Hey, there're folks in this episode. He lived eighty eight years, but Pope France has saved his best for last. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. When I say robes best for last. When I say last, I mean the last two and a half months of his life that we watched in a very intimate way and watched it very closely day and day out. And I guess you could say Robes in two and a half months of his life. The last two and a
half months. Things went from dire to miraculous, to triumphant to shocking, but every step of the way there was an inspiration he gave us. In the last two and a half months.
It's so true.
We were just reflecting doing the morning run every morning. We were giving those constant updates, and we were holding our breath each morning when we woke up to see what the latest was with the Pope. So we were rooting as the world was for him and in awe of his ability to recover from what he was battling double pneumonia at the age of eighty eight. I mean
that is significant. He nearly died twice and then he gets out of the hospital, and his doctors say, rest, take care of yourself, don't expose yourself to other people, crowds, children. And you know what the Pope did. He said, Nah, I'm gonna do what I love. I'm going to serve, and in doing so, I don't I know this might I know this is true. He taught us how to live by how he died in these last few months.
And it should be said, folks, you're listening to two folks here. Who's one grew up Catholic. But I'm not gonna put words in your mouth. I think you say this.
You call yourself a I call myself a recovering Catholic.
Yes, okay, put words in your mouth. And I am a black man from the South who grew up going to the Church of Christ. Right, So I no Catholic anything in my lane. But it doesn't matter if you're religious, if you're Catholic, if you're Christian, if you're whatever. There's a lesson he taught everybody, it felt like, and part of that was that there seemed to be a separation between the Pope as a religious figure and Frances as
a man. For some reason, because he does feel like the Pope whoever it is, feels like a larger than life character. He was really humanized the past two and a half months by a lot of what he did, you know.
And I totally agree with what you're saying because and we don't and I don't mean to minimize any impact he had on so many marginalized communities while he was at his best, at his strongest, perhaps physically, these strides he made towards the LGBTQ plus communities, the even women within the Catholic Church. He was open and welcoming to
people in a way we hadn't necessarily seen. However, I just feel like in these last few months, we did see this man who struggled just like every other human being on the planet, anyone who has known pain, anyone who has known chronic disease, anyone who has feared that they were going to die, that they were that weak that they couldn't get up in the morning.
He was that to all of us.
And he actually talked about how he felt closer more empathetic to anyone who was suffering because of the physical suffering he was going through in these past two months, and it just it humanized him. He was like all of us and to see him push through and fight to live, to serve, not for his own personal interests, but to continue to serve.
Even if you the lessons he taught us about death than what we all have to go through will go through so many of us still, even if that's a long way off. We've had grandparents, we've had family members that we have watched kind of physically deteriorate in a lot of ways and don't come back. Folks don't check into the hospital at eighty eight with double pneumonia and check out. It's almost never, I just don't. So this was and for us this morning, and folks don't know
we do put together daily newscast podcast morning run. So when he first went to the hospital February fourteenth, every day for the next thirty eight days we gave an update on how the prope was doing. It was the first thing every morning when we woke up, what's going on with the pope. And most of the time there were eight nine word statements from the Vatican only saying he slept well, he got some food, holl at you tomorrow, and then on the rare days they did fourteen words.
It was huge, big mornings. Wow, we got fourteen words from the Vatican. But there were times we looked when they said double pneumonia. And that was early because he went in for bronchitis, right, Yes, it was very soon after they said double pneumonia. We didn't think, Okay, wow, this is this is over.
Momentum is a hard thing to turn around, and especially when you're eighty eight years old and you are sliding into death, which is what it absolutely appeared to be happening. That Yes, we might have only gotten eight or nine words, but you could read between the lines that this was not going well for the pope. So yes, we were all holding I think people around the world were collectively holding their breath, but expecting that it was his time.
And so how interesting that he pushed through that pain, He fought to live, His nurse fought for him when doctors had given up. So you saw this ground swell of support that came from the outside but also from within him, and you thought, he's going to do something
like this is important. He lived to see another day because of and then to see him get through the holiest week in the Catholic calendar, to actually get out and mingle and be with the people who he loved, the people who are not the heroes and the important people of the world, but the inmates and the prisoners of Rome's prisons. But to reach out the way Jesus did to the less fortunate. He was still able to do that, and to have him be able to have that final Easter blessing, that is a miracle.
And I'm sure if I've heard of it before, but this is a man who refused to die on his deathbed. He was on his deathbed at the hospital. That was it. It really was. I don't care what nothing. Yes, he got out of the hospital, but that was his deathbed moment. He was not supposed to leave the hospital. And it's bizarre that we always talk about what people in there.
