Vatican City, Jul 12, 2020 / 04:50 am (CNA).- Pope Francis expressed his sadness Sunday after Turkey’s decision to convert the former Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia back into a mosque.
In improvised remarks after reciting the Angelus, the pope recalled that July 12 is Sea Sunday, when the worldwide Church prays for seafarers.
“And the sea carries me a little farther away in my thoughts: to Istanbul. I think of Hagia Sophia, and I am very saddened,” he said, according to an unofficial translation provided by the Holy See Press Office.
The pope appeared to be referring to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to sign a decree July 10 turning the sixth-century edifice into an Islamic place of worship.
The presidential decree was signed within hours of a court ruling Friday, which declared unlawful an 80-year old government decree which converted the building from a mosque into a museum.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians, has said that the building’s prior status as a museum made it “the symbolic place of encounter, dialogue, solidarity and mutual understanding between Christianity and Islam.”
In a June 30 homily, he said that Hagia Sophia, a UNESCO World Heritage site, belongs “belongs not only to those who own it at the moment, but to all humanity.”
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Pope Francis at the Wednesday general audience on Dec. 28, 2022. / Credit: Vatican Media.
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Pope Francis blesses the faithful at the Jubilee of the Sick in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, on April 6, 2025, as his personal nurse, Massimo Strappetti, assists him in the wheelchair. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 23, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).
Having cared for the aging Pope Francis as his personal nurse since 2022, Italian nurse Massimiliano Strappetti was among the few people who saw the Holy Father moments before his death on Easter Monday.
Before being appointed Pope Francis’ personal nurse in August 2022, Strappetti was the nursing coordinator for the Vatican’s health department. He started working in the Vatican in 2002 after having worked eight years in the intensive care unit of Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
Pope Francis is seen with his personal nurse, Massimo Strappetti, at the Jubilee of the Sick in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, Sunday, April 6, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Strappetti’s appointment came very soon after he accompanied the Holy Father on a difficult apostolic journey to Canada from July 24–30, 2022. Throughout 2022, the Holy Father struggled with knee problems.
From August 2022 onward, Strappetti would be seen by the pope’s side at almost every one of the pontiff’s public appearances, including his weekly Wednesday general audiences and Sunday Angelus addresses in Rome and the Vatican as well as on his several apostolic journeys abroad.
The pope’s last words and final greetings were reportedly addressed to Strappetti, the man he trusted to care for him throughout the multiple illnesses and health emergencies he endured in the last years of his life.
“Thank you for bringing me back to the Square,” the pope is reported to have told the nurse. Stappetti, a husband and father known for his generosity toward others, brought the Holy Father in a wheelchair to the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver his final Easter Sunday urbi et orbi address on April 20.
After the blessing, the pope turned to Strappetti for his opinion, asking: “Do you think I can manage it?” before going down to the square to greet the 50,000 people from his popemobile, Vatican News reported.
The next day, the pope’s health began to deteriorate at around 5:30 a.m. on Easter Monday morning. An hour later, the Holy Father made a “gesture of farewell with his hand” to Strappetti before falling into a coma, after suffering a stroke, in his bed in his Casa Santa Marta apartment, Vatican News reported.
Strappetti closely accompanied the 88-year-old pope during his convalescence in the Vatican by providing round-the-clock care for the pope in his home following his March 23 release from the hospital after 38 days in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Dr. Sergio Alfieri, head of the Gemelli Hospital’s medical team that cared for the pope, said they followed the pope’s clear order, through Strappetti, to “try everything, let’s not give up” during two critical moments when they needed to decide whether to continue or stop treatment.
Prior to working more closely with the Holy Father as his personal health care assistant, Strappetti was among the medical staff who, in the summer of 2021, advised the pope to undergo testing regarding issues with his colon. On July 4 of that year, the Holy Father underwent a three-hour operation that removed part of his colon.
Later in 2021, following the colon operation and 11-day hospitalization in Gemelli, Pope Francis praised Strappetti as “a man with a lot of experience” who “saved my life,” in an interview with Spanish radio station COPE.
“Now I can eat everything, which was not possible before with the diverticula. I can eat everything. I still have the postoperative medications, because the brain has to register that it has 33 centimeters [12 inches] less intestine,” the pope quipped in the interview.
What a consolation the Holy Father’s stirring words must be to our Orthodox brethren! Also, I sure the Turkish government is meeting right now to consider how to respond to such a strong rebuke. Rumor has it that ownership may be transferred to the Patriarch. How blessed we are to have such a champion as our leader.
What a consolation the Holy Father’s stirring words must be to our Orthodox brethren! Also, I sure the Turkish government is meeting right now to consider how to respond to such a strong rebuke. Rumor has it that ownership may be transferred to the Patriarch. How blessed we are to have such a champion as our leader.
Encounter, dialogue, solidarity, and mutual understanding are vital for a healthy world-building.