Like St. John Paul II, pope shows untiring will to serve, says cardinal

ROME (CNS) -- Like St. John Paul II, Pope Francis knows the "cross of Christ is never abandoned" and that everything is in God's hands, said Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who was the late pope's personal secretary for 39 years.

Pope Francis is showing the church this conviction "with admirable strength and an inexhaustible will to serve," he told the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, March 5. "We cannot but be deeply grateful to him because not only the church, but the whole world needs him."

The 85-year-old retired archbishop of Kraków, Poland, recalled how when St. John Paul was quickly deteriorating due to Parkinson's disease, he still served the church from his bedroom of the Apostolic Palace to the very end, when he passed away April 2, 2005, at the age of 84.

Now, 20 years later, "the same thing is being done by Pope Francis from Gemelli (hospital). We love to believe that he will never give up," he said, since Pope Francis knows like his predecessor, to carry Christ's cross "and that everything is in the hands of the Lord."

The Polish and the Argentine pope are "advanced in years, struggling with serious disabling illnesses, unable to speak in public because of speaking problems, forced to communicate with words written and read by their collaborators in homilies and the Angelus," the cardinal said.

Despite it all, neither abdicated from leading the church, he said. Both are "witnesses to a theology of physical pain and an ill body, which has an impact on everyone, believers and nonbelievers alike," he said.

The whole world is surrounding Pope Francis "with warmth and affection," he said. "Millions are praying for his healing," and the whole church "is symbolically standing by Pope Francis' bedside with prayer and hope that divine grace can restore his health."

"We are like children praying for their father," he said.

However, Pope Francis is also "the highest moral figure who cares about the fate of all of humanity," Cardinal Dziwisz said. "The whole world needs him. Let us pray that God will grant him the gift of healing and preserve him for us for a long time."