![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61097c4c7ba7286a2b2d05da/7d764b42-647c-421a-810c-e075d7a1900e/494DD521-163F-4881-951F-F8EA0057024A.jpg)
Blog
![‘The Hour of the People: Pope Francis and the post-Covid moment’](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61097c4c7ba7286a2b2d05da/1637692398029-6XVYCQUEM85UTN7ZRCF7/19FE11AC-EAEA-4E47-AB96-820859A4B6D6.jpg)
‘The Hour of the People: Pope Francis and the post-Covid moment’
A lecture I was invited to give by Zoom to the Archdiocese of Boston’s Social Justice Convocation on November 13, 2021. I was given a warm welcome by Cardinal Sean O’Malley and Fr Bryan Hehir gave a thoughtful response. At the heart of the talk is what I describe as a shift in Francis’s reading of the signs of the times following the outbreak of the pandemic. From a sombre view of the direction of history prior to March 2020, the Pope began to discern a new hope in what he saw as an awakening “from below” of fraternity and solidarity in the world. I see Let Us Dream, his address to the popular movements and his calling of the global synod as signs of what I call “the hour of the people”, and spell out some of the implications for the Church’s pastoral ministry.