Thank you Pope Francis

Rome (Italy). On 12 April 2025, at the age of 88 and after 12 years of Pontificate, Pope Francis left earthly life. Making the announcement was Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, Camerlengo of Holy Roman Church:

“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome returned to the house of the Father. His whole life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and the Church.”

The Superior General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Mother Chiara Cazzuola, on her way to Vietnam, on behalf of all the FMA, sent a message of condolence to the Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin:

Eminence,

In learning with deep sorrow, the news that the Holy Father Francis, today 21 April 2025, Monday of the Octave of Easter, has returned to the House of the Father, in my name and of the entire Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, I assure of our prayers for him.

I thank the Lord for the gift he has been to humanity and to the universal Church.

Our Founders, Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello, have left us a legacy of love for the Pope as Vicar of Christ.

At this moment, we feel in communion with the whole Church and with those who have experienced in Pope Francis a sign of God’s Mercy that embraces everyone without distinction.

In many circumstances as an Institute, we experienced his paternal closeness and his affectionate and encouraging guidance, but especially in the meeting with the participants of the XXIV General Chapter in Rome at the Generalate on 22 October 2021. His words now resonate as a testament to our religious family: “The great responsibility is to collaborate with the creativity of the Holy Spirit, to revisit the charism and make it express its vitality in today. From this comes true ‘youth’, because the Spirit makes all things new… Do not forget the grace of the origins, the humility and the smallness of the beginnings that made transparent the action of God in the life and in the message of those who, full of wonder, began this journey. Mary Help will help you: you are her daughters!”

We assure you of our intense prayer full of hope, that the Risen Lord may give him life without end and all humanity the peace for which he has so often invoked.