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Francis | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Rome | |
.jpg) Francis in 2014 | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Papacy began | 13 March 2013 |
| Papacy ended | 21 April 2025 |
| Predecessor | Benedict XVI |
| Successor | Leo XIV |
| Previous post(s) |
|
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 13 December 1969 by Ramón José Castellano |
| Consecration | 27 June 1992 by Antonio Quarracino |
| Created cardinal | 21 February 2001 by John Paul II |
| Rank | Cardinal priest |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Jorge Mario Bergoglio 17 December 1936 Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Died | 21 April 2025 (aged 88) Domus Sanctae Marthae, Vatican City |
| Buried | Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, Italy |
| Education | |
| Motto | Miserando atque eligendo (Latin for 'By having mercy and by choosing')[a] |
| Signature |  |
| Coat of arms |  |
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Francis (born December 17, 1936, Buenos Aires, Argentina—died April 21, 2025, Vatican City) ushered in a new era of leadership in the Roman Catholic Church when he was elected pope in 2013. As the first pope from the Western Hemisphere, the first from South America, and the first from the Jesuit order, Francis brought many reforms to the church and a reputation for humility. His significant achievements include the papal encyclical Laudato si’ (“Praise Be to You”; 2015), which addresses the climate crisis and champions environmental stewardship; his efforts to promote unity between Catholics, non-Catholics, and non-Christians; and his historic apologies to survivors of clergy sexual abuse. A tireless advocate for migrants and many other marginalized people, Francis shaped the church from the outset of his papacy according to his vision of “a poor church for the poor.”
Early life and career
Bergoglio was the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina. After studying in high school to become a chemical technician, he worked briefly in the food-processing industry but felt called to the church. When he was about 21 years old, he suffered a severe bout of pneumonia that led to the removal of part of his right lung. He entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1958 and then turned to academics, studying humanities in Santiago, Chile, and earning a licentiate (equivalent to a master’s degree) in philosophy in Buenos Aires province. After graduation he taught literature and psychology in high school while pursuing a degree in theology. He was ordained a priest in 1969, took his final vows in the Jesuit order in 1973, and subsequently served as superior (head) of the Jesuit province of Argentina (1973–79).
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Bergoglio’s tenure as head of the country’s Jesuits coincided with the military coup in Argentina (1976) led by Lieut. Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla. During the ensuing Dirty War (1976–83), a campaign by the country’s military dictatorship against leftists and other perceived subversives, between 10,000 and 30,000 people were “disappeared” (kidnapped, tortured, and usually killed) by the military and the police. Bergoglio later claimed to have hidden several people from the authorities, even helping some of them to flee the country. In 1976 two Jesuit priests who had worked in poor neighborhoods were disappeared; they were found alive, but drugged, in a field five months later. Years after the Dirty War, Bergoglio’s role in the priests’ kidnapping and release generated controversy. Some critics faulted Bergoglio for failing to protect the priests and even accused him of turning the men over to the regime. Others accepted Bergoglio’s claim that he covertly interceded with the regime to secure their eventual release. A lawsuit against Bergoglio charging him with complicity in the priests’ disappearance was ultimately dismissed.
In the 1980s Bergoglio served as a seminary teacher and rector and pursued graduate studies in theology in Germany. In 1992 he was appointed an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires. He was named archbishop of Buenos Aires (a post he held until his election to the papacy) in 1998 and was consecrated a cardinal in 2001.
During the economic crisis in Argentina beginning in the late 1990s, which culminated in 2002 in the rapid devaluation of the country’s currency, Bergoglio acquired a public reputation for humility, living in a simple downtown apartment rather than in the archbishop’s residence and traveling by public transportation or by foot rather than in a chauffeured limousine. He became an outspoken advocate for the poor and an able politician, deftly promoting the church’s position on social matters in meetings with government officials. His theological conservatism, however, set him at odds with the center-left administrations of Pres. Néstor Kirchner (2003–07) and his wife and successor, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007–15). Bergoglio was a particularly vocal critic of Fernández’s social initiatives, including the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2010. Fernández in turn depicted Bergoglio as a right-wing extremist and a supporter of the Videla dictatorship.
Papacy
The first “Pope Francis”
In February 2013 Pope Benedict XVI resigned, citing old age and health concerns. A conclave was convened in early March, spurring hopes that Benedict’s replacement could be elected and installed before the impending Easter holiday. Bergoglio was elected on the fifth ballot and chose the name Francis, in honor of St. Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226), who lived a life of humble service to the poor, and also recalling St. Francis Xavier (1506–52), a founding member of the Jesuits. Although he was the first Pope Francis and was widely referred to as “Francis I,” he declined to use the Roman numeral I to indicate that he was the first to use his papal name. (Traditionally, the numeral I is not added to a pope’s name until after a second pope of the same name has been elected. John Paul I [1978] was the first pope to use the numeral during his reign.)
Francis took charge of a church at a crossroads. In the early 21st century Roman Catholics constituted more than one-sixth of the world’s population, many of them in Latin America and Africa. Yet scandals, particularly the clergy sexual abuse scandals that first arose in the 1980s and ’90s, undermined the church’s stature, particularly in the United States and Europe. In his earliest public addresses and in his first public mass, Francis called for spiritual renewal within the church and greater attention to the plight of the poor, and he sternly condemned the forces that diverted the church from its ministry and set it at risk of becoming a “pitiful NGO.” He also reached out to his political opponents, including Fernández, whom he invited to his first official papal address. Yet he incensed some traditionalists by appearing on that occasion in a simple tunic rather than in the more traditional papal garments.
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He also took the unprecedented step later in 2013 of appointing a council of eight cardinals to advise him on church policy. His remark in that year that Christ had “redeemed all of us,” even non-Catholics, were broadly interpreted by the media as a message of outreach and goodwill toward atheists and agnostics, though a Vatican spokesman later claimed that Francis had been misinterpreted.
Pronouncements on sexual ethics and clergy sexual abuse
In June 2013 Francis issued the first encyclical of his papacy, Lumen fidei (“The Light of Faith”). It completed a trilogy of papal encyclicals begun by Benedict XVI on the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, following Deus caritas est (“God Is Love”; 2005) and Spe salvi (“Saved by Hope”; 2007).
“If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” – Pope Francis in his first papal news conference, 2013.
However, Francis soon became noted for making statements that conveyed an openness to different perspectives on Catholic doctrine, particularly regarding social issues and sexual ethics. Such statements were subsequently either toned down by the Vatican or seemingly contradicted by Francis himself. For example, Francis surprised both liberals and traditionalists when in a September 2013 interview with an Italian Jesuit magazine he criticized the church for having been “obsessed” with issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and birth control. That remark encouraged speculation both within and outside the church that a major shift in Catholic teaching and practice on such matters as same-sex marriage and contraception would follow. Yet, in the following year, Francis spoke out against same-sex marriage and defended the “traditional” family. Moreover, he affirmed the church’s categorical opposition to abortion. Although Francis spoke sympathetically of women’s rights and acknowledged women’s historical role in the church, he did not endorse the ordination of women as priests.
The lingering effects of the church’s sexual abuse scandal constituted another challenge to Francis’s papacy. During a visit by Dutch bishops in December 2013, Francis prayed for victims of sexual abuse and urged the bishops to reach out to them and their families. In January 2014 the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Rights of the Child recommended that the Vatican adopt procedures for the mandatory reporting of suspected child abusers to law-enforcement authorities but was rebuffed later that year on jurisdictional grounds. Critics observed that the Vatican was slow to punish and defrock priests who were known pedophiles.
Evangelii gaudium: The church as a “field hospital”
A central dimension of Francis’s papacy was championing the poor and oppressed, and, from the start, he promoted a broad ministry that aimed to include not only non-Catholic Christians but even non-Christians. He drew traditionalists’ ire soon after taking office when he washed the feet of two young women, including a Muslim, in a juvenile detention center during the traditional Maundy Thursday reenactment of Jesus’ washing of the feet of the Twelve Apostles. (Church tradition held that women could not participate in the ceremony because the Apostles were men. Francis issued a decree in 2016 that revised the Holy Week observances in the Roman Missal to allow for the inclusion women and girls in the ritual.)
In an interview published in the Jesuit magazine America in September 2013, Francis gave an intriguing description of his vision for the Catholic Church:
I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle.
In November 2013 Francis issued Evangelii gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”), an apostolic exhortation in which he denounces economic inequality and calls upon the church to embrace its global diversity. In August 2014 Francis publicly denounced the alleged persecutions of Christians and religious minorities such as the Yazīdīs by the transnational Sunni insurgent group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Laudato si’
In May 2015 Francis issued Laudato si’ (“Praise Be to You”), the second encyclical of his papacy. Laudato si’ proclaims that environmental degradation is “a moral issue” spurred by greed and unchecked capitalism, which causes human beings to lose sight of the relationships that bind them together and to neglect Earth, their “common home.” Promoting the concept of “integral ecology,” Francis connects sinful actions against the natural world with the economic exploitation of impoverished human beings and the denigration of human rights. The document is also noteworthy for its endorsement of the rights of Indigenous peoples.
Laudato si’ was issued a few months before the Paris Climate Agreement of December 2015, during a time of contentious debate about climate change. Its timing helped stir considerable public interest in the document, which was unusual for a papal encyclical. Initially, it polarized many Catholics, especially in the United States, but it also spurred change within many dioceses and parishes, involving “care for creation” groups, creation-themed liturgies, a call to repentance for wasteful consumption, and ecological awareness action plans.
Amoris laetitia, catechism changes, and ecumenism
Four months after issuing Laudato si’, Francis made his first visit to the United States, where he became the first pope to address the U.S. Congress. He once again courted controversy, this time by holding the first canonization mass in the U.S. in honor of Junípero Serra, an 18th-century Spanish missionary whose role in the colonization of the Americas has been criticized by Indigenous-rights groups. In New York City, Francis addressed the UN General Assembly and urged the world’s leaders to promote peace. He concluded his tour in Philadelphia, with an address before the World Meeting of Families and an open-air Spanish-language mass. In February 2016 he and Kirill I, patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, held the first-ever meeting between the leaders of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches.
In March 2016 Francis issued his second exhortation, Amoris laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), a wide-ranging pronouncement on family issues. In it he urged priests and bishops to take a more welcoming, and less judgmental, attitude toward homosexuals, single parents, and the divorced who remarried but who had not obtained an annulment, indicating in the latter case that such Catholics might be permitted to receive Holy Communion through the guidance of a priest. He did not, however, lift their formal exclusion from the sacrament, and he reaffirmed the church’s rejection of same-sex marriage and of contraception.
