death
Bishop Gregory Parkes with the Diocese of St. Petersburg joined WFLA News Now at 11 to respond to Pope Francis' death and discuss how it impacted local parishioners.
Tributes from around the globe pour in for Pope Francis after his death
'To hear this morning that he passed away, it was a shock,' Parkes said, noting the Pope's health appeared to be improving after a recent lengthy hospitalization.
Parkes said local churches, Christ the King in Tampa and the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle in St. Pete, would hold mass on Monday morning to pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis.
Prior to the Pope's death, the bishop already planned a trip to the Vatican, which now falls during his funeral services. Parkes plans to attend his funeral mass.
Parkes, who has met Pope Francis on three occasions, described him as 'a grandfatherly figure … Very, very kind. Very warm.'
'Something people may not realize is he had a very good sense of humor,' Parkes said. 'I'm 6-foot-8, very tall, and the Holy Father noted that and asked me if I played basketball.'
Pope Francis' death leaves Catholics across the globe wondering what comes next. Parkes explained that Cardinals from around the world will gather in Rome to participate in a conclave to elect the next pope.
'We don't know when that's going to happen. A date for the Conclave hasn't been set yet, but it should be happening within the next couple of weeks,' Parkes said.
When asked if the next Pope will follow in Francis' footsteps, Parkes said that since Pope Francis appointed the majority of the Cardinals during his lengthy pontificate, some believe that they will be inclined to continue to move the church in that direction.
'We also believe that this process is guided by God's will and by the Holy Spirit, so you have to leave room, that it could be someone who goes in a completely different direction,' Parkes said.
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Even his signature issue — confronting the promise and peril posed by artificial intelligence — is something that conservatives and progressives alike agree is important. Francis' emphasis on caring for the environment and migrants often alienated conservatives. Closer to home, Leo offered the Holy See bureaucracy a reassuring, conciliatory message after Francis' occasionally authoritarian style rubbed some in the Vatican the wrong way. 'Popes come and go, but the Curia remains,' Leo told Vatican officials soon after his May 8 election. Leo, though, has cemented Francis' environmental legacy by celebrating the first-ever ecologically inspired Mass. He has furthered that legacy by giving the go-ahead for the Vatican to turn a 430-hectare (1,000-acre) field north of Rome into a vast solar farm that should generate enough electricity to meet Vatican City's needs and turn it into the world's first carbon-neutral state. 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From his very first appearance on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, Leo has insisted he is first and foremost a 'son of St. Augustine. ' It was a reference to the fifth century theological and devotional giant of early Christianity, St. Augustine of Hippo, who inspired the 13th century religious Augustinian order as a community of 'mendicant' friars. Advertisement Like the other big mendicant orders of the early church — the Franciscans, Dominicans and Carmelites — the Augustinians spread across Christian Europe over the centuries. Today, Augustinian spirituality is rooted in a deep interior life of prayer, living in community, and journeying together in search of truth in God. In nearly every speech or homily since his May 8 election, Leo has cited Augustine in one way or another. 'I see a kind of Augustinian flavor in the way that he's presenting all these things,' said Hughes, the theology professor who is an Augustine scholar. Leo joined the Augustinians after graduating from Augustinian-run Villanova, outside Philadelphia, and was twice elected its prior general. He has visited the Augustinian headquarters outside St. Peter's a few times since his election, and some wonder if he will invite some brothers to live with him in the Apostolic Palace to recreate the spirit of Augustinian community life there. Leo is also very much a product of the Francis papacy. Francis named Prevost bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014 and then moved him to head one of the most important Vatican jobs in 2023 — vetting bishop nominations. In retrospect, it seems Francis had his eye on Prevost as a possible successor. Given Francis' stump speech before the 2013 conclave that elected him pope, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio essentially described Prevost in identifying the church's mission today: He said the church was 'called to go outside of itself and go to the peripheries, not just geographic but also the existential peripheries.' Prevost, who hails from Chicago, spent his adult life as a missionary in Peru, eventually becoming bishop of Chiclayo. Advertisement 'He is the incarnation of the 'unity of difference,' because he comes from the center, but he lives in the peripheries,' said Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Cuda said during a recent conference hosted by Georgetown University that Leo encapsulated in 'word and gesture' the type of missionary church Francis promoted. That said, for all Leo owes to Bergoglio, the two didn't necessarily get along. Prevost has recounted that at one point when he was the Augustinian superior, the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires expressed interest in assigning an Augustinian priest to a specific job in his archdiocese. 'And I, as prior general, said 'I understand, Your Eminence, but he's got to do something else' and so I transferred him somewhere else,' Prevost told parishioners in his home state of Illinois in 2024. Prevost said he 'naively' thought the Francis wouldn't remember him after his 2013 election, and that regardless 'he'll never appoint me bishop' due to the disagreement. Bergoglio not only made him bishop, he laid the groundwork for Prevost to succeed him as pope, the first North American pope following the first South American.
