Vladimir McTavish: Farewell to Pope Francis – a truly remarkable man

Pope Francis receives US vice president JD Vance at the Vatican on Sunday (Vatican Media via AP)

As a republican and an atheist, I normally have no time for the fawning and fabricated grief that routinely surrounds the deaths of members of the royal family or senior figures in the clergy.

But with this Pope, it’s different. There can be little argument that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, later Pope Francis, was a remarkable man who transcended the office he held. Becoming the head of the church was, for him, an opportunity to speak up for the poor and the marginalised.

I have no doubt Keir Starmer, caving in to Donald Trump and agreeing to a state visit will trot out the old cliche that “you may not respect the man, but you have to respect the office of president.”

No, you don’t. Respect has to be earned. With Francis, the opposite was true. Whatever you may think of Popes in general, you could not fail to have the deepest respect for this one-time winner of Freedom Fighter Of The Year.

He was not just a towering figure within the Catholic Church, which he did much to reform, but he had an enormous impact on the secular world, frequently critical of the USA.

He spoke more passionately about climate change and world peace than the elected politicians who will attend his funeral today.

He was more passionate in his support for refugees and more vocal in his criticism of Israeli butchery in Gaza than any Prime Minister or President. And with him it was not just words. As a former nightclub bouncer, had he been a few decades younger, he could easily have taken Trump or Netanyahu is a square-go.

It is probably totally unconnected, but one of his last public engagements was to grant an audience with US Vice-President JD Vance, a recent convert to Catholicism.

Was the VP sent on a mission to take him out? It didn’t work. Frail though he was, Francis was still prepared to look the face of evil eye-to-eye and shake him by the hand. A truly remarkable man.