In August 2018 Francis revised the catechism of the Catholic church to fully reject the death penalty. Formerly, capital punishment was permitted when it was seen as the only means of defending human lives against an unjust aggressor. The revision states that the death penalty is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” Long a vocal critic of the death penalty, Francis said that the church would work to abolish capital punishment worldwide.
In February 2019 Francis became the first pope ever to visit the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam, in a trip meant to promote religious fraternity and peace. In his three-day visit to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, he attended the Global Conference on Human Fraternity and met with Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque and one of the highest authorities in Sunni Islam. He also celebrated a papal mass attended by an estimated 180,000 people, many of whom were Christian immigrants, in what was the largest display of Christian worship in the country’s history.
Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazon region
In October 2019 Francis convened a special three-week assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazon region. The objectives of the synod were to identify new paths of evangelization, especially for Indigenous peoples living in the Amazon region, and to highlight the important role of the Amazon Rainforest in the health of the planet. At the conclusion of the synod, the bishops voted to recommend that Francis allow the ordination of married men as priests in the region because of severe shortages of ministers in remote areas. Another recommendation was to allow the ordination of women as deacons, also to help resolve priest shortages.
In response to the synod, Francis issued the apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonia (“Beloved Amazon”) in February 2020. In the document, he declined—by omission—to grant the bishops’ requests for reform on the ordination of women and married men, and his silence on these requests was met with disappointment and criticism by some Catholics.
COVID-19 pandemic and Fratelli tutti
The COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges to Francis’s ministry in 2020, especially because Italy suffered a particularly high death rate in the first months of the pandemic, while lockdowns resulted in the closing of churches and others places of worship for in-person services. Francis live streamed the Angelus prayer—which he typically delivered every Sunday to worshippers gathered in the square of St. Peter’s Basilica—from inside the Vatican Palace. In March 2020, however, he left the Vatican and made a pilgrimage on foot through the streets of Rome to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to pray before an icon of the Virgin Mary (the Salus Populi Romani, believed to have been made by St. Luke the Evangelist) for an end to the pandemic. This was followed by a visit to the Church of San Marcello al Corso to pray before a crucifix considered to be miraculous because it had been carried in a procession through Rome in 1522 to ward off a devastating plague.
A week later Francis performed an extraordinary Urbi et Orbi (“To the City and to the World”) blessing in a dark, deserted St. Peter’s Square, praying again for an end to the pandemic. (The Urbi et Orbi blessing is usually reserved for feasts such as Christmas and Easter; this event was deemed “extraordinary” because it was held outside of the “ordinary,” or standard, schedule for such blessings.)
In October 2020 Francis issued his third encyclical, Fratelli tutti (“Brothers All”), in which he addresses the topics of fraternity and social friendship as well as “the fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic.” Taking the encyclical’s title from the writings of St. Francis of Assisi, “this saint of fraternal love,” Francis condemns the world’s “throwaway culture” and calls for an “architecture of peace” that serves the common good.
Health issues, return to global travels, and apology to Indigenous peoples in Canada
In 2021 Francis largely returned to his usual calendar of activities, though he was limited by continuing pandemic-related restrictions as well as personal health issues. A bout of sciatica led to the pope’s cancellation of several appearances in January. However, by March he was feeling well enough to travel to Iraq, marking the first time in history that a pope visited that country. In July he underwent surgery on his colon. The following year Francis’s knee problems resulted in more cancellations or postponements of trips and appearances, and he began requiring the use of a wheelchair. Yet, in July 2022 he made a “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada, where he met with survivors of the country’s religious-run residential schools, which had attempted to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children and became notorious for their widespread physical and sexual abuse. In his historic apology, Francis said to survivors, “I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” and he described the schools as “a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
In response to a growing traditionalist movement in the Roman Catholic Church, in July 2021 Francis issued the apostolic letter Traditionis custodes (“Guardians of the Tradition”), which placed limitations on the celebration of the traditional Latin mass and drew further criticism from traditionalists. The letter clearly charged bishops to enforce the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65).
The following year was marked by further health issues for Francis, including abdominal surgery in June. He kept up his travels to the world’s faithful, however, visiting Portugal in August for World Youth Day and celebrating an open-air mass in Lisbon with 1.5 million people. In September he visited Mongolia, a country with a population of 3.5 million people but only 1,500 Catholics; the trip was another historic first in papal visits. Also in 2023, in October, he issued the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum (“Praise God”), a follow-up to Laudato si’ in which he warns that the world’s responses to the climate crisis “have not been adequate.”
Many Catholics interpreted his actions of 2023 as setting the stage for the church’s future beyond his reign. Having initiated in previous years reforms of the church’s governance and finances, in September 2023 Francis consecrated 21 new cardinals, an unusually high number, which increasd the likelihood that the next conclave will elect a pontiff who will continue his reforms.
The Synod on Synodality, Fiducia supplicans, and Dilexit nos
The three-year Synod on Synodality (2021–24) was opened by Francis with a solemn mass in October 2021 and held its first session in October 2023. Convened as a forum through which dioceses throughout the world could participate in listening and dialogue sessions on the future of the church, the synod sparked debate on the topics of women deacons, sexuality, and gender identity. Significantly, the synod allowed the participation of laypeople (including women) as delegates with the right to vote on synod matters.
In December 2023 the Vatican issued the doctrinal declaration Fiducia supplicans (“Supplicating Trust”) announcing that Francis had formally approved the blessing of same-sex couples, under the condition that such blessings not be administered during rituals or liturgies. The document also reiterated church doctrine that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. That same month Francis shared in an interview his plans to be buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore after his death rather than at the Vatican, a decision that arose from his devotion to the Virgin Mary. He will be the first pontiff buried in Santa Maria Maggiore since 1669—yet another indication of Francis’s distinctive legacy of reform.
In October 2024 the pope issued a new encyclical, Dilexit nos (“He Loved Us”). Subtitled “Letter on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ,” the document reflects on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and calls for Catholics to reject consumerism and individualism. The encyclical also cautions against an over-reliance on technologies such as artificial intelligence. Immediately after the encyclical was published, the Synod on Synodality closed; Francis took the unusual step of ratifying its final document and forgoing a postsynodal apostolic exhortation. Although the final document calls for women to be included in church leadership roles, the question of whether women can be allowed to serve as deacons was left for a synodal study group to resolve in 2025.
Jubilee Year, Hope, and criticism of U.S. immigration policies
At the beginning of 2025 Francis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction from U.S. Pres. Joe Biden. He also released his autobiography, Hope. It was published to coincide with the Jubilee Year and came out amid a number of historic developments in the church. In January Francis appointed Sister Simona Brambilla, an Italian nun, as prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. This marked the first time in history that a woman was selected to lead a department of the Roman Curia.
In addition, the Vatican approved a provisional document by the Italian Bishops’ Conference that allowed the ordination of openly gay men to the priesthood in Italy. The approval, which is valid for three years and maintains the priestly requirement of chastity, brought hope to some gay Catholics, despite Francis’s mixed record on homosexuality. (Although he preached inclusion of LGBTQ+ Catholics and approved the blessing of same-sex couples, in 2024 he was twice accused of privately using a homophobic slur in reference to the high number of gay men in seminaries.)
The immigration policies of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump (whose second administration came into power in January 2025) became a point of concern for the pope. Francis repeatedly issued statements against the administration’s plans for mass deportations. After these plans began to be carried out, alongside a spending freeze and cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the pope issued an open letter of support to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose work with migrants and refugees had been severely curtailed by the freeze.
Hospitalization and death
In February the pope was hospitalized for several weeks for bronchitis that developed into pneumonia in both lungs. He was discharged in late March and subsequently made several public appearances, including from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on Easter Sunday, despite doctors’ recommendations for two months of rest. He died on April 21, the day after Easter, of a cerebral stroke and cardiocirculatory collapse. Francis’s last public blessing, which was read by an aide to the audience in St. Peter’s Square on Easter, called for peace in Gaza and Ukraine, condemned antisemitism, and spoke up for “the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants”:
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Pope Francis[b] (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio;[c] 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until his death in 2025. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first Latin American, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III.
Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a family of Italian origin, Bergoglio was inspired to join the Jesuits in 1958 after recovering from a severe illness. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 he was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina. He became the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, the 2013 papal conclave elected Bergoglio as pope on 13 March. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Throughout his papacy, Francis was noted for his humility, emphasis on God's mercy, international visibility, commitment to interreligious dialogue, and concern for the poor, migrants, and refugees. Francis believed the Catholic Church should demonstrate more inclusivity to LGBTQ people, and stated that although blessings of same-sex unions are not permitted, individuals in same-sex relationships can be blessed as long as the blessing is not given in a liturgical context.[2] Francis made women full members of dicasteries in the Roman Curia.[3][4] Francis convened the Synod on Synodality, which was described as the culmination of his papacy and the most important event in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council.[4][5][6] Francis was known for having a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors by, for instance, choosing to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than in the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace used by previous popes. In addition, due to both his Jesuit and Ignatian aesthetic, he was known for favoring simpler vestments devoid of ornamentation, including refusing the traditional papal mozzetta cape upon his election, choosing silver instead of gold for his piscatory ring, and keeping the same pectoral cross he had as cardinal.
