Editor’s Note:
Pope Francis, the former Pope, passed away on April 21st, 2025. This publication invited Venerable Chang Hwa, who had multiple opportunities to meet with the Pope to write this special tribute reflecting on the Pope’s life and teachings to share with our readers.

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In June 2015, I represented our Sangha in attending the Vatican conference on “Suffering, Liberation, and Fraternity.” Pope Francis hoped participants would pool their wisdom to propose concrete action plans for “Healing, Reconciliation and Peace.” We were forty-five Buddhist and Catholic representatives from five major American cities, gathering at the Centro Mariapoli in Rome for five days of profound exchange.

Image by Vatican photography team

On the second day of the conference, despite his busy schedule, the Pope took time to receive us and shook hands with each representative present. The Buddhist representatives felt deeply moved by this warmth, while the Catholic representatives regarded it as an incomparable honor—many priests and nuns might never have the opportunity in their entire lives to meet the Pope up close, let alone shake his hand. The Pope’s compassionate smile and warm handshake seemed to bind all our hearts together. From that moment on, we seemed to shoulder a common mission—to work for the liberation from suffering and the attainment of happiness for all beings in the world!

Even more touching was that the Pope invited us again to take part in his interfaith joint prayer service in New York on September 25th of that year. That day, one thousand religious leaders from different faiths gathered at the 9/11 Memorial, solemnly awaiting the Pope’s arrival. We understood this location’s historical significance and our reason for gathering. As the representatives prayed together and listened to the Pope’s address, I profoundly felt the heart of a true religious leader—he led us to places where beings suffer, reminding us that these are precisely the places that need healing, reconciliation, and peace.

Image by Vatican photography team

The Pope embodied everything he spoke about through his actions. Following the June resolutions, religious representatives in the New York area also actively promoted interfaith cooperation. We organized monthly Buddhist-Catholic dialogues in Manhattan, sharing perspectives and practices from both religions on specific themes, discovering many resonances between us.

We also took part in the Catholic Church’s Green Affordable Housing project in Brooklyn with the help of Professor Donald W. Mitchell. The local diocese provided church land, and we provided ideas to build environmentally sustainable and spiritually supportive community housing for low-income or unhoused individuals. In April 2018, we again traveled to the Vatican to report this project to the Pope and received his approval. The project broke ground in 2020; we completed and opened it in April 2022, and we named the building after Pope Francis.

From 2015 to 2022, having the privilege of receiving Pope Francis’s teachings through both his words and actions gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation of my identity as a religious practitioner. Pope Francis was undoubtedly a modern exemplar of what Chan Buddhism calls  gao gao shan ding li, shen shen hai di xing (高高山頂立，深深海底行)—a phrase describing the ideal spiritual practitioner who stands on top of the maintains (with transcendent high wisdom) and walks down to the bottom of the ocean (with impartial compassionate engagement to the world.

On April 21st of this year, upon learning that Pope Francis had peacefully passed away, I wrote this tribute in New York with a heart full of gratitude—grateful that in this lifetime I had such precious encounters with this rare and deeply compassionate spiritual leader.

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