“Yes, we can sing: ‘Praised be You, my Lord, for our sister bodily death,'” said Pope Leo XIV on November 3, 2025, during a memorial Mass for Pope Francis and all the cardinals and bishops who died this year. More than six months after the Argentine pope’s death, his successor prayed for his soul, recalling that he had “lived, witnessed, and taught” the Christian hope of eternal life.
Every year, in the days following November 2, All Souls’ Day, the Bishop of Rome celebrates a Mass at the Vatican for all the cardinals and bishops who have died in the previous 12 months. This year, the list included eight cardinals, 134 archbishops and bishops, as well as Pope Francis, who died on April 21, 2025.
“O God, who called your servants, Pope Francis, the cardinals and bishops, to the episcopal order among the successors of the apostles, grant them also to share in their eternal communion,” recited Leo XIV in Latin at the beginning of this particularly solemn Mass.
Some 60 cardinals and bishops participated in the ceremony, celebrated at the altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica.
In his homily, the Pope once again referred to the “chosen soul” of the Argentine Pope, recalling that he died a few months after opening the Holy Door (on December 24, 2024) and the day after Easter, after giving his blessing to the world.
In these historic circumstances, marked by the jubilee year, Leo XIV considered that this Mass of suffrage for deceased pastors had “a special flavour: that of Christian hope.”
The Pope emphasized that the disciples of Jesus – whose successors in the Catholic Church are the bishops – experienced a “new hope” at the Resurrection.
Death, a “tamed” sister
This “Easter hope,” said the pontiff, can sometimes be misunderstood, especially when faced with a “violent death that strikes the innocent.”
“How many people – how many ‘little ones’! – still suffer today from the trauma of this atrocious death, disfigured by sin,” he lamented.
Leo XIV assured that God “does not want” this death and that He “sent His own Son into the world to deliver us from it.” He emphasized that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross allows us to hope “beyond the earthly horizon,” turning man towards God, “that height and depth from which the Sun rose to enlighten those who stand in darkness and in the shadow of death.”
The Pope recalled that Christians, strengthened by this hope in eternal life, have called burial places “cemeteries,” a word derived from the Greek koimētērion, originally meaning “dormitory.”
“The beloved Pope Francis and his brother cardinals and bishops, for whom we offer the Eucharistic sacrifice today, lived, witnessed and taught this new hope of Easter,” he assured.
“So yes, we can sing: ‘Praised be You, my Lord, for our sister bodily death,'” said Leo XIV, quoting the Canticle of the Creatures by St. Francis of Assisi, froma whom his predecessor took his name. “The love of Christ crucified and risen has transfigured death: from enemy, it has become sister; he has tamed it,” he concluded.