Concerning global governance, Francis was a critic of trickle-down economics, consumerism, and overdevelopment;[7] he made action on climate change a leading focus of his papacy.[8] He viewed capital punishment as inadmissible in all cases,[9] and committed the Catholic Church to its worldwide abolition.[10] Francis criticized the rise of right-wing populism and anti-immigration politics, calling the protection of migrants a "duty of civilization".[11] Francis supported the decriminalization of homosexuality.[12] In international diplomacy, Francis helped to restore full diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, negotiated a deal with the People's Republic of China to define Communist Party influence in appointing Chinese bishops, and encouraged peace between Israel and Palestinians, signing the Vatican's first treaty with the State of Palestine. In 2022 he apologized for the Church's role in the cultural genocide of Canadian Indigenous peoples in residential schools. From 2023 he condemned Israel's military operations in Gaza, calling for investigations of war crimes. Francis made his last public appearance on Easter Sunday before dying on 21 April 2025, Easter Monday.[13][14] The 2025 conclave elected Leo XIV as Francis's successor on 8 May. Leo XIV became the second pope from the Americas, after Francis.[15]
Early life
Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936[16] in Flores,[17] a neighbourhood of Buenos Aires.[16] He was the eldest[18] of the five children of Mario José Bergoglio and Regina María Sívori. Mario Bergoglio was an Italian immigrant and an accountant[19] from Piedmont.[20] Regina Sívori[21] was a housewife born in Buenos Aires to a family of northern Italian origin.[22][23] Mario Bergoglio's family left Italy in 1929 to escape the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini.[24]: 5 According to María Elena Bergoglio, the Pope's only living sibling, the family did not emigrate for economic reasons.[25] His other siblings were Oscar Adrián, Marta Regina, and Alberto Horacio.[26][27] His niece, Cristina Bergoglio, is a painter based in Madrid, Spain.[28][29]
In the sixth grade, Bergoglio attended Wilfrid Barón de los Santos Ángeles, a school of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Ramos Mejía, Buenos Aires Province. He then attended the technical secondary school Escuela Técnica Industrial Nº 27 Hipólito Yrigoyen[30] and graduated with a chemical technician's diploma.[16][31][32] In that capacity, he spent several years working in the food section of Hickethier-Bachmann Laboratory[33] where he worked under Esther Ballestrino. Earlier, he had been a bouncer and a janitor.[34][35]
When he was 21 years old, after life-threatening pneumonia and three cysts, Bergoglio had part of a lung excised.[30][36]
Priesthood
Training and early priesthood (1958–1973)
While on his way to celebrate the Spring Day, Bergoglio passed by a church to go to confession and was inspired by a priest.[37] He then studied at the archdiocesan seminary, Inmaculada Concepción Seminary, in Villa Devoto, Buenos Aires, and, after three years, entered the Society of Jesus as a novice on 11 March 1958.[38] Bergoglio said that, as a young seminarian, he had a crush on a girl and briefly doubted his religious career.[39] As a Jesuit novice, he studied the humanities in Santiago, Chile.[40]
After his novitiate, Bergoglio officially became a Jesuit on 12 March 1960 when he made the religious profession of the initial, perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience of a member of the order.[41][24] In 1960, Bergoglio obtained a licentiate in philosophy from the Colegio Máximo de San José. He then taught literature and psychology at the Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepción, a high school in Santa Fe, from 1964 to 1965. In 1966, he taught the same courses at the Colegio del Salvador in Buenos Aires.[16][42]
In 1967, Bergoglio began his theological studies at Facultades de Filosofía y Teología de San Miguel. On 13 December 1969, he was ordained as a priest by Archbishop Ramón José Castellano. He served as the master of novices for the province there and became a professor of theology.[43]
Bergoglio completed his final stage of spiritual training as a Jesuit, tertianship, at Alcalá de Henares, Spain, and took final vows as a Jesuit, including the fourth vow of obedience to missioning by the pope, on 22 April 1973.[24]
Subsequent positions (1973–1986)
He was named provincial superior of the Society of Jesus in Argentina that July for a six-year term which ended in 1979.[16][44] In 1973, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but his stay was shortened by the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War.[45]
After the completion of his term of office, he was named, in 1980, the rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel where he had studied.[46] Before taking up this new appointment, he spent the first three months of 1980 in Ireland to learn English and stayed at the Jesuit Centre at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin.[47] He then served at San Miguel for six years until 1986[16] when, at the discretion of Jesuit superior-general Peter Hans Kolvenbach, he was replaced by someone more in tune with the worldwide trend in the Society of Jesus toward emphasizing social justice rather than his emphasis on popular religiosity and direct pastoral work.[48]
Bergoglio then spent several months at the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt, Germany, and considered possible dissertation topics.[49] He settled on exploring the work of the German-Italian theologian Romano Guardini, particularly his study of "Contrast" published in his 1925 work Der Gegensatz.[49][50]
Return to Argentina (1986–1998)
Ultimately, however, Bergoglio did not complete a degree there and he returned to Argentina earlier than expected to serve as a confessor and spiritual director to the Jesuit community in Córdoba.[49][50] As a student at the Salesian school, Bergoglio was mentored by Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest Stefan Czmil. Bergoglio often rose hours before his classmates to serve Divine Liturgy for Czmil.[51][52]
Bergoglio was named Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and was consecrated on 27 June 1992 as titular bishop of Auca,[16][53] with Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, archbishop of Buenos Aires, serving as principal consecrator.[54] He chose his episcopal motto to be Miserando atque eligendo,[55] drawn from Saint Bede's homily on Matthew 9:9–13: "because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him".[56] In 1992, Jesuit authorities asked Bergoglio not to live in Jesuit residences due to ongoing tensions with leaders and scholars; concerns about his "dissent", views on Catholic orthodoxy, and opposition to liberation theology; and his role as auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires.[57][58][51]
On 3 June 1997, Bergoglio was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Buenos Aires.[16][59]
Archbishop of Buenos Aires (1998–2013)
He became metropolitan archbishop after Quarracino's death on 28 February 1998. As archbishop, he established new parishes, restructured the archdiocese, led pro-life efforts, and formed a commission on divorces.[16][59] One of Bergoglio's major initiatives as archbishop was to increase the church's presence in the shantytown (villa miseria, or just villa) slums of Buenos Aires. Under his leadership, the number of priests assigned to work in the shantytowns doubled, and he visited them himself.[60] This work led to him being referred to as the "villero bishop", sometimes translated as the "slum bishop".[61]
Early in his tenure as archbishop, Bergoglio sold the archdiocese's bank shares and moved its accounts to regular international banks. This ended the church's high spending habits, which had nearly led to its bankruptcy, and enforced stricter fiscal discipline.[62] On 6 November 1998, while remaining archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio was named Ordinary for Eastern Catholics in Argentina, who lacked a prelate of their own church.[54] On Bergoglio's election to the papacy, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said that Bergoglio understood the liturgy, rites, and spirituality of Shevchuk's Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and always "took care of our Church in Argentina" as Ordinary.[52]
In 2000, Bergoglio was the only church official to reconcile with Jerónimo Podestá, a former bishop who had been suspended as a priest after opposing the Argentine Revolution military dictatorship in 1972. He also defended Podestá's wife from Vatican attacks on their marriage.[63][64][65] That same year, Bergoglio said the Argentine Catholic Church needed "to put on garments of public penance for the sins committed during the years of the dictatorship" in the 1970s, during the Dirty War.[63]
Bergoglio regularly celebrated the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual in jails, hospitals, retirement homes, and slums.[66] Bergoglio continued to be the archbishop of Buenos Aires after his elevation to the cardinalate in 2001. In 2007, shortly after Benedict XVI introduced new rules for pre–Vatican II liturgical forms, Bergoglio established a weekly Mass in this extraordinary form of the Roman Rite.[67][68]
On 8 November 2005, Bergoglio was elected president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference for a three-year term (2005–2008),[69] and re-elected on 11 November 2008.[70] He remained a member of that commission's permanent governing body, the president of its committee for the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, and a member of its liturgy committee for the care of shrines.[54] While head of the Argentine Catholic bishops' conference, Bergoglio issued a collective apology for his church's failure to protect people from the junta during the Dirty War.[71] When he turned 75 in December 2011, Bergoglio submitted his resignation as archbishop of Buenos Aires to Pope Benedict XVI as required by canon law.[45] As he had no coadjutor archbishop, he stayed in office, waiting for the Vatican to appoint a replacement.[72]
As a bishop, he was no longer subject to his Jesuit superior.[73] From then on, he no longer visited Jesuit houses and was in "virtual estrangement from the Jesuits" until after his election as pope.[48][57]
Appointment as cardinal
On 21 February 2001, Pope John Paul II made Archbishop Bergoglio a cardinal, assigning him the title of cardinal priest of San Roberto Bellarmino. Bergoglio was installed there on 14 October. During his trip to Rome for the ceremony, he and his sister María Elena visited their father's hometown in northern Italy.[25] As cardinal, Bergoglio was appointed to five administrative positions in the Roman Curia. He was a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; the Congregation for the Clergy; the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life; the Pontifical Council for the Family; and the Commission for Latin America. Later that year, when Cardinal Edward Egan returned to New York following the September 11 attacks, Bergoglio replaced him as relator (recording secretary) in the Synod of Bishops,[74] and, according to the Catholic Herald, created "a favourable impression as a man open to communion and dialogue".[75][76]
Cardinal Bergoglio was known for his personal humility, doctrinal conservatism, and commitment to social justice.[77] His simple lifestyle—which included living in a small apartment rather than the elegant bishop's residence, using public transportation, and cooking his own meals—enhanced his reputation for humility.[78] He limited his time in Rome to "lightning visits".[79]
After Pope John Paul II died on 2 April 2005, Bergoglio attended his funeral and was considered one of the papabile for succession to the papacy.[80] He participated as a cardinal elector in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI. In the National Catholic Reporter, John L. Allen Jr. reported that Bergoglio was a frontrunner in the 2005 conclave.[77][81] In September 2005, the Italian magazine Limes published claims that Bergoglio had been the runner-up and main challenger to Cardinal Ratzinger at that conclave and that he had received 40 votes in the third ballot but fell back to 26 at the fourth and decisive ballot.[82][83] The claims were based on a diary purportedly belonging to an anonymous cardinal who had been present at the conclave.[82][84] According to the Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli, this number of votes had no precedent for a Latin American papabile.[84] La Stampa reported that Bergoglio was in close contention with Ratzinger during the election until he made an emotional plea that the cardinals should not vote for him.[85] According to Tornielli, Bergoglio made this request to prevent the conclave from delaying too much in the election of a pope.[86]
As a cardinal, Bergoglio was associated with Communion and Liberation, a Catholic evangelical lay movement of the type known as associations of the faithful.[77] He sometimes made appearances at the annual gathering known as the Rimini Meeting held during the late summer months in Italy.[77] In 2005, Cardinal Bergoglio authorized the request for beatification—the third of four steps toward sainthood—for six members of the Pallottine community murdered in the San Patricio Church massacre.[87][88] Bergoglio also ordered an investigation into the murders;[88] 1984 testimony indicated that they were perpetrated by members of the Argentine Navy on the orders of Rear Admiral Rubén Chamorro.[89][90]
Argentine government relations
Dirty War
Bergoglio was the subject of allegations regarding the Argentine Navy's kidnapping of two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Franz Jalics, in 1976, during Argentina's Dirty War. After being tortured in captivity, the priests were found alive months later outside Buenos Aires, drugged and partially unclothed.[91][80] Bergoglio is widely reported to have failed to protect the priests, and to have dismissed them from the Society of Jesus days prior to their arrest.[92] In 2005, Myriam Bregman, a human rights lawyer, filed a criminal complaint against Bergoglio, as superior in the Society of Jesus of Argentina, accusing him of actual involvement in the kidnapping.[80] While the complaint was eventually dismissed, the debate over Bergoglio's actions during the period has continued, with Argentine journalists relying on documents and statements from both priests and laypeople in reporting that contradict Cardinal Bergoglio's account.[92]
Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the authorities that he endorsed their work. Yorio said in a 1999 interview that he believed that Bergoglio did nothing "to free us, in fact just the opposite".[93] Two days after the election of Francis, Jalics issued a statement confirming the kidnapping and attributing the cause to a former lay colleague who became a guerrilla, was captured, then named Yorio and Jalics when interrogated.[94] The following week, Jalics issued a second, clarifying statement: "It is wrong to assert that our capture took place at the initiative of Father Bergoglio ... Orlando Yorio and I were not denounced by Father Bergoglio."[95][96]
Bergoglio told his authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, that he worked behind the scenes for the priests' release; Bergoglio's intercession with dictator Jorge Rafael Videla on their behalf may have saved their lives.[91] Bergoglio also told Rubin that he had often sheltered people from the dictatorship on church property, and once gave his own identity papers to a man who looked like him so that he could flee Argentina.[91] The interview with Rubin, reflected in the biography El jesuita, was the only time Bergoglio had spoken to the press about those events.[97] Alicia Oliveira, a former Argentine judge, also reported that Bergoglio helped people flee Argentina during the rule of the junta.[98] Since Francis became pope, Gonzalo Mosca[99] and José Caravias[100] have related accounts to journalists of how Bergoglio helped them flee the dictatorship.
