On April 15, a heartsick boy asked Pope Francis about his dead father and Pope consolidated him with a gentle hug. A touching scene was seen between the boy and Pope on Sunday as pontiff emphasized on prioritizing mercy. The name of the boy was Emanuele as Pope called him with this name.
The boy met the Pope at St. Paul during a papal visit. The question-answer session is a part of Pope’s visit to church kids and at that day in St. Paul, there were usual questions like, how did you feel when you first elected as Pope?
This event took place during the question-answer session of the Pope with the children of the church. In this session, Emanuele took the microphone and asked the Pope about his late father. Before Emanuele could speak he was frozen and was sobbing into his hands. When the Pope saw Emanuele sobbing, he encouraged him to come forward and whispered in his ear whatever he wanted to ask. After Emanuele whispered in Pope’s ear, he hugged Emanuele and after that, they had a little chat before Emanuele turned back to his seat.
Everyone was curious about the question asked by Emanuele. After that, the Pope told that Emanuele allowed him to share his question with everyone.
The Pope revealed that Emanuele was crying for his father who died recently. He said that his father was an atheist but had all of his kids baptized. Emanuele asked the Pope if his father was in heaven?
Francis further told that this boy had the courage to inherit his father and cry in front of all people. If a man had children like Emanuele, then surely the man would be a good man. For one, even though the man was not a believer and didn’t have faith, he still had all of his children baptized, so the man had a good heart.
Pope further said that it is up to God to decide who will go the heaven and also the God had a heart of a father. Then to make Emanuele feel better, the Pope asked the young boys and girls present in the audience if they think God would abandon a father like Emanuele’s, and everyone shouted “No.”
Later a translation was provided by the Catholic News Service and according to that translation, Pope said that God would surely be proud of a man who as a non-believer but baptized all of his children. In the past, the Pope also said that atheists can also be granted by the God.
Emanuele started crying when he asked a question about his late atheist father to Pope Francis.
Back in 2013, the Pope said that God has created all men equal and all of the men have a duty to do good and that’s what made them equal to the God. In a sermon, the Pope said that just do good with others and surely God will grant you. In May 2013, the Pope said that atheists are good if they do good deeds.
Pope Francis who is the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics said in a homily outside of his house that all religion can work together if people start doing good with the others. He made these comments in an answer to the question that if atheists had been granted by the God. In reply, the Pope said yes, everyone can be redeemed by the God. God assigned all of us the duty to do good and if we would do good with other, God would surely redeem us.
Pope Francis also commented on previous Pope Benedict, saying that according to him atheists are second believers to God.
The Pope also said that all of us all are children of God and we are created with the blood of Christ. And this blood will redeem all of us to God. This statement of the Pope was misinterpreted and an image was made viral in which it was written that the Pope told that for a person to be good, it is not necessary to believe in God.