I don't know. Something happens to somebody when they're younger at twenty thirty four and they go through something physical and they go through a health crisis, and you always talk with people fighting to live. They just want more time. They're fighting to live. This dude, it feels like he
was fighting to live just long enough. Like he and maybe God, if you're religious, were the only two that understood the assignment and what was happening, and he fought to live as long as he needed to for what he wanted to do, for what he thinks probably God called him to do, and maybe for what the faithful needed from him. But it's as I asked, you, can you think of another celebrity of some death anywhere where it seemed as poetic as this one? I can't think of one.
We actually really did try to sit and think with that, and nothing came to mind, because I loved how you put that it was a poetic death and the fact.
That he got and it was such a busy day for him on Easter, he was he was working.
Not only did he make that appearance at the balcony and give that Easter blessing, but he also went down in the popemobile and.
Was there with the people.
Can you imagine being in the crowd and having seen him that one last time, not knowing it was going to be his last. And before all of that, he met with Vice President JD. Vance and we don't know exactly what was said, but certainly he was at odds with the Trump administration immigration policy and certainly made his last message about finding peace with the war in Gaza.
So I don't know what that conversation was like, but he's made no bones about how he feels about some of the administration's decisions.
So perhaps it was a little testy. Perhaps it was a.
Little I mean, I can't imagine he wouldn't have or he would have held back.
And that's okay, that's wonderful. We can sit look at that, the Pope and JD. Vans are sitting next to each other having a conversation. It's okay. These two knocked heads on a bunch of issues. That's fine, and that's why I wanted to and you and I were talking about putting this together. And there are biographies out there that people will be doing, the what we call the the.
Oh bids, the obituaries where you go through Pope Francis was born in Yes.
No, and it's not necessary and too much of that. And I'm not gonna mention a single thing that's been said on social media with people already doing their thing right when it comes to this man. They want to talk about religion, they want to talk about history, they want to talk about all politics and fighting back and
forth and once again pitting sides against each other. No, can't we just look at and can we not just trust that this was maybe a decent dude who did the best he could, and he might have some opinions you don't agree with, but his was a life of service and it was not more on display. He literally died to serve. What if he listened to the doctor's orders and didn't keep rolling around out there for the past month since he got out of the hospital. How
much longer could he have had life? I don't know, but that would have meant some people might not have had the easter they had yesterday. That's service. And why can't we just honor the man and forget everything? Can we just take him at give him benefit of the doubt. This is a good guy, yeah, and leave it at that.
I got chills when you were talking because I was imagining all the people who are in hospitals, all the people who are dying, and we're all dying, yes, but some of us are closer than others. And we realized that all the people who were suffering, all the people who had wake up with pain, who wake up with fear, who wake up with all of those things that the pope was experiencing, and they had him to look to
and look towards and watch him lead the way. And that is so inspirational until you're in a situation where you feel powerless or maybe even hopeless, sometimes both. Sometimes it just takes one person that you see in your same boat or on that same path, and they do it anyway, and they get up anyway, and they keep praying, and they keep pushing, and they keep doing and being even in pain, and.
I just I cannot.
It actually brings me to tears to think about the impact that he has had and hopefully we'll continue to have on all of us who will, Yes, if we haven't already walked down that path, we'll be walking down that path at one point. And to think about how he handled himself and how he inspired us, and how I mean, really he showed courage like that to me is the epitome of courage.
How do you I mean, even if you don't get the same result he showed, it's worth It was worth it to stick around for another month. It was worth it. And I said to you, Cyril, because we every single day we did this with the Pope, and when we got an updated and something sounded positive, and again we might not have expressed it fully during the podcast, but sometimes we did. But we were overjoyed and it was like, whoa, this guy is going to get out of the hospital.
Who I'm telling you, He's going to show up to Saint Peter's and it's going to be a huge moment.
You remember. And then it happened.
And then it happened, and now I kind of forgot that he was even sick. I'm like, oh, he's on the mend. If he's doing this, all right, he is going to recad. I didn't anticipate death.
No, we were both shocked this morning.
I mean we actually it's very rare that we're speechless, but we were typing away working on the podcast this morning and we heard it announced on CNN.
I believe, and it it.
Actually it shocked us to the point where we just stopped doing what we were doing.
It shocked us to the point partly because of how it was delivered. Look, I don't know who that person might have been, that young lady was, but it was the newscast had started at the top of the hour, and the lead story I kind of remember it might have been about the billess Wayne and Bilizueln immigrants.