Oliveira described Bergoglio as "anguished" and "very critical of the dictatorship" during the Dirty War.[101] Oliveira met with him at the time and urged Bergoglio to speak out—he told her that "he couldn't. That it wasn't an easy thing to do."[93] Artist and human rights activist Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said: "Perhaps he didn't have the courage of other priests, but he never collaborated with the dictatorship... Bergoglio was no accomplice of the dictatorship."[102][103] Graciela Fernández Meijide, a member of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, also said that there was no proof linking Bergoglio with the dictatorship. She told the Clarín newspaper:
Ricardo Lorenzetti, the president of the Argentine Supreme Court, said that Bergoglio was "completely innocent" of the accusations.[105] Historian Uki Goñi pointed that, during early 1976, the military junta still had a good image among society, and that the scale of the political repression was not known until much later; Bergoglio would have had little reason to suspect that the detention of Yorio and Jalics could end in their deaths.[106]
Fernando de la Rúa
Fernando de la Rúa replaced Carlos Menem as president of Argentina in 1999. As an archbishop, Bergoglio celebrated the annual Mass at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral on the First National Government holiday, 25 May.[107] During Argentina's economic depression, the Catholic Church criticized the government's austerity measures, which worsened poverty. De la Rúa asked the church to facilitate dialogue between economic and political leaders to address the crisis. Although he claimed to have spoken with Bergoglio, Bergoglio reportedly said the meeting was canceled due to a misunderstanding. Bishop Jorge Casaretto had doubted this, noting that De la Rúa made the request only in newspaper interviews, not formally to the church.[108]
In the 2001 elections, the Justicialist Party won a majority in Congress and appointed Ramón Puerta as Senate president. Bergoglio met with Puerta and was positively impressed. Puerta assured him that the Justicialist Party was not planning to oust De la Rúa and promised to support the president in advancing necessary legislation.[109]
During police repression of the riots of December 2001, Bergoglio contacted the Ministry of the Interior and asked that the police distinguish rioters and vandals from peaceful protesters.[110]
Néstor and Cristina Kirchner
When Bergoglio celebrated Mass at the cathedral for the 2004 First National Government holiday, President Néstor Kirchner attended and heard Bergoglio request more political dialogue, the rejection of intolerance, and the criticism of exhibitionism and strident announcements.[111] Kirchner celebrated the national day elsewhere the following year and the Mass in the cathedral was suspended.[112] In 2006, Bergoglio helped fellow Jesuit Joaquín Piña win the elections in the Misiones Province and prevent an amendment to the local constitution that would allow indefinite re-elections. Kirchner intended to use that project to start similar amendments at other provinces and eventually implement it in the national constitution.[113] Kirchner considered Bergoglio as a political rival until he died in 2010.[114] Bergoglio's relations with Kirchner's widow and successor, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, have been similarly tense. In 2008, Bergoglio called for national reconciliation during disturbances in the country's agricultural regions, which the government interpreted as a support for anti-government demonstrators.[114] The campaign to enact same-sex marriage legislation was a particularly tense period in their relations.[114]
When Bergoglio was elected pope, initial reactions were mixed. Most of the Argentine society cheered it, but the pro-government newspaper Página 12 published renewed allegations about the Dirty War, and the president of the National Library described a global conspiracy theory. The president took more than an hour before congratulating the new pope and did so only in a passing reference within a routine speech. Due to the Pope's popularity in Argentina, Cristina Kirchner made what the political analyst Claudio Fantini called a "Copernican shift" in her relations with him and fully embraced the Francis phenomenon.[115] On the day before his inauguration as pope, Bergoglio, now Francis, had a private meeting with Kirchner where they exchanged gifts and lunched together. This was the new pope's first meeting with a head of state, and there was speculation that the two were mending their relations.[116][117] Página 12 then removed their controversial articles about Bergoglio from their web page as a result of this change.[118]
Javier Milei
Before Javier Milei's election to the Argentine presidency in 2023, he was very critical of Francis, describing him as "imbecile" and a "communist turd". His disparaging comments sparked controversy among Catholics.[119] However, following his inauguration, Milei softened his position and formally invited Francis to Argentina. Milei visited the Vatican on 11 February 2024, the day Francis canonized María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, the first female Argentine saint.[120]
Papacy (2013–2025)
Francis was the first Jesuit pope. This was a significant appointment because of the sometimes tense relations between the Society of Jesus and the Holy See.[124] He was also the first from Latin America,[125] and the first from the Southern Hemisphere.[126] Many media reported him as being the first non-European pope, but he was the 11th; the previous was Gregory III from Syria who died in 741. Although Francis was not born in Europe, he was ethnically European; his father and maternal grandparents were from northern Italy.[127]
As pope, Francis's manner was less formal than that of his immediate predecessors, a style that news coverage referred to as "no frills", noting that it was "his common touch and accessibility that is proving the greatest inspiration".[128] On the night of his election, he took a bus back to his hotel with the cardinals rather than being driven in the papal car.[129] The next day, he visited Cardinal Jorge María Mejía in the hospital and chatted with patients and staff.[130]
In addition to his native Spanish, he spoke fluent Italian (the official language of Vatican City and the "everyday language" of the Holy See) and German. He was also conversant in Latin (the official language of the Holy See),[131] French,[132] Portuguese,[133] and English;[134][135] he also understood Piedmontese and some Genoese Ligurian.[136]
Francis chose not to live in the official papal residence in the Apostolic Palace but instead remained in the Vatican guest house in a suite in which he received visitors and held meetings. He was the first pope since Pope Pius X to live outside the papal apartments.[137] Francis appeared at the window of the Apostolic Palace for the Sunday Angelus.[138]
As a Jesuit pope, Francis made clear that a fundamental task of the faithful is not so much to follow rules but to discern what God is calling them to do. He altered the culture of the clergy, steering away from what he named "clericalism" (which dwells on priestly status and authority) and toward an ethic of service (Francis said the church's shepherds must have the "smell of the sheep", always staying close to the People of God).[139]
Election
Bergoglio was elected pope on 13 March 2013,[16][140][141] the second day of the 2013 papal conclave, after which he took the papal name Francis.[16][142] Francis was elected on the fifth ballot.[143] The Habemus papam announcement was delivered by the cardinal protodeacon, Jean-Louis Tauran.[144] Cardinal Christoph Schönborn later said that Bergoglio was elected following two supernatural signs, one in the conclave—and hence confidential—and one from a Latin-American couple, friends of Schönborn at Vatican City, who whispered Bergoglio's name in the elector's ear; Schönborn commented "if these people say Bergoglio, that's an indication of the Holy Spirit".[145]
Instead of accepting his cardinals' congratulations while seated on the papal throne, Francis received them standing, reportedly an immediate sign of a changing approach to formalities at the Vatican.[146] During his first appearance as pontiff on the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica, he wore a white cassock, instead of the red, ermine-trimmed mozzetta[146][147] used by previous popes.[148] He also wore the same iron pectoral cross that he had worn as archbishop of Buenos Aires, rather than the gold one worn by his predecessors.[147][149]
After being elected and choosing his name, his first act was bestowing the Urbi et Orbi blessing on thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square. Before blessing the crowd, he delivered a brief speech, greeting those in St. Peter's Square with a simple "Buonasera" ("Good evening", in Italian). He thanked the crowd for welcoming him and asked them to pray for his predecessor, "the bishop emeritus of Rome" Pope Benedict XVI, and for himself as the new "bishop of Rome". He also referred to himself as a Pope coming almost from the end of the world.[150][151]
Francis held his papal inauguration on 19 March 2013 in St. Peter's Square.[16] He celebrated Mass in the presence of political and religious leaders from around the world.[152] In his homily, Francis focused on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, the liturgical day on which the Mass was celebrated.[153]
The next day, Federico Lombardi told to the media that Francis had met all the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel choosing to stand up, rather than sitting on the chair at his disposal, and that he went back to the Domus Sanctae Marthae on a minivan with the other cardinals, instead of using a private car. Afterward he went to the guest house where he had resided during the conclave, collected his belongings and insisted on paying the bill.[154]
Name
At his first audience on 16 March 2013, Francis told journalists that he had chosen the name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi and had done so because he was especially concerned for the well-being of the poor.[155][156][157] He explained that, as it was becoming clear during the conclave voting that he would be elected, the Brazilian Cardinal Cláudio Hummes had embraced him and whispered, "Don't forget the poor", which made Bergoglio think of the saint.[158][159] Bergoglio had previously expressed his admiration for St. Francis, explaining that: "He brought to Christianity an idea of poverty against the luxury, pride, vanity of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the time. He changed history."[160]
It was the first time that a pope had been named "Francis". On the day of his election, the Vatican clarified that his official papal name was "Francis" and not "Francis I"; that is, no regnal number was used for him. If there is a Francis II, then Francis will be known as Francis I.[156][161] It was the first time since Lando's 913–914 pontificate that a canonical pope held a name not used by a predecessor.[d]
Francis also said that some cardinal electors had jokingly suggested to him that he should choose either "Adrian", since Adrian VI had been a reformer of the church, or "Clement", to settle the score with Clement XIV who had suppressed the Jesuit order.[163][164] Bergoglio, had he been elected in 2005, would have chosen the pontifical name of "John XXIV" in honor of John XXIII. He told Cardinal Francesco Marchisano: "John, I would have called myself John, like the Good Pope; I would have been completely inspired by him."[165]
Curia
Francis abolished the bonuses paid to Vatican employees upon the election of a new pope, amounting to several million euros, opting instead to donate the money to charity.[166] He also abolished the €25,000 annual bonus paid to cardinals serving on the Board of Supervisors for the Vatican bank.[167]
On 13 April 2013, Francis named eight cardinals to a new Council of Cardinal Advisers to advise him on revising the organizational structure of the Roman Curia. The group included several known critics of Vatican operations and only one member of the Curia.[168][169]
Early issues
On the first Holy Thursday following his election, Francis washed and kissed the feet of ten male and two female juvenile offenders imprisoned at Rome's Casal del Marmo detention facility, telling them the ritual of foot washing is a sign that he is at their service.[170] This was the first time that a pope had included women in this ritual, although he had already done so when he was archbishop.[170] One of the male and one of the female prisoners were Muslim.[170]
On 31 March 2013, Francis used his first Urbi et Orbi Easter address to make a plea for world peace, specifically mentioning the Middle East, Africa, and North and South Korea.[171] He also spoke out against those who give in to "easy gain" in a world filled with greed and made a plea for humanity to become a better guardian of creation by protecting the environment.[171][135] Although the Vatican had prepared greetings in 65 languages, Francis chose not to read them.[135] According to the Vatican, the pope "at least for now, feels at ease using Italian".[172]
