The news of Pope Francis’s death is still settling in. It’s hard to imagine our world without him — especially in this time of great division and conflict, where freedom and flourishing seem to be at bay.
Yet his message throughout his ministry was to dare each of us to dream that life in its fullest — with a message of freedom and flourishing for all — was within reach, if we each leaned in to do our part.
He was a shepherd who “smelled like his sheep,” a moral leader who walked with the wounded, a bridge-builder in a time when so many chose walls. He was, like his namesake St. Francis of Assisi, a man disarmed of ego, disinterested in status and devoted — above all — to mercy.
For many, he was also the world’s most recognizable faith leader. But it was how he used that visibility that set him apart: not for doctrinal combat, not for political advantage, but to lift up the stories of our poorest neighbors, particularly those excluded and displaced, and to invite others to do likewise.
For his thirteen-year papacy, he was a model for me, personally, as I matured in my own leadership, as a church planter and pastor, a diplomat and international aid practitioner, as well as an interfaith leader looking to build a stronger democracy. This is how I’m remembering Papa Francesco.
A pastor of the peripheries
From the start, Pope Francis set his sights not on the centers of wealth or power but on the “existential peripheries.” He visited refugee camps before he visited palaces. He washed the feet of prisoners, Muslims and others, and embraced children with debilitating illnesses. In his work for climate resilience and peace, he lifted up Indigenous leaders, defended undocumented migrants, and reminded all of us that “the poor are not a problem to be solved, but people to be loved.”
He taught that true Christian discipleship has a direction — and it moves downward. Like Jesus, “who emptied himself” as the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the believers in Philippi, Francis embraced descent as a form of holistic leadership. His choices — the modest papal apartment, his Ford Focus as personal transport, the name “Francis” — were more than symbols. They were signals for a people that could rediscover its moral center not in dominance, but in service.
An interfaith voice for peace
Though the Vatican always plays a role in global diplomacy, Francis expanded the moral imagination of what a faith leader could be on the world stage. He deepened relationships with Muslim leaders, including his historic visit with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Iraq, as well as signing the “Document on Human Fraternity” with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Abu Dhabi. He embraced Jewish leaders as partners in justice and memory, most recently, calling for a return of the hostages held in Gaza, while also calling for peace and mercy throughout Palestine. He welcomed Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus and atheists alike into the circle of shared moral concern.
He reminded us that faith, at its best, does not divide — it bridges despite our, at times, grave differences and binds us together. It dares us to find dignity in difference and holiness in one another’s stories. In an era defined by suspicion and sectarianism, Pope Francis insisted on encounter.
This was not naïveté. He was deeply aware of how religion had been used to justify war, exclusion, and fear — and of the harm that the Church itself had caused through the sex abuse scandals. But he believed — boldly — that religion could also be a wellspring of compassion, repair and truth-telling. He showed us what it meant to speak the truth in love without becoming partisan, to carry one’s tradition with devotion and yet remain openhearted.
A prophet in the age of climate crisis
If Francis’s 2013 election surprised the world, his 2015 encyclical “Laudato si’" changed it. For the first time, a pope framed the climate crisis as not just scientific or political, but as a spiritual and moral emergency. “The earth, our common home,” he wrote, “is crying out.”
He named what so few global leaders had the courage to say: that the ecological crisis and the crisis of inequality were one and the same. That the suffering of the land and the suffering of the poor mirrored each other. And that we are called — not just as voters or consumers, but as people of faith and conscience — to respond.
He called for a new “culture of care.” He invited us to see the world not as raw material to be used, but as sacred relationship to be honored. For millions of young people, he not only redeemed, in a way, a timeless Catholic social teaching, but also made it radiant and more relevant than ever.
A church for the wounded
Francis’ vision of the Church was not triumphal. He called it a “field hospital after battle.” He said the Church should be known less for dogma than for healing, less for gatekeeping than for grace.
His tone toward LGBTQ+ Christians, divorced people and others long hurt by ecclesial judgment was revolutionary in its tenderness. “Who am I to judge?” became a refrain that reshaped conversations, softened hearts and allowed many to hope again that they had a place at God’s table.
He did not rewrite ancient doctrine. But he offered a different tone and posture — always proximate to ordinary people along the way, as a fellow pilgrim.
A bridge in an age of fracture
We live in a time of division. A time of nihilism, narcissism and fracturing nations. Francis understood this. And he offered not a fantasy of uniformity, but a deeper vision of unity with all the varied particularities of our difference.
He taught that difference is not a threat, but a promise. That we need one another’s gifts to heal, to build, to bless. Which is what pluralism — the promise that out of many diverse perspectives, a new people, bringing their diverse solutions for the challenges of the times — is all about.
He walked with us
Perhaps the most Francis-like image of all is this: a man with a crooked gait, shoulders slightly hunched, walking forward slowly but surely, during the Covid-19 lockdowns that seemingly shut down our world for a season, threatening not just our health, but also our notions of belonging.
The starkness of an aging man in the historic empty square of St. Peter’s Basilica carried with it a new invitation for those that had eyes to see, a new sense of priorities — for others.
Today, people of all traditions and none are mourning. Not just because a pope has died. But because a peacemaker has passed. A servant. A spiritual father. A moral compass in an age adrift.
We give thanks for the life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio — Pope Francis. And we carry forward his hope that another world is possible. A world where mercy is not weakness. Where solidarity is not sentimental. Where love is not abstract.
A world, as he once said, “where no one is left behind.”