NEW YORK (February 23, 2025) — Patrick Novecosky discussed Pope Francis’ failing health this morning with Sarah Williamson and Rob Astorino on Newsmax’s Wake Up America Weekend.
Pope Francis has been “very different” from his predecessors in many ways, including with some stances in which some Catholics don’t agree, but in other ways, he has been a “breath of fresh air,” Novecosky said. “At this point in his life, we really want to remember his legacy in a positive light as much as possible and hope that his end is positive.”
The Vatican reported Sunday that Pope Francis, 88, had a restful night while remaining in critical condition following a respiratory crisis and blood transfusions. He is hospitalized with a complex lung condition.
“We’re all praying for Pope Francis,” Novecosky said. “One day, we don’t know when he will meet the Lord Jesus and we pray that it’s a happy meeting as we pray for all of our church leaders.”
He added that Catholics will also pray for the cardinals who will gather at some time in the future to elect Pope Francis’ successor.
Novecosky recalled being at the Vatican when Pope Francis was elected.
“As a matter of fact, I was one of the closest lay people to him when he stepped out for the first time in 2013,” he said. “I met him again in 2016 and actually made him laugh out loud.”
He said one of the things he noticed right away was that Pope Francis was different than others.
“I went to an audience that he held specifically for journalists, and he started hugging people at the end of the audience,” he said. “I mean, you don’t see a Pope hugging people in public. So I knew right away that this was a different sort of Pope.”
Meanwhile, Novecosky said that Pope Francis can’t be looked at through the lens of American politics to determine if he is liberal or conservative.”He said, ‘Abortion is like hiring a hitman to take care of a problem,'” he said. “But on things like the Latin Mass, he kind put the kibosh on celebrating [it] and that would put him in the liberal category.”
Pope Francis also comes “from a culture that’s been imbued with socialism,” said Novecosky.
He noted that Pope Francis came through the Jesuit seminary in the 1960s, at a time that was “probably the worst possible formation of the last 100 years” for the order.
“John Paul the Second actually had to remove the head of the Jesuits in the leader of the Jesuits, not the actual head, but the leader of the Jesuits in the early 1980s, because the Jesuits had gone so far off the left end that there was no pulling them back except to take radical measures,” he said.
Pope Francis also says things off the cuff, leaving the Vatican to explain what he meant to say, said Novecosky.
“We have to recognize that when the Pope says something kind of off the cuff, it’s his opinion and he’s got opinions on everything like most of us do,” he said. “We’re free to agree or disagree with those types of statements. He’s saying them as Jose Bergoglio, Jorge Bergoglio, not as Pope Francis the authoritarian.”
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