In 2013, Francis initially reaffirmed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's programme to reform the US Leadership Conference of Women Religious[173] which had been initiated under his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. The New York Times reported that the Vatican had formed the opinion in 2012 that the sisters' group had some feminist influences, focused too much on ending social and economic injustice and not enough on stopping abortion, and permitted speakers who questioned church doctrine.[174][173] In April 2015 the investigation was brought to a close. While the timing of the closure may have anticipated a visit by Francis to the US in September 2015, it was noted that the sisters' emphasis is close to that of Francis.[175]
Synodal church
Francis oversaw synods on the family (2014), on youth (2018), and on the church in the Amazon region (2019). In 2019 Francis's apostolic constitution Episcopalis communio allowed that the final document of a synod may become magisterial teaching simply with papal approval. The constitution also allowed for laity to contribute input directly to the synod's secretary general.[176] Some analysts see the creation of a truly synodal church as likely to become the greatest contribution to Francis's papacy.[177]
On 4 October 2023, Francis convened the beginnings of the Synod on Synodality, described by some as the culmination of his papacy and one of the most important events in the Church since the Second Vatican Council.[5][6]
Institute for the Works of Religion
In the first months of Francis's papacy, the Institute for the Works of Religion, informally known as the Vatican Bank, said that it would become more transparent in its financial dealings.[178] There had long been allegations of corruption and money laundering connected with the bank.[179][180] Francis appointed a commission to advise him about reform of the Bank,[179][180] and the finance consulting firm Promontory Financial Group was assigned to carry out a comprehensive investigation of all customer contacts.[181] In January 2014, Francis replaced four of the five cardinal overseers of the Vatican Bank who had been confirmed in their positions in the final days of Benedict XVI's papacy.[182] Lay experts and clerics were looking into how the bank was run. Ernst von Freyberg was put in charge. Moneyval felt more reform was needed, and Francis showed some willingness to close the bank if the reforms proved too difficult.[183] There was uncertainty about how far reforms could succeed.[184]
Writings
Pope Francis wrote a variety of books, encyclicals, and other texts, including a memoir, Hope.[185] On 29 June 2013, Francis published the encyclical Lumen fidei, which was largely the work of Benedict XVI but awaited a final draft at his retirement.[186] On 24 November 2013, Francis published his first major letter as pope, the apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium,[187] which he described as the programmatic of his papacy.[188] On 18 June 2015, he published his first own encyclical Laudato si' concerning care for the planet.[189] On 8 April 2016, Francis published his second apostolic exhortation, Amoris laetitia,[190] remarking on love within the family. Controversy arose at the end of 2016 when four cardinals formally asked Francis for clarifications, particularly on the issue of giving communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.[191]
A further apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et exsultate (Rejoice and be glad), was published on 19 March 2018, dealing with "the call to holiness" for all persons. He counters contemporary versions of the gnostic and Pelagian heresies and describes how Jesus's beatitudes call people to "go against the flow".[192]
In February 2019, Francis acknowledged that priests and bishops were sexually abusing religious sisters.[193] He addressed this and the clergy sex abuse scandal by convening a summit on clergy sexual abuse in February 2019.[194] As a follow-up to that summit, on 9 May 2019 Francis promulgated the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi which specified responsibilities, including reporting directly to the Holy See on bishops and on one's superior, while simultaneously involving another bishop in the archdiocese of the accused bishop.[195]
On 4 October 2020, Francis published the encyclical Fratelli tutti on fraternity and social friendship.[196]
On 8 December 2020, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis published the apostolic letter Patris corde ("With a Father's Heart").[197] To mark the occasion, the Pope proclaimed a "Year of Saint Joseph" from 8 December 2020 to 8 December 2021 on the 150th Anniversary of the Proclamation of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church.[198]
On 1 June 2021, Francis published the apostolic constitution Pascite gregem Dei. The document reformed Vatican penal law by strengthening the penalties for sexual abuse and financial crimes; it also more harshly punished the ordination of women.[199]
Ecumenism and interreligious dialogue
Pope Francis upheld the Second Vatican Council's tradition by promoting ecumenism with other Christian denominations, encouraging dialogue with other religions, and supporting peace with secular individuals.[200]
Clerical titles
In January 2014, Francis said that he would appoint fewer monsignors and only assign those honored to the lowest of the three surviving ranks of monsignor, chaplain of His Holiness; it would be awarded only to diocesan priests at least 65 years old. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis never sought the title for any of his priests. It is believed he associated it with clerical careerism and hierarchy, although he did not apply this restriction to clergy working in the Roman Curia or diplomatic corps where careerism was an even greater concern.[201]
Canonizations, beatifications and doctors of the church
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Francis presided over the first canonizations of his pontificate on 12 May 2013 in which he canonized the Martyrs of Otranto—Antonio Primaldo and his 812 companions who had been executed by the Ottomans in 1480[202]—as well as the religious sisters Laura of St. Catherine of Siena and María Guadalupe García Zavala.[203] In this first canonization, Francis surpassed the record of Pope John Paul II in canonizing the most saints in a pontificate.[204]
Saints the Pope canonized include Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin (the first married couple to be named as saints together),[205] Mother Teresa,[206] and Óscar Romero.[207] Francis canonized three of his predecessors: John XXIII, John Paul II and Paul VI.[208][207] Francis also confirmed Pope John Paul I to be Venerable[209] and Blessed.[210]
Francis declared two new Doctors of the Church: Saint Gregory of Narek in 2015,[211] and Saint Irenaeus of Lyon in 2022.[212]
Consistories
Francis created 163 cardinals from 76 countries across ten consistories. He held his first consistory in February 2014, a rare occasion in which he publicly appeared with his predecessor, Benedict XVI.[213][214] After the 2024 consistory, 110 cardinals appointed by Francis were under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote at a papal conclave. There were, at that point, 110 cardinal-electors created by Francis, 24 created by Benedict XVI, and six created by John Paul II.[215]
Francis's appointments made the College of Cardinals less European-dominated.[216] He appointed many cardinals from developing countries, including some of the world's poorest, and from countries on the peripheries of the church.[217]
Compared to his predecessors, Francis made fewer appointments of Roman Curia officials to the cardinalate.[217] This was part of a general trend under Francis to a more decentralized church.[218] Compared to his predecessor Benedict, who preferred to appoint academically inclined churchmen as cardinal, Francis favored cardinals with a more pastoral focus,[217] especially those known for a focus on the poor and marginalized.[219] Francis also dropped the traditional custom of always appointing the archbishops of certain historically prominent sees (such as the Patriarch of Venice and Archbishop of Milan) as cardinals.[217]
Year of Mercy
In his April 2015 papal bull of indiction, Misericordiae Vultus (The Face of Mercy), Francis inaugurated a Special Jubilee Year of Mercy to run from 8 December 2015, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the last Sunday before Advent and the Solemnity of the Feast of Christ the King of the Universe on 20 November 2016.[220][221]
The Holy Doors of the major basilicas of Rome were opened, and special "Doors of Mercy" were opened at cathedrals and other major churches around the world, where the faithful could earn indulgences by fulfilling the usual conditions of prayer for the pope's intentions, confession, and detachment from sin, and communion.[222][223] During Lent of that year, special 24-hour penance services were celebrated, and during the year, special qualified and experienced priests called "Missionaries of Mercy" were available in every diocese to forgive even severe, special-case sins normally reserved to the Holy See's Apostolic Penitentiary.[224][225]
Francis established the World Day of the Poor in his Apostolic letter, Misericordia et Misera, issued on 20 November 2016 to celebrate the end of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.[226][227]
COVID-19 pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Francis canceled his regular general audiences at St. Peter's Square to keep crowds from gathering and spreading the virus, which had seriously affected Italy.[228] He encouraged priests to visit patients and health workers;[229] urged the faithful not to forget the poor during the time of crisis;[230] offered prayers for people with the virus in China;[231] and invoked the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title Salus Populi Romani, as the Diocese of Rome observed a period of prayer and fasting in recognition of the victims.[232] The pontiff reacted with displeasure on 13 March 2020 to the news that the Vicar General had closed all churches in the Diocese of Rome. Despite Italy being under a quarantine lockdown, Francis pleaded "not to leave the ... people alone" and worked to partially reverse the closures.[233]
On 20 March 2020, Francis asked the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (DPIHD) to create a Vatican COVID-19 Commission to listen to concerns and develop responses for the future.[234][235] On 27 March, Francis gave an extraordinary benediction Urbi et Orbi.[236] In his homily on calming the storm in the Gospel of Mark, Francis described the setting:
Francis maintained that getting COVID vaccination was a moral obligation.[238] In response to the economic harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Francis said that it was the time to consider implementing a universal basic wage.[239]
Death penalty
Francis committed the Catholic Church to support worldwide abolition of the death penalty.[240] In 2018, Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church to read that "in the light of the Gospel" the death penalty is "inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person" and that the Catholic Church "works with determination for its abolition worldwide".[240][241] In his 2020 encyclical Fratelli tutti, Francis repeated that the death penalty was "inadmissible", and that "there can be no stepping back from this position."[196]
On 9 January 2022, Francis stated in his annual speech to Vatican ambassadors: "The death penalty cannot be employed for a purported state justice, since it does not constitute a deterrent nor render justice to victims, but only fuels the thirst for vengeance."[242]
Role of women
Francis categorically rejected the ordination of women as priests.[5] Early in his papacy, he initiated dialogue on the possibility of deaconesses, creating in 2016 a Study Commission on the Women's Diaconate to research the role of female deacons in early Christianity.[243] Its report was not made public,[244] but Francis said in 2019 that the commission was unable to come to a consensus.[245] In April 2020, Francis empaneled a new commission, led by Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi with a new membership, to study the issue.[246] Francis delayed a decision on the issue for several years.[5] In interviews in late 2023 and 2024, he appeared to reject the idea of women deacons, saying that "holy orders is reserved for men."[247][244] Francis said that "the fact that the woman does not access ministerial life is not a deprivation, because her place is much more important"[247] and that women had a charism separate from "the ministerial way."[244]
In January 2021, Francis issued Spiritus Domini, allowing bishops to institute women to the ministries of acolyte and lector. While these instituted ministries were previously reserved to men, Catholic women already carried out these duties without institution in most of the world. Francis wrote that these ministries are fundamentally distinct from those reserved to ordained clergy.[248][249][250] The following month, Francis appointed women to several positions previously held only by men: a French member of the Xaviere Missionary Sisters, Nathalie Becquart, was appointed co-undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, and Italian magistrate Catia Summaria became the first woman Promoter of Justice in the Vatican's Court of Appeals.[251]