It might have been that in Hegsath, I think it was. They were doing like a double headline about politics in the United States and our immigration policies, and Hegseath's group chat, and all of a sudden it switches to the other anchor and she quietly she.
Simply, it was a weird delivery up to where we didn't think it was real because obviously, wait, we didn't miss that. The breaking news alerts hadn't come online yet, And she just says in a very calm voice, like nothing had happened.
Pope Francis.
Francis died overnight the age of eighty eight. Wait what we thought she was wrong? We didn't think we were hearing it right.
I wanted to hear like the big, cold open breaking news just into you know, our broadcast center.
But no, none of that. It was actually kind of interesting, it was. It came in with a whisper.
Almost it was jarring how quiet it was at the time, and look, a lot happens and knew who knows how she got the information in her ear and how it went about, but that is how we got the news. And of course frantically started looking for Vatican statements and all this, which we eventually found, but it was we have and robe. This is not a I mean for both of us. We have covered popes in the past, We've covered stories in the past about you're always covering
in some way, form or fashion. I have never felt as connected or invested in the papacy as I did with this guy over the past two and a half months. I agree with you because there were lessons and I was watching a display of heroism and service that had nothing to do with religion and had nothing to do with the pope. I was amazed at what he was able to do. And we should remind you that we didn't find out un till later, but he was essentially
near death twice in the hospital. They were saying, he's one of the times, like you, said the nurse, but the doctors had made a decision to stop doing treatment, so that was it. And then his personal nurse said, nope, you fight and you keep going to the end, do whatever you gotta do, and look what it got us. I just I don't I hate when it delves into and starts immediately going into something other than this just was a decent guy. But then somebody immediately wants to say, well,
his view on this was blah blahlah blah. So he's the worst pope ever. I don't want to rest in peace that kind of stuff is flowing. Can we not just for anything? Even the Pope? Just give him the benefit of the doubt. He was a decent guy, did his best. He was human, He made some mistakes, he hasd some opinions you differ with, But damn how you not applaud what this guy pulls off in a lifetime and in the last two and a half months of his life.
Correct And you know, you pointed out that you don't have to look at the pope. This may sound funny through a religious lens, because for me, when I saw his devotion, it was more about faith. And we all have faith in something whatever, whether it's in yourself, in the universe, in your God, in your religion, but religion. Take that out of it and make this about faith and about following through on your faith and being the person and striving to be the best person and be
willing to learn and being willing to evolve. We definitely saw this from the Pope throughout his papacy, but certainly in the last few months, and I am he was, and this is where he was constant. He was always about serving the marginalized, always about being the voice for people who didn't have any And I will always appreciate that from him because we.
Need more leaders. That is the role.
That is why we do and have leaders in this world to represent people who can't speak up for themselves, who don't have power. And I really do feel like, regardless of how you think of the Pope's policies or his beliefs, he did that consistently.
It didn't feel like lip service at all. He's not a politician necessarily, even though some would argue he's a political figure. But we see so many politicians not calling anybody out. But it seems to be lip service. It seems to be they show up in this community on a certain day to get a photo op. They'll go stand with a group of black children and rah, and they'll go over here with this group and righth Rah.
This guy has been washing the feet of prisoners for years. Yep. Okay, you can call that a photo op if you want to. But he showed up Thursday last Thursday at a prison he's been to before, and actually said to them, I would like to do it, but I'm not in good enough health to wash your feet today, but please know I want to and I wanted to be with you on this day. And he still showed up.
Yeah, it was Holy Thursday. It was just last week. And you know the other thing.
While he was in the hospital, we didn't get a lot of specific information, but the one thing we got every single day he made a phone call. He had a can to that parish in Gaza, and he made a phone call to check in on them to see how they were doing. Every single day he was in the hospital, according to the Vatican, we kept getting these updates and in a perhaps pretty cool full circle moment.
And this isn't to have any opinion about what's going on in the Middle East, because that has certainly caused so much, yes, discord among many people. But one of his last message read by his associate or by his assistant, was for peace, for peace in the Middle East, for the cease fire to take place, for the hostages to all be released, for the prisoners to be released, to allow people to have a free and peaceful existence.
Poor a guy who's dying, by the way, this is what he's he continued, on his mind, that was on his mind every day in the hospital. He's calling somebody else to check on them.
That tells you. That tells you everything you need to know. That tells you everything you need to know.
And it was it was this.
