Sallie Bingham

 
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The Heavens Shed a Tear

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Photo of Pope Francis

Pope Francis in 2023. Wikipedia.

The death Monday, the day after the Resurrection, of the people’s pope brings universal sadness but also for me a sense of great gratitude for what he was and what he stood for in spite of mighty resistance: an inclusive church, showing love for all, as he did. The day before his death, he visited prisoners in Rome, too weak to do the foot washing he always did on Maundy Thursday but not too weak to spend a little time with each man. And, when asked what he thought about differently gendered people, he said, “Who am I to judge?”

It seems unlikely that the deeply conservative church will elect someone as rare as he was—but a sign of hope that only cardinals under age eighty, about thirty percent of them, will be allowed to vote, perhaps they are more likely to embrace the inclusiveness that was his hallmark and the legacy he will leave behind.

It doesn’t matter what brand of faith you aspire to or if, like a majority in this country, you claim no faith at all—although with our increasing unhappiness and loneliness this will change. For, after all, the obsession with accumulating that has been the official faith of this country for at least the last fifty years will now run up against price constraints that may give us all a chance to breath and look for faith in another direction.

The death of the people's pope brings universal sadness but also for me a sense of great gratitude for what he was and what he stood for in spite of mighty resistance.
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A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

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