In April 2023, Francis announced that 35 women would be allowed to vote at the Sixteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops ("just over 10%" of all voters),[252] marking the first time women are allowed to vote at any Catholic Synod of Bishops.[253]
Financial corruption
Francis was mandated by electing cardinals to sort out Vatican finances following scandals during the papacies of Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II. He stated he was determined to end corruption in the Catholic Church but was not very optimistic due to it being a human problem dating back centuries.[254]
Apologies toward Indigenous peoples
Early in 2022, Francis expressed "shame and sorrow" for the Catholic Church's role in abuses against the Indigenous peoples in Canada.[255][256] Late, in July 2022, Francis made an apostolic journey to Canada, where he expressed sorrow, indignation, and shame over the church's abuse of Canadian Indigenous children in residential schools.[257] Francis described the Canadian Catholic Church's role as a "cultural genocide."[256] He apologized for the church's role in "projects of cultural destruction" and forced assimilation.[257] Near the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School, the site of a search for unmarked graves, Francis said: "I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples."[255] He visited the Ermineskin Cree Nation's cemetery at its Maskwacis reserve.[255] Francis promised a serious investigation into the history of abuse.[257]
Sexual abuse response
In 2010, then-Cardinal Bergoglio commissioned a study which concluded that Father Julio César Grassi, a priest convicted of child sexual abuse, was innocent, that his victims were lying, and that the case against him never should have gone to trial.[258] However, the Supreme Court of Argentina upheld the conviction and prison sentence against Grassi in March 2017.[258]
Early in his papacy, Francis chose a more lenient sentence for Mauro Inzoli, an Italian priest accused of child sexual abuse.[259] A church tribunal had ruled that Inzoli should be laicized (defrocked),[260] and he was defrocked in 2012 by Francis's predecessor Benedict.[259] Francis, however, reversed this decision in 2014; Francis agreed with the bishop of Crema that Inzoli should remain a priest but be removed from public ministry and ordered to retire to "a life of prayer and humble discretion."[259][260] Inzoli was convicted of sexually abusing children in Italian civil court in 2016, and sentenced to prison.[259] In unscripted remarks to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in September 2017, Francis admitted that he mishandled the Inzoli case, saying that as a new pope, "I did not understand these things well and chose the more benevolent of the two sentences but after two years the priest had a relapse. I learned from this."[260] In the same remarks, he commented that the church "arrived late" in dealing with sexual abuse cases.[260]
In 2015, Francis was criticized for supporting Chilean bishop Juan Barros who was accused of covering up Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Chile, including crimes committed against minors.[261] In 2018, Francis acknowledged he had made "grave errors" in judgment about Barros, apologized to the victims and launched a Vatican investigation that resulted in the resignation of three Chilean bishops: Barros, Gonzalo Duarte, and Cristián Caro.[262]
In 2019, Francis defrocked Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, who maintained a prominent position in the church for decades despite repeated reports of sexual misconduct against him dating back to the 1980s. In 2017, after renewed allegations against McCarrick, Francis commissioned a Vatican investigation, which found that McCarrick had sexually molested both adults and minors.[263] In July 2018, McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals; in October 2018, Francis ordered a review of the Church's "institutional knowledge and decision-making" related to McCarrick.[264] Francis authorized the release, in November 2020, of the report of the Vatican's two-year investigation into McCarrick's career.[264][263] The report largely faulted Pope John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick as archbishop in 2000 and accepted the churchman's denials of sexual abuse, despite multiple reports.[263] The report also found that Pope Benedict XVI placed informal restrictions on McCarrick, but these were never enforced, and Benedict did not investigate or formally sanction McCarrick even after he disregarded those restrictions.[263] The report concluded that Francis, before 2017, "had heard only that there had been allegations and rumors related to immoral conduct with adults occurring prior to McCarrick's appointment to Washington" and continued the approach of his predecessors John Paul and Benedict.[263]
Francis convened a summit on sexual abuse in February 2019, organized by Hans Zollner; some abuse survivors expressed disappointment that the summit did not result in concrete rules on abuse prevention, responses to abuse, and Church cooperation with law enforcement authorities.[265] In December 2019, Francis abolished the "pontifical secrecy" privilege in sexual abuse cases, clarifying that bishops do not need authorization from the Vatican to turn over materials from canonical trials upon request of civil law enforcement authorities.[199][266] The lifting of the confidentiality rule was praised by victim advocates, but did not require the Church to affirmatively turn over canonical documents to civil authorities.[199][266]
In November 2021, Francis thanked journalists for their work in uncovering child sexual abuse scandals in the church. He also thanked journalists for "helping us not to sweep it under the carpet, and for the voice you have given to the abuse victims".[267]
In November 2022, French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard admitted to having sexually abused a 14-year-old girl in the 1980s in Marseille.[268] French authorities opened an investigation into the case while Francis commented that now that "everything is clearer [...] more cases like this shouldn't surprise [anyone]", and condemned sexual abuse as "against priestly nature, and also against social nature".[269][270] Francis did not deprive Ricard of his status and privileges as a cardinal.[271]
Francis visited Ireland in 2018, marking the first papal tour of the country since John Paul II's historic trip in 1979.[272] He has apologized for sexual abuses by clergy in the United States and Ireland.[273]
The case of Slovenian priest Marko Rupnik, accused of psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse against multiple women, including nuns, drew significant controversy due to the Vatican's handling of the allegations.[274] Initially, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) declined to prosecute, citing the statute of limitations, despite acknowledging there was a case to answer.[275] Rupnik was expelled from the Society of Jesus in 2023 for disobedience rather than for the abuse allegations and was later incardinated into the Diocese of Koper. Following widespread public outcry, Pope Francis ordered the case to be reopened and re-examined. After his conviction, Rupnik preached in 2020 a Lenten meditation for priests working in the Roman Curia, including Pope Francis and Luis Ladaria Ferrer, and met privately with Pope Francis in January 2022.[274] Criticism intensified after it was revealed that artwork by Rupnik remains in use by the Vatican, including in Pope Francis's personal residence, despite calls from Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley, head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, for its removal. The controversy fueled broader scrutiny of the Vatican's response to clergy abuse cases and its commitment to transparency and justice.[276][277][278] In January 2025, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández confirmed the DDF was working to establish an independent tribunal to move forward with judicial proceedings.[279]
Theological emphases and teachings
In Evangelii gaudium, Francis revealed what would be the emphases of his pontificate: a missionary impulse among all Catholics, sharing the faith more actively, avoiding worldliness by more visibly living the gospel of God's mercy, and helping the poor and working for social justice.[280]
Since 2016, criticism against Francis by theological conservatives had intensified.[281][282][283][284][285] One commentator had described the conservative resistance against Francis as "unique in its visibility" in recent church history.[286] Some have explained the level of disagreement as due to his going beyond theoretical principles to pastoral discernment.[287]
Evangelization
From his first major letter Evangelii gaudium (Joy to the World), Francis called for "a missionary and pastoral conversion" whereby the laity would fully share in the missionary task of the church.[188][288] Then, in his letter on the call of all to the same holiness, Gaudete et exsultate, Francis describes holiness as "an impulse to evangelize and to leave a mark in this world".[289]
Church governance
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Francis called for decentralization of governance away from Rome and for a synodal manner of decision-making in dialogue with the people.[290] He strongly opposed clericalism[291] and made women full members of the church's dicasteries in Rome.[292]
Environment and climate change
Francis's naming was an early indication of how he shared Francis of Assisi's care for all of creation. This was followed in May 2015 with his major encyclical on the environment, Laudato si' (Praise be to you).[293] In October 2023, in advance of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), Francis issued the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum (Praise God), in which he called for decisive action to against the climate crisis and condemned climate change denial.[294][295]
At the 2017 World Food Day ceremony, Francis highlighted the daily impacts of climate change and the solutions provided by scientific knowledge. He pointed out that while the international community had established legal frameworks such as the Paris Agreement, some nations had been withdrawing. He then expressed concern over a renewed indifference to ecosystem balance, the belief in controlling limited resources, and a greed for profit.[296] In 2019, he stated that ecocide was a sin and should be made "a fifth category of crimes against peace".[297][298][299]
In May 2024, Francis organized a climate summit that issued a Planetary Protocol for Climate Change Resilience including three pillars: greenhouse gas emissions reduction (while prioritizing nature-based solutions), climate change adaptation, and societal transformation.[300] The next month, Francis issued an apostolic letter titled Fratello sole (Brother sun, referring to Saint Francis' Canticle of the Sun), ordering the Vatican to construct an agrivoltaics facility on its land holdings on the outskirts of Rome, as a gesture of the Church towards the environmental movement.[301]
Option for the poor
Francis had highly extolled "popular movements" which demonstrate the "strength of us", serve as a remedy to the "culture of the self", and are based on solidarity with the poor and the common good.[302] He had praised liberation theology founder Gustavo Gutierrez.[303] In 2024, he met with representatives of the Dialop group, a discussion group between Christians and Marxists, and encouraged them to cooperate.[304]
In September 2024, Francis renewed calls for a universal basic income, as well as higher taxes on billionaires.[305]
Morality
Cardinal Walter Kasper had called mercy "the key word of his pontificate".[48]: 31–32 His papal motto Miserando atque eligendo ("by having mercy and by choosing") contains a central theme of his papacy, God's mercy.[306][307] While maintaining the Catholic Church's traditional teaching against abortion, Francis had referred to the "obsession" of some Catholics with a few issues such as "abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods" which "do not show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ".[308]
LGBTQ
While serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio led public opposition to the parliamentary bill on legalizing same-sex marriage in Argentina, which was eventually approved by the Argentine Senate in 2010.[309] A letter he wrote in that campaign was criticized for using "medieval" and "obscurantist" language.[310][311][312] A church source quoted in the Argentine newspaper La Nación called the letter a strategic error that contributed to the bill's success.[313]
As Pope, Francis marked a more accommodative tone on some LGBTQ topics than his predecessors.[314][315] In July 2013, his televised "Who am I to judge?" statement was widely reported in the international press, becoming one of his most famous statements on LGBTQ people.[316][317][318] In other public statements, Francis emphasized the need to accept, welcome, and accompany LGBTQ people,[308][319][320] including LGBTQ children.[321][322] Francis reiterated traditional Catholic teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman,[323][324] but supported civil unions as legal protections for same-sex couples.[322][325] Under his pontificate, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith confirmed that transgender people can be baptised.[326][327] The blessing of individuals in same-sex relationships was allowed by the document Fiducia supplicans.[328] Francis privately met with many LGBTQ people and activists.[329] In 2013, Francis was named Person of the Year by The Advocate, an American LGBTQ magazine.[330]
