VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Death should not be seen as the end of life but as the beginning of eternity, Pope Francis said in words he wrote only days before his final hospitalisation in the preface to a book due to be published this week.
The 88-year old pontiff died on Monday after suffering a stroke and cardiac arrest, ending an often turbulent reign in which he repeatedly clashed with traditionalists and championed the poor and marginalised.
The pontiff spent five weeks in hospital earlier this year for double pneumonia. But he returned to his Vatican home almost a month ago and had appeared to be recovering.
“Death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something. It is a new beginning… because eternal life, which those who love already begin to experience on earth, is the beginning of something that will never end,” Francis wrote in the book on old age by Italian cardinal Angelo Scola.
“For this reason, that (death) is a ‘new’ beginning, because we will live something we have never fully lived before: eternity,” he added.
Francis, the first Latin American head of the Roman Catholic Church, had repeatedly said during his pontificate that death was not a topic that should be avoided.
In a message to young people gathering in Mexico City in 2019, he said “the question of death is the question of life”, emphasising that facing the topic helped people to truly appreciate the value of life.
(Reporting by Giulia Segreti; Editing by Gareth Jones)