We've covered so many stories in our lives, and we've gone to the stories, We've flown around the world, we've been right there where things are happening, and yet funny enough, just given the power of what we watched and witnessed over the last two months, I like to you to your point, I feel more connected to him and more invested in his last few months than I have in really covering a lot of other events, because I just it was real, it was raw, it was human, and
it's something that we could all relate to. It wasn't for show.
Is it wild to say, maybe you can relate to it. Maybe a lot of people can't. I didn't feel sad, like tears came to my eyes and it was a little overwhelming, and it was a little shoulders slumped a little bit, But this was a beautiful death. If it's if you can say that anybody lives eighty eight years, Congratulations right, you don't necessarily that's the celebration of a life live that long, anybody makes it that far. But the way it almost feels like he wrote his own death,
like this is the way I wanted to go. It's incredible what this was. This is then the thing I likened it too. I was trying to think of a
celebrity death. This is I have a personal connection to this One's so why this one jumps out Chadwick Boseman and I say it only in this way is that we had no idea what he was going through, and he showed up every day, He did his work, he smiled, he hugged those kids, he took those pictures, he did everything in service of it seemed like something he understood at least what he was, and he didn't want to
be a distraction anyway. What the only thing I can get close to liking into is just someone who put what they were going through a side for the sake of the moment, for the sake of who they are, for the sake of understanding what they meant to other people. Yes, the Pope and the guy who played Black Panther, obviously
there are differences. So I'm not trying to say that on the same level, but for the Pope to now I look at it in this way, he put his life on the line to serve God, to serve the church, to serve a community, serve the world. He literally put his life on the line. Just goes. I said it on the one of the podcasts, Dude, please just go stop hugging kids, right he went through this, Please go rest please, I said, Yeah, first time I see a little kid cofing next to him, I'm a freak out.
Now we don't know what ultimately happened here, details will come, but it couldn't have helped.
No, no, I mean he was actually with a child specifically, you could see him touching and kids, which was a very specific.
Request from the doctor's crowds and kids. Big no, nos.
He We're all trying to avoid that, right.
For a lot of reasons. And we don't have compromised immune systems. We're just in the hospital for thirty eight days. Kids, I always say this, are living walking petri dishes of germs. So yes, anyone who was a school aged kid knows you're gonna get sick a ton until they get through those elementary school days. So yes, that is not anything anyone should be exposed to, let alone an eighty eight year old pope who just got out of the hospital with.
There are plenty of pictures of him the past couple of weeks.
Hugging yesterday, yes yesterday, in the popemobile, touching, but it's just who he was. It's how he connected with people and is what made him so beloved by so many because he did. I love the way you put that. I thought that is actually a beautiful analogy of someone who put their own physical pain and their own personal discomfort aside to do what they know or knew was the right way forward that would affect and impact the most people in the best way, and they put what
they wanted or what they might have needed. I'm sure there were plenty of moments where he wanted to die, where he was probably willing to give up, But I just think it's another it's a you know what, I look at it like this too. So many of us have had moments and we'll have more to come where we want to give up, and he just showed that you can keep fighting and getting another day, getting another week, getting another moment with someone where you can have an impact.
Is worth it. It's worth the fight.
And when I think of him and I think about what he did, I think about not giving up. I will remember him. I will remember what he did in these last few months the next time I'm feeling hopeless, the next time I'm feeling helpless, and think about the power of staying in the fight, the power of not giving up, the power of just giving. I think he is a shining, beautiful example that I hope we can all remember. And yeah, this just felt like the right
podcast to do. We were talking about wanting, wanting to discuss his life and his death, and traditionally you and I would have if we were at a network, we would have written or we would have read a an entirely long written obituary.
Right we'd be on a plane of roam right now.
We know that. But but I just think talking about the the emotional impact and the I just I am. I am so blown away by the lessons that now the more I think about it, the more they're there right in front of me of what he gave the world, and and everyone personally can choose to take what they'd like from it.
But I know I am going to walk away from today with.
A a clearer head, a sharper focus, and a bigger heart.