In September 2015, Francis met with Kim Davis, a county clerk who was jailed for six days for contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples.[331][332] In August 2018, Francis was criticized for suggesting that gay children seek psychiatric treatment, but he then rescinded the statement.[333][334] He described gender theory and children's education on gender-affirming surgery as "ideological colonization".[335][316] He also criticized "gender ideology", yet said that the 1907 novel Lord of the World depicted what he was intending to criticize.[336] He further wrote:
In a January 2023 interview with the Associated Press, Francis denounced the criminalization of homosexuality (which he called "unjust"); he also called on the Catholic Church to "distinguish between a sin and crime" and asked bishops supporting such laws to reverse their position.[12][317][337] Francis repeated this stance the following month.[317]
International policy
Francis had regularly been accused by conservatives of having a "soft spot" for leftist populist movements.[338]
After Francis's visit to Cuba in 2015, Catholic Yale historian Carlos Eire said Francis had a "preferential option for the oppressors" in Cuba.[339] Francis had expressed criticism towards right-wing populism.[340] Since 2016, Francis had been contrasted with US president Donald Trump,[341][11] with some conservative critics drawing comparisons between the two.[342][343] During the 2016 United States presidential election, Francis said of Trump, "A person who only thinks about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian." Trump responded, "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful."[344]
In response to criticism from Venezuela's bishops, President Nicolás Maduro said in 2017 that he had the support of Francis.[345][346] Francis met with the country's bishops in June 2017, and the Venezuelan bishops' conference president stated, "There is no distance between the episcopal conference and the Holy See."[347] In January 2019, 20 former presidents in Latin America wrote a letter to Francis criticizing his Christmas address regarding the ongoing Venezuelan crisis for being too simplistic and for not acknowledging what they believed to be the causes of the suffering of the victims of the crisis.[348] Francis had sought peace in the crisis without picking a side.[349]
Position toward China
Francis took a more conciliatory approach toward the People's Republic of China than any previous pope.[350] He continued the Vatican's longstanding diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China (Taiwan), rather than the People's Republic of China; Vatican City is one of just 12 countries to formally recognize Taiwan.[351][352] In 2018, however, Francis approved a provisional Vatican-China agreement intended to normalize the situation of China's Catholics who numbered approximately 10 million as of 2024.[350] Before, the Chinese government claimed the authority to appoint bishops, without papal approval, through the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, in contravention of longstanding church doctrine.[350] Under the 2018 agreement, the Vatican consults with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops and pledged not to appoint any bishop in China without Beijing's approval;[350] in return, the Chinese government recognized the pope as the supreme head of the Catholic Church.[353] The agreement was renewed for two years in 2020.[354][353]
Francis's efforts toward rapprochement with China were highly controversial; a leading critic, Cardinal Joseph Zen, said the 2018 agreement was a step toward the "annihilation" of the Catholic Church in China.[350][355][356] Critics said that the 2018 agreement "sold out" Chinese Catholics by accepting infringements on religious freedom, undermining the Vatican's spiritual authority.[353][350]
The Chinese government repeatedly violated the 2018 deal with the Vatican.[353][357] Francis had defended the Vatican's dialogue with China on the appointment of new bishops, saying in 2021 that uneasy dialogue was better than no dialogue at all.[358] From the signing of the agreement until 2022, only six Catholic bishops in China were appointed.[353] In November 2022, the Vatican publicly accused China of violating the agreement by installing John Peng Weizhao as an auxiliary bishop without Vatican approval.[353] In April 2023, the Chinese government also installed Joseph Shen Bin as bishop of Shanghai without Vatican approval. Three months later, Francis recognized Shen Bin's appointment; the Vatican secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, said that the pope wanted to "remedy the canonical irregularity created in Shanghai, in view of the greater good of the diocese and the fruitful exercise of the bishop's pastoral ministry."[354] The Vatican and the Chinese government renewed the agreement in 2022 and again in 2024.[359][360]
In November 2020, Francis named China's Uyghur minority among a list of the world's persecuted peoples. He wrote: "I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya [Muslims in Myanmar], the poor Uighurs, the Yazidi—what ISIS did to them was truly cruel—or Christians in Egypt and Pakistan killed by bombs that went off while they prayed in church." Zhao Lijian, the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of China, said Francis's remarks had "no factual basis".[361]
In 2019, during the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, Francis was criticized by Zen and other Catholic clergy in Hong Kong for failing to take a stand against China's repression and instead being quoted as saying, "I would like to go to China. I love China." Francis compared the protests in Hong Kong to those seen in Chile and in France.[362]
Theological disagreements
Amoris laetitia
On a theological level, controversy arose after the publication of the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, especially regarding whether the exhortation had changed the Catholic Church's sacramental discipline concerning access to the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist for divorced couples who have civilly remarried.[363] Francis had written: "It is important that the divorced who have entered a new union should be made to feel part of the Church." He called for "a responsible personal and pastoral discernment of particular cases". He went on to say: "It is true that general rules set forth a good which can never be disregarded or neglected, but in their formulation they cannot provide absolutely for all particular situations."[364]
The exhortation had been implemented in different ways by bishops around the world.[365] In July 2017, a group of conservative clergy, academics, and laymen signed a document labeled as a "Filial Correction" of Francis,[366] which criticized the Pope for promoting what it described as seven heretical propositions through various words, actions, and omissions during his pontificate.[367]
Document on Human Fraternity
The Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together is a joint statement signed by Francis and Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, on 4 February 2019. This statement is concerned with how different faiths can live peaceably in the same areas; it later inspired the International Day of Human Fraternity, as acknowledged by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres.[368][369] Criticisms focused particularly on the passage about God's will with regard to the diversity of religions, claiming that the "pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings".[370][371] Catholic theologian Chad Pecknold wrote that this sentence was "puzzling, and potentially problematic".[372] Some Catholic observers tried to understand it as an allusion to the "permissive will" of God, allowing evil on earth.[371] Pecknold wrote that the diversity of religions might also be "evidence of our natural desire to know God".[372] Bishop Athanasius Schneider claims that Pope Francis clarified to him that he was referring to "the permissive will of God".[373]
Traditionis custodes and the Tridentine Mass
In July 2021, Francis issued motu proprio, the apostolic letter titled Traditionis custodes, which reversed the decision of his predecessor Benedict XVI in Summorum Pontificum and imposed new restrictions on the use of the Traditional Latin Mass. The letter returned to the bishops the power to grant or ban the Latin Mass in their dioceses, and required newly ordained priests to request permission before performing the old rite, among other changes.[374][375] Traditionis custodes had been criticized by prelates including cardinals Raymond Leo Burke, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, and Joseph Zen, and many lay faithful. Edwin Pentin wrote in National Catholic Register that "The most general criticism is that the restrictions are unnecessary, needlessly harsh, and implemented in an unjustifiably swift fashion."[376]
Fiducia supplicans
In December 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration, Fiducia supplicans, approved by Francis.[328] Fiducia supplicans intended to provide clarification and reforms on the Catholic Church's treatment of "irregular relationships", defined as those who establish a monogamous and emotional bond that lasts over time and have not contracted a Catholic marriage. Notably, it allows Catholic priests to perform "spontaneous blessings" of same-sex couples, as well as opposite-sex couples who are not married, and civilly married couples at least one party of which was previously divorced but had not received an annulment.[377]
Fiducia supplicans sparked considerable controversy among Catholics, including from several conservative commentators, clerical congregations, and high-profile cardinals, bishops, priests, and lay people.[378][379][380] Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller called it "sacrilegious and blasphemous" and "self-contradictory".[381] Cardinal Robert Sarah described the blessing of couples in irregular situations as "a heresy that seriously undermines the Church".[382] On 11 January 2024, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu announced that all episcopal conferences in Africa, represented in SECAM, would reject blessings for same-sex couples, stating that "the extra-liturgical blessings proposed in the declaration...cannot be carried out in Africa without exposing themselves to scandals".[383][384]
International diplomatic role
Cuba
When Francis was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he authored a text entitled "Dialogues Between John Paul II and Fidel Castro".[385] John Paul was the first pope to visit Cuba. After a meeting between Francis and Cuban leader Raúl Castro in May 2015, Castro said that he was considering returning to the Catholic Church.[386] He said in a televised news conference, "I read all the speeches of the pope, his commentaries, and if the pope continues this way, I will go back to praying and go back to the [Catholic] church."[387]
As pope, Francis played a key role in the talks toward restoring full diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba, announced on 17 December 2014.[388] The Pope, along with the Government of Canada, was a behind-the-scenes broker of the agreement, taking the role following President Obama's request during his visit to the Pope in March 2014.[389] The success of the negotiations was credited to Francis because "as a religious leader with the confidence of both sides, he was able to convince the Obama and Castro administrations that the other side would live up to the deal".[388] En route to the United States for a visit in September 2015, the Pope stopped in Cuba.[385]
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
In May 2014, Francis visited Israel and the Palestinian territories.[390][391] Francis offered symbolic gestures to both sides in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[391] In addition to visiting the Western Wall, Yad Vashem, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, he became the first pope to visit the grave of Theodor Herzl, entered the West Bank from Jordan rather than Israel, and invited Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli president Shimon Peres to a prayer summit at the Vatican—both accepted.[391] He also visited Bethlehem, where he gave a speech alongside Abbas, and celebrated Mass at the Church of the Nativity.[391] At the invitation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he visited the Victims of Acts of Terror Memorial; at the invitation of Palestinian authorities, he prayed at a portion of the Israeli West Bank barrier.[391] In addition to meetings with Peres and Netanyahu, Francis met Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, Chief Rabbis Yitzhak Yosef and David Lau, and Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Places Shmuel Rabinowitz.[391]
