Vatican News video screengrab / Youtube
CV NEWS FEED // Shortly before his death, Pope Francis left a pair of his shoes to Los Angeles-based Catholic broadcaster Noel Díaz as a final personal gesture in a years-long friendship.
Díaz, founder of the Spanish-language Catholic media network ESNE, had developed a close rapport with the pope after first meeting him in 2016 aboard the papal plane, Angelus News reported. During that encounter, Díaz — who had once shined shoes on the streets of Tijuana — presented Pope Francis with a replica of his childhood shoeshine box and asked to shine the pope’s shoes.
“At the end, I told him, ‘I’m not a journalist. I’m an evangelist,’” Díaz told Angelus News.
After that meeting, Pope Francis invited Díaz to visit him. Over the next eight years, the two met regularly. In one of their last private meetings in 2023, the pope gave Díaz his shoes as a gift. The shoes were black, visibly worn, and creased.
Díaz said the shoes represented “a Church moving beyond its own doors to reach those who are marginalized.”
Díaz, who grew up in poverty in Tijuana, crossed into the US without documents. He later became a legal resident. In 1984, he started ESNE with a group of friends. Today, he leads a network operating in 20 countries. Despite the network’s size, he also works as an optician and takes no salary from the ESNE ministry.
“I have two jobs, and they both have to do with helping people see better — spiritually and physically,” he told Angelus News.
In 2021, Díaz recorded an unreleased interview with Pope Francis about the apostle Peter. In the video, the pope reflected on Peter’s flaws and the pastoral nature of his mission.
“When Jesus anoints him bishop, priest, he anoints him because he is a shepherd,” Pope Francis said in the interview. “He doesn’t anoint him to promote him, in order for him to be the head of an office. He doesn’t anoint him to organize the country politically. No, he anoints him to be a pastor.”
Díaz initially withheld the video to avoid misinterpretation of the pope’s remarks but later shared it with Vatican officials. The Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications released the video on Vatican News after Díaz gave his permission.
Díaz learned of the pope’s death from a Vatican priest shortly after it occurred. He traveled to Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral and spent time in prayer beside the pope’s casket.
“I was remembering every time I’ve met with him and it was very emotional,” he said.
He also noted that while he is grateful that Pope Francis is no longer suffering, he feels the absence of a spiritual father figure.
