Before we look ahead to the next pope, let us appreciate the five most memorable moments of the Franciscan papacy:
Francis’ apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” spoke profoundly to a relevant – truly crushing – issue of our times: Our need to focus on realities over illusions or trending notions and to proclaim Jesus Christ as the incarnate founder of all reality.
Society has descended into a seeming chaos of ideas finding action before consequences are considered or debated, so one appreciates all that Pope Francis cautioned against in this document, including the havoc of ideas given room to run wild, all untethered to what is real: “It is dangerous to dwell in the realm of words alone, of images and rhetoric. … Realities are greater than ideas. This calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of kindness, intellectual discourse bereft of wisdom.”
Published in November 2013, it describes the world we live in now. His advice to pull away from the folly of unfettered imagination is a valuable call to reality. “The principle of reality, of a word already made flesh and constantly striving to take flesh anew, is essential to evangelization. … Not to put the word into practice, not to make it reality, is to build on sand, to remain in the realm of pure ideas and to end up in a lifeless and unfruitful self-centeredness and gnosticism.”
“Who am I to judge?” This one gets a little dicey because of a human inclination to cherry-pick a quote to better fit it for battle. As the devil can quote Scripture to suit his own purposes, ideologues from every side used those five words from a 2013 in-flight press conference as a weapon.
These words – when read in context – are no carte blanche to unfettered sexual license, as some proclaimed and others feared, but a qualified endorsement for Christians to bear with one another, and a recognition of a simple Christian reality: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord, and has goodwill,” said the pontiff, “who am I to judge?”
All the huffing hyperventilation that followed only demonstrated how little we have grown since the days of the early Church, when the first pope told Christians, “You must esteem the person of every man” (1 Pt 2:17).
Early in his papacy, Francis had a habit of wading out into crowds or engaging someone who broke through to him. In July 2013, as the popemobile drove slowly through the adoring throngs who had gathered for World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, 9-year-old Nathan de Brito managed to get past the barricades and reach the vehicle. He moved Francis to tears as he called out, “Your Holiness, I want to be a priest of Christ,” and found himself lifted up into the embrace of the pope, who promised to pray for him. But he had a request of the boy: “I ask you to pray for me,” he said, adding, “as of today, your vocation is set.”
Months later, in November in St. Peter’s Square, the Holy Father spotted a severely disfigured man standing apart and made his way to him. The man – his face and head covered with horrific-looking boils due to neurofibromatosis – found himself embraced by the pope, chosen above all others to receive his kiss and reverent blessing as they both prayed. In both cases, the world watched and wept, not in sadness but in quiet wonder.
By the way, Nathan de Brito, that little boy from Rio de Janeiro, entered a seminary in 2023.
In his 2016 apostolic letter “Misericordia et Misera,” Pope Francis established the first World Day of the Poor, later kicking it off by sharing a beautifully catered luncheon with the destitute of Rome. The meal became a tradition that – after pausing for two years due to the global pandemic – was joyfully reestablished in 2022.
The pope’s proclamation was a gentle call to radical generosity: “The works of mercy affect a person’s entire life. For this reason, we can set in motion a real cultural revolution, beginning with simple gestures capable of reaching, body and spirit, people’s very lives. This is a commitment that the Christian community should take up, in the knowledge that God’s word constantly calls us to leave behind the temptation to hide behind indifference and individualism in order to lead a comfortable life free of problems.”
With a world in chaos, deeply divided ideologically, secularly and spiritually, Pope Francis’ finest moment came when he quietly and hauntingly brought all sides together, from all corners of the planet, to make prayers of supplication – for healing, for consolation, for mercy and for wholeness – before Christ Jesus.
On March 27, 2020, alone in St. Peter’s Square, Francis carried before him a heavy monstrance, its brilliance not intended to dazzle but only meant to emphasize the simple white Host by which Jesus presents His physicality to the world. His hands wrapped in a humeral veil – the better to emphasize that the origin of the blessing came not from human hands or hearts but from Christ, eternal – Francis blessed the entire frightened and locked-down world, placing it into the keeping of the Triune God and Creator.
The astonishingly poignant and perfectly needed action by the pontiff drew almost unthinkable unanimity of praise from left to right, from every religious persuasion, even from unbelievers who perhaps deemed it better to say little in the face of such gravity and transparent intention.
“He did the truly necessary thing,” I tweeted that night. And for once, no one disagreed.
Elizabeth Scalia is editor at large for OSV. Follow her on X @theanchoress.