I can't believe. I really can't. And it was how emotionally invested it got into the pope. There are celebrity deaths that impact us all. I think if you would have told me in January news came across Hope passed away overnight, we'd have done the story it had been what it was. That's sad for the faithful. We move off fine. The way this happened had me so emotionally invested in this guy in this moment that I can't even quite understand it, but absolutely the lessons he's not
talking to your point. We look, we've had we all have them. Somebody's going to have him today. You had them this weekend. Whatever setback it may be, and we've had plenty in recent days and weeks we haven't talked about from a professional standpoint, physical of emotional, all kinds of setbacks that just what life is This guy in the past two and a half months has every single day because we've been reporting on it, has been a new reminder every day of just what do you think
your problems are? And the way he served. That's what they always say. If you're down or depressed, you know how you can get out of it, Go be in service to somebody else. And this guy just displayed it in a way. And I would you say, as well, yesterday, at least on Easter, he didn't look as good or as healthy. It's yeah year a ring right. He didn't look as good or as healthy yesterday as he did that first appearance he made at the hospital. He didn't
look great, but he weighed. I remember interacting with one woman down in the bottom. But then that second appearance he made as surprise, we were like, whoa, well he had apparatus on in one and then he went the one where he didn't have.
He took off the breathing apparatus.
Yeah, he made a previous appearance that wow, he looked on the mend.
We were hopeful.
Then yesterday I didn't think it. When I saw the pictures, I didn't think anything of okay, he's not doing as well. Fine, then the news is man this morning, so twenty five to thirty five.
To thirty five Eastern time, he's okay.
East times. When he passed a lot of people didn't not get in the news until they woke up this morning, and it was a shocker.
It was a shocker, But I just I think it's so appropriate that he ended up passing on Easter Monday and he got to completely lead his flock through Easter Sunday. And that's a beautiful way to end a beautiful life and a beautiful papacy. And I would love as we're wrapping up, because I don't know how many people, I hope all of you check out Morning Run every day, but we always do a quote of the day. And I went and I looked, and he's got plenty of
quotes out there. But I love TJ that you pointed me in the direction of something you directly heard from him last week when he was at that prison where he wanted to wash the feet of those inmates but he couldn't. But you know, reporters were shouting questions at him, and one reporter asked him how he planned to spend his Easter and his quote was, I am living as I can.
Wow.
Can it be our answer to everything? Okay? So what are you gonna do? How you doing? What are you gonna do? I'm gonna do what I can. I'm gonna do the best I can. Whatever I'm allowed to do, I'm going to do it. That was a man who accepted where he was at the time. We talked all the time, what living like tomorrow's not gonna come, Living like this is your last day? Like it doesn't seem like that's practical to do every day because it was my last day, I would go rise and road coaches
and go have some margerita. He can't do that necessarily, But in his role, he looked like a guy who knew he was about to die. He actually he looked like a guy who knew exactly when he was going to die. Because you don't put in a Sunday as an eighty eight year old just got over double pneumonia out of the hospital after a month. You don't put in a day a work day like that. I don't put in a work day like that on a healthy day. It was insane. His day was crazy, how busy he was.
How cool was it that that was his last day too? It's I love that it wasn't he knew it. He wasn't in a hospital bed.
And look that happens, and that that sometimes you can't avoid that, And that's that is how plenty of people end up having to go, which is you know, but I you just said something that that is just the lesson. There's so many lessons, but this one acceptance, acceptance, surrender. He was. He fought, he pushed, he did what he could, but he accepted where he was. And isn't that so
important for all of us to do. We're not always going to be at our best, our strongest, and a lot of times we might be at our worst, but there is a point in which we accept where we are and we do the best we can.
You can live how you can. So so look forward. Resists the urge to get caught up in anything related to this guy other than what we just witnessed over the past two and a half months. As a guy, as a man who happened to be in a position to have the spotlight. He happened to be in a position to have a role, but that had nothing to do with the example necessarily that he said, you can set that example. I can, we all can, and how we live, and that's what he did. I don't think
whose line is that. That's Jim Valvano, right, Jim Valvano with the v Foundation ESPN. They do all the time. He said that in that classic, that historic now speech, you beat cancer by how you live. The Pope didn't have cancer here, but he set an example and how he lived. How do you beat old age, how do you beat disease? How do you beat these things? Look at how you live. I'm never gonna think about this guy as a sickly old man who just withered away
on his deathbed. Never, this dude went out with a fight, and I don't. That's exactly how I want to go. Is that somebody saw me out on a roller coaster, or serving meals or kicking it or doing or working, doing exactly what you're supposed to do and exactly what you love. And then the next day, what today's dead. That's that part. I just saw him yesterday. That's how you should go.
So thank you, Pope Francis for showing us in how he died, how to live. And I know that I will be taking that with me today and hopefully for the rest of my days to come. So we hope you appreciated this episode in honor of Pope Francis, and we hope you live like you're dying today and for the rest of your days to come, but thank you for being with us and we'll hopefully see you on the run one day soon.