Pope Francis gifts his Presidential Medal of Freedom to Buenos Aires cathedral
The Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to Pope Francis. / Credit: Courtesy of Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires/Screenshot Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mar 19, 2025 / 15:45 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis has gifted the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to him by former U.S. President Joe Biden to the metropolitan cathedral of Buenos Aires.
The medal is the highest honor given to a civilian by the United States, which the former president in January, before leaving office, decided to bestow upon the Holy Father, announcing the award by telephone.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction recognizes “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant social, public, or private endeavors” and has been awarded only 55 times.
In presenting the award to the apostolic nuncio to the United States, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the White House noted that Jorge Bergoglio “for decades served the voiceless and vulnerable across Argentina. As Pope Francis, his mission of serving the poor has never ceased. A loving pastor, he joyfully answers children’s questions about God. A challenging teacher, he commands us to fight for peace and protect the planet. A welcoming leader, he reaches out to different faiths.”
“The first pope from the Southern Hemisphere, Pope Francis is unlike any who came before. Above all, he is the People’s Pope — a light of faith, hope, and love that shines brightly across the world,” the White House stated at the time.
Addressing the pontiff on X, Biden said “your humility and your grace are beyond words, and your love for all is unparalleled. As the People’s Pope, you are a light of faith, hope, and love that shines brightly across the world. Today, it was my honor to award His Holiness Pope Francis the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.”
After receiving this recognition, the Holy Father decided to send the medal to the Buenos Aires cathedral, where he served as archbishop and cardinal primate until the conclave that elected him the successor of Peter in 2013.
The cathedral’s ceremony to receive the medal took place on March 13, the 12th anniversary of Pope Francis’ election, during a Mass of thanksgiving for his pontificate.
Upon receiving it, Father Alejandro Russo, rector of the cathedral, said: “Note how today we view this award that the pope has received from President Biden of the United States as a symbol, simply beyond any nation that could have done so, and any president who could do so.”
“The pope must accompany, lead, and preside over the Church and the sheep of Christ’s flock. But it is also the pope’s role, as the clear presence of the voice of Jesus Christ in time, to bring the mystery and preaching of the Gospel through justice and peace, through human elements, but which are certainly clear conditions for the life and establishment of the Gospel in time to the rest of the world,” he explained.
The Holy Father, he added, “preaches, brings justice, peace, and truth to all areas of life. The Holy Father is present in the various situations of conflict, and the Holy Father is present in the preaching of justice and truth in the various area of public life, when he is invited, when he visits, when he is in different realities. And the Holy Father is present there, also giving a new imprint to this preaching, to this landing of the kingdom in the temporal.”
“Wanting to take away this mission from the Church, wanting to take away this mission of preaching justice and truth, is wanting to separate her from the mission that Jesus himself gave her. Wanting the pope to remain available only inside St. Peter’s Basilica, merely to issue rules and regulate the internal life of the Church, is wanting to obscure the figure of the pastor, the figure of the representative of Jesus that Christ himself intended,” Russo noted.
“And so we give thanks on this 12th anniversary, receiving this award. But we give thanks because Pope Francis had the courage to preach justice, to preach the truth, to be present in armed conflicts to try to help resolve them; that Pope Francis also had the courage to make it an issue throughout the world the ecological care of our common home; that Pope Francis had the courage to bring the preaching of the Gospel into the temporal realm,” he summarized.
“We ask God then, in these days, as we continue to pray for the pope, that he may continue to recover, for the presence of Pope Francis in the Catholic Church,” Russo prayed, and quoting the archbishop of Buenos Aires, he prayed “that oxygen may be taken in by the pope’s lungs, that the pope, who, thank God, gave so much oxygen to the Church, may be healed.”
This is the second time a pope has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The first was presented by George W. Bush to John Paul II during a visit to the Vatican in 2004.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
