[Originally published in De Moines Register]

The last time we met with Pope Francis in 2024, as representatives of AMOS, A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy, and our colleagues from the South and West Industrial Areas Foundation, the nation’s largest and longest-standing community organizing network, he counseled us to not lose our sense of humor and quoted St. Thomas More’s Prayer for Good Humor:

“Grant me, oh Lord, a sense of good humor.”

That was classic Francis in his remarkable pontificate. It was the honor of our lifetimes to be part of these intimate conversations with the Holy Father.
On three separate occasions, for over 90 minutes each time, a delegation of 15 or so of us sat together in a large circle, facing one another in the pope’s private residence. Each time we shared our passions, our grief and ultimately our hope for a better world, through the stories and reflections of our work in all of our cities across the United States, including Des Moines.

The meetings all happened in the late afternoon at the end of a work week where one would expect a certain amount of fatigue from the world’s most famous religious leader in the ninth decade of his life. Instead we were treated to an astounding level of attentiveness, good humor and generosity.

Francis was a very good listener. He leaned forward as we told our stories. He leaned forward when Edgar Cage, an African-American leader from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, spoke of growing up in the segregated South. He leaned in when Sylvia Camacho told of her fight for water and sewage treatment in the unincorporated “colonias” of south Texas. He leaned when Rabbi Lindner described how his life and rabbinate had been changed by our interfaith organizing efforts in his Phoenix community.

He listened. He often followed up with questions, sometimes with counsel and always with sly humor and a twinkle of the eye.

Perhaps what is most remarkable about Francis’ leadership is how unremarkable it was in tone and spirit. He spoke softly yet it had real force behind it. He shunned the trappings of pomp and circumstance. He chose the simple dormitory as his residence. He ate in the common cafeteria with his fellow priests. He primarily spoke up for the powerless. He was a gracious, unassuming, humble man; the embodiment of what it means to be a servant. And yet, he made a giant, outsized impact on the world. 

As we left our final meeting with Francis, we slowly stood and shook hands, knowing it would probably be our last conversation with him. The room felt heavy, yet hopeful. He probably sensed that and told us, for the last 40 years of his life, each day, he read More’s Prayer of Good Humor. Read it today in honor of this most remarkable man:

Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest. Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it. Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil, but rather finds the means to put things back in their place. Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments, nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called “I.” Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor. Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy,and to be able to share it with others.

Paul Turner is a Regional Supervisor with the South and West Industrial Areas Foundation and former Lead Organizer of AMOS, A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy. Sally Boeckholt is a member of First Unitarian Church-Des Moines and a longtime AMOS leader.

West/Southwest IAF delegation meets with Pope Francis in 2023

West/Southwest IAF delegation meets with Pope Francis in 2022

What Pope Francis Revealed in our Chats About Des Moines and Other Cities | Opinion, Des Moines Register [pdf]