Editorial: People’s Pope

Pope Francis embodied humility, compassion and a quiet but persistent defiance of the Vatican’s ossified traditions

Pope Francis, who passed away on Easter Monday, was truly a people’s Pope, lending his voice to the marginalised and the poor. He was the spiritual guide to the 1.3 billion faithful around the world with the heart of a reformer who ushered in internal changes in the catholic church to make it more inclusive. The first Latin American pontiff, Mario Bergoglio was, in many ways, the most unconventional Pope of modern times. From the time he took over as Pope in 2013, he embodied humility, compassion and a quiet but persistent defiance of the Vatican’s ossified traditions. He rejected papal opulence and chose the name “Francis” after the saint of the poor. His papacy would be remembered for focusing on mercy over rigid judgment, inclusion over exclusion and the marginalised over the powerful. He will be remembered as the pope who washed the feet of prisoners, lived in a guesthouse instead of the Apostolic Palace, and embraced LGBTQ+ Catholics, migrants and climate action with moral clarity. Pope Francis reminded us that true power lies in humility. His call for a “Church of the poor, for the poor” will resonate for generations. His papacy signalled a new vision for the Church, one that would embrace the outcast and the marginalised. Pope Francis always stood for the disenfranchised and the disempowered, travelling around the world to urge peace, justice and reconciliation. In fact, his last address on Easter Sunday called for disarmament and lamented the “deplorable humanitarian situation” in Gaza and the plight of immigrants, and called for a cease-fire and release of hostages.

Francis rose from modest means in Argentina to become the first Latin American pontiff and clashed with traditionalists in his push for a more inclusive Roman Catholic Church. He was also the first Pope to steadfastly support the efforts on climate change and the rights of LGBT community. He used his papacy to help inspire global efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. He took significant measures to address the church’s sexual abuse crisis. True to his roots as a humble champion of the poor, he left a will asking that his tomb be “simple, without particular decoration.” Francis framed climate change as a spiritual issue, emphasising the connections between global warming, poverty and social upheaval. Before Pope Francis, climate change was seen either as a political issue or a scientific issue. While his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI believed in the concentration of authority in Rome, Francis emphasised a decentralised approach. The Pope actively sought to forge ties with the Islamic world. For his supporters, decentralisation brought the prospect of change that they had thirsted for over decades. Throughout his 12-year papacy, Francis was a change agent, having inherited a Vatican in disarray in 2013 after the stunning resignation of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, a standard-bearer of Roman Catholic conservatism.

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