MUMBAI, India – Cardinal Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo says the Church in Japan is lamenting the death on Monday of Pope Francis.

“It is a great blow to the Church to lose such a strong pastor at this time when we are on the path to the Holy Year,” he told Crux.

He said he met Pope Francis in May 2013 at the Caritas Internationalis Board meeting, and he praised him for the things he did from the start of his papacy.

“Breaking with long standing tradition, Pope Francis decided not to live in the Apostolic Palace, so that he invited us into the chapel of his residence, Casa Santa Marta, and spoke directly with all the assembled Caritas members,” Kikuchi said.

“Gathering everyone together and listening to each other’s voices is the basic attitude of Pope Francis from the beginning of his pontificate that has led to the path of the Synod that followed. This basic attitude was clearly stated in his first Apostolic Exhortation, ‘The Joy of the Gospel,’ was embodied in the Encyclical, ‘Laudato Si’,’ and was firmly established in the management of the 16th Synod. The Church is now trying to make the path of the Synod, that is, listening to each other, supporting each other, and discerning the guidance of the Holy Spirit in prayer, as our standard attitude,” the cardinal said.

The Japanese cardinal noted that during the two Synod General Assembly meetings that he attended Pope Francis often repeated the words, “The Holy Spirit is the protagonist.”

“Church needs now is to listen obediently to the guidance of the Holy Spirit,” Kikuchi said.

He also remembered when Pope Francis visited Japan in November 2019, just before everything came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As Archbishop of Tokyo, I hosted Holy Father in the program in Tokyo, and especially when we rode around the Tokyo Dome in an open car together, I saw in him a pastor filled with love and mercy, waving to everyone gathered there with a smile of genuine joy and blessing the children,” the cardinal told Crux.

“The life-threatening crisis caused by the global infectious disease since 2020 and the frequent wars and armed conflicts have robbed people of tolerance and created a world in which exclusion, violence and despair have power,” he said.

“In response to this reality, Pope Francis has set the theme of the Holy Year of 2025 as ‘Pilgrims of Hope,’ and called on the Church to be a witness to the hope in Christ to the world by walking together and helping each other. A synodal Church is a missionary Church that bears witness to the hope of Christ,” Kikuchi explained.

The cardinal also spoke about his role as the head of Caritas Internationalis, the Catholic international aid agency.

“Our main concern as Caritas confederation is to protect all life, regardless of nationality or religion as we believe human life is sacred gift from God and that the dignity of the human person has to be protected without any exception,” he said.

Kikuchi spoke about the pope’s response to U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s comments on Church doctrine to justify President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration.

Francis wrote in his recent letter to the U.S. bishops, “the true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan, that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

“We do recognize the right of any government to review its foreign aid strategy,” the cardinal told Crux.

“As any governmental body with abundant budget could easily corrupt, it is the duty of any government in the world to correct such situation for the good of people. So we just want to believe that the policy change has been decided based on such good intention to better serve its own people,” he continued.

“However, in making any drastic change in policy, especially the policy affecting life of millions of people, should be done with caution and concern for precious gift of God, human dignity which has to be protected by all means,” Kikuchi said.

The cardinal about how Pope Francis at the very early stage of his pontificate had visited the Italian island of Lampedusa to meet and show his solidarity with refugees from Africa.

In his homily, the pontiff touched on another face of “compassion fatigue.”

“The culture of comfort, which makes us think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of other people, makes us live in soap bubbles which, however lovely, are insubstantial; they offer a fleeting and empty illusion which results in indifference to others; indeed, it even leads to the globalization of indifference. In this globalized world, we have fallen into globalized indifference,” he said.

Kikuchi said the “globalization of indifference” is an important theme when Pope Francis talks about the root causes of social injustice in the modern world, noting that in Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of Gospel), two other key words for the pontiff as he explores the root causes of social injustice are “exclusion and inequality.”

“All these concept of protect all life without any exception had great influence over the work of Caritas in all over the world,” the cardinal said.

“Also his call to be Synodal Church also has strong impact over the Caritas Confederation. We do not want to create discriminately structure of those giving and those receiving. Many a times, money dictates. We are inspired by Pope Francis to be Synodal which means, as brothers and sisters created by God, we are to walk and work together, assisting each other, listening to each other and pray together,” he added.

Pope Francis only created the Tokyo archbishop a cardinal on December 7 last year.

“I did not expect Holy Father to go away so fast so that I had even heard clearly how I would be able to support Holy Father as a cardinal. I would like to continue to walk the path he had showed us, following his example, while finding the role he expects me to play,” he said.

“In the wake of the passing of Pope Francis, let us express our gratitude for his many years of contributions to the Church and his guidance as a pastor, and pray together for his eternal rest, that he may be richly rewarded in the bosom of the Father,” Kikuchi said.