In May 2015, Francis welcomed Abbas to the Vatican and said that: "The angel of peace destroys the evil spirit of war. I thought about you: may you be an angel of peace."[392] The Vatican signed a treaty recognizing the state of Palestine.[393] The Vatican issued statements concerning the hope that peace talks could resume between Israel and Palestine. Abbas's visit was on the occasion of the canonization of two Palestinian nuns.[394]
On 13 May 2015, Vatican City announced the intention to sign its first treaty with the State of Palestine after formally recognizing it as a state in February 2013.[395]
In May 2021, amid clashes in Jerusalem, Francis reiterated calls for peace between Israel and Palestinians during his Regina caeli address.[396][397]
Francis condemned the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and also criticized Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip during the subsequent Gaza war, saying that "terror should not justify terror" and describing Israel's airstrikes as "cruelty, this is not war."[398][399] He condemned the killing of two Palestinian Christian women by an IDF sniper in Gaza, calling it "terrorism".[400] Throughout the war, Francis had called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages,[401] and the implementation of a two-state solution.[402] In November 2024, Pope Francis suggested that the international community should investigate if Israel's campaign in Gaza is a genocide of the Palestinian people.[403] From October 2023 until the day he died, he spoke with the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip every night.[404][405] In his last public appearance he again called for a ceasefire and condemned the "deplorable humanitarian situation" in Gaza.[406][407]
Migrant and refugee issues
Francis made the plight of refugees and migrants "a core component of his pastoral work" and had defended their rights in dialogue both with Europe and with the United States. In 2019, he placed a statue in St. Peter's Square to bring attention to the Christian imperative involved in their situation (Hebrews 13:2).[408][409][410] In line with this policy, Francis had criticized neo-nationalists and populists who reject the acceptance of refugees.[411][412]
In April 2016, Francis, along with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Ieronimos II of Athens, visited the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos in order to call the attention of the world to the 2015 European migrant crisis. There, the three Christian leaders signed a joint declaration.[413]
In February 2025, following the election to a second term of US president Donald Trump there were mass deportations and swingeing cuts to international aid by the new administration, defended by Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, by recasting the Catholic idea of ordo amoris (the right ordering of one's love) as a justification for nativism. Francis wrote what had been described as "an extraordinary and excoriating response to US bishops". He cited the parable of the Good Samaritan, described the ordo amoris as the love that "builds a fraternity open to all, without exception" and criticized the focus on solely family, community or national identity as "[introducing] an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest".[414][415]
Sovereign Military Order of Malta
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In January 2017, Francis demanded the resignation of Matthew Festing, the 79th Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.[416] The Pope's demand was a response to Festing and Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke dismissing Baron Albrecht von Boeselager from his position in the Order of Malta. Fra' Giacomo Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto was appointed leader in May 2017.[417]
Russia and Ukraine
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Following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Francis visited the Russian embassy in Rome, an unprecedented action.[418] He called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to express "sorrow" as the Vatican worked to find "room for negotiation" to end the war.[419] The day after the invasion began in February 2022, Francis assured Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the major archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, that "he would do everything he can to help end the Ukraine conflict".[420] During 27 February 2022 Angelus address, Francis called for peace, saying, "Silence the weapons!"[421] At a September 2022 interfaith event in Kazakhstan, Francis urged Patriarch Kirill not to become an "altar boy" of Putin's.[422]
Throughout the war, Francis had called for an end to armed conflict.[423] Initially, he avoided specific criticism of Russia and President Putin, frustrating many Ukrainians.[424] Later, he described Ukraine as "martyred" and prayed for the victims of Russian aggression but still did not directly criticize Putin or the Russian government.[424][425] His statements aligned more with countries like Brazil, India, and China[425] rather than the US and Europe—a stance some attribute to his distrust of America.[426] Francis warned against what he called a "simplistic good versus evil perception of the conflict", saying that a world leader who he did not name told him that NATO was "barking at the gates" of Russia, which led him to believe that the conflict was "somehow either provoked or not prevented."[422] These remarks damaged the Vatican's standing as a mediator in the conflict because supporters of Ukraine saw them as echoing Russian narratives about the war.[427]
Francis's blanket denunciations of arms transfers and the weapons industry[424][428] seemed to condemn Western military aid to Ukraine.[425] In a September 2022 press conference, seven months into the war, Francis said that it was "licit" and justified for Ukraine to defend itself but called for a negotiated settlement (saying that there must be "dialogue with any power that is at war, even if it is with the aggressor" and even when "it stinks").[429][430][431] He also suggested that arms transfers to Ukraine were "a political decision which it can be moral, morally acceptable, if it is done under conditions of morality."[429] He later said that Ukrainians were a "noble" people and recounted Cardinal Konrad Krajewski's reports of the "savage acts, the monstrosity, the tortured bodies" inflicted upon Ukraine.[431]
Francis's stances were rooted in part in his hope that the Vatican could broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, a possibility that analysts viewed as extremely unlikely.[424] He dispatched two high-ranking Vatican officials—Cardinals Krajewski and Michael Czerny—as envoys on several trips to Ukraine in 2022.[432][433][434] which was considered a highly unusual move of Vatican diplomacy.[435] In March 2022, Francis consecrated both Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.[436] Francis said in April 2023, during a trip to Budapest, that he was working on a secret "mission" to bring peace and return Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.[437][438] However, Francis's efforts to position the Vatican as a mediator have continuously failed.[425][427]
In early October 2022, Francis for the first time directly appealed to Putin to halt the "spiral of violence and death" in Ukraine.[439] In the same speech, Francis asked Ukrainian president Zelenskyy to be open about "serious peace proposals" while recognizing that Ukraine had suffered an "aggression" and saying that he was "pained about the suffering of the Ukrainian people".[440]
In the Muslim world
Francis condemned the persecution of Christians by ISIL and supported the use of force to stop Islamic militants from attacking religious minorities in Iraq.[441] In January 2018, Francis met Yazidi refugees in Europe, expressed his support for their right to religious freedom, and called upon the international community "not to remain a silent and unresponsive spectator" to the Yazidi genocide.[442]
In February 2019, Francis visited Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on the invitation of Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Francis became the first pope to celebrate Mass on the Arabian Peninsula, attended by more than 120,000 attendees at the Zayed Sports City Stadium.[443]
In March 2021, Francis held a historic meeting with Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and visited Ur, a site traditionally identified as the birthplace of the prophet Abraham. He and the Iraqi cleric urged the Muslim and Christian communities to work together for peaceful coexistence.[444][445]
In September 2024, Francis visited Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population,[446] where he attended inter-religious dialogue in Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta and was welcomed by the Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar.[447] Francis and the Grand Imam additionally signed the Joint Declaration of Istiqlal 2024, underscoring that the values common to all religious traditions be effectively promoted to "defeat the culture of violence and indifference" and promote reconciliation and peace.[447] The declaration was also read and attended by representatives from other religions, including Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians, and Folk religions.[448]
G7
Pope Francis was the first pontiff to participate in the G7, a meeting of leaders of the largest developed economies in the world. During his speech at the G7 forum in Italy, he stressed that humanity is in great danger due to the wars that are taking place such as the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza. He also stated that the excessive use of artificial intelligence is posing a risk to jobs, and remarked on reproductive practices without specifically mentioning abortion.[449][450][451][452]
Elsewhere
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In September 2015, Francis visited the United Nations Headquarters in New York City where he addressed the UN General Assembly; following his speech, he visited the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.[453] In June 2023, Francis issued an address to the UN Security Council while recovering from abdominal surgery; the statement was read by Vatican official Paul Gallagher on the Pope's behalf.[454][455]
After the 2017 Catalan independence referendum that originated the 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis on 1 October 2017, Francis communicated to the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See Gerardo Bugallo that the Vatican would not recognize secessionist or self-determination movements that were not the result of decolonization.[456]
Public image
| External videos | |
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 Why the only future worth building includes everyone, TED talks, April 2017, 17:51, in Italian with subtitles in 22 languages |
Francis was frequently described as a progressive or liberal moderate.[457] Commentator William Saletan described Francis as liberal and fundamentally anti-conservative in his analysis of Francis's first long interview after becoming pope, highlighting Francis's statements "God is to be encountered in the world of today" and "God manifests himself in historical revelation, in history".[458] Other have contested descriptions of Francis as liberal.[459] In 2014, the Vatican criticized some Italian news agencies, as well as the Agence France-Presse, for reporting that a comment Francis made was suggestive of an opening toward acceptance of same-sex marriage or civil unions; a Vatican spokesperson said the pope's remark was taken out of context.[460]
Important aspects of Francis's public image include "his recognizable humanity" and gestures of humility, as well as his efforts to preserve his autonomy amid Roman Curia bureaucracy.[461] He was a frequent user of landline telephones; he reportedly had never owned a computer or mobile phone.[461] Shortly before his death, Francis donated most of his personal wealth, approximately €200,000, to support a pasta-making project at a youth prison in Rome.[462]
In December 2013, both Time and The Advocate magazines named Francis as their "Person of the Year"; Esquire magazine named him as the "Best-dressed man" for 2013, citing his simpler vestments.[463] Rolling Stone magazine followed in January 2014 by making him their featured front cover.[464][465] Fortune magazine also ranked Francis as number one in their list of 50 greatest leaders.[466] He was included in Forbes lists of most powerful people in the world in 2014[467] and 2016.[468]
In March 2013, a new song was dedicated to Francis and released in Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, and Italian, titled Come Puoi (How You Can).[128] A street in La Plata, Argentina, was renamed Papa Francisco in his honor.[469] The Argentine Chamber of Deputies passed legislation to mint a commemorative coin as a tribute to Francis in 2013.[470][471] As of 2013, sales of papal souvenirs, a sign of popularity, were up.[472]
Francis presided over his first joint public wedding ceremony in a Nuptial Mass for 20 couples from the Archdiocese of Rome on 14 September 2014, a few weeks before the start of 5–19 October Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (the Synod on the Family).[473][e]
In 2016, Francis became the first pope to create an Instagram account.[475] He broke records after having gained over one million followers in under 12 hours of the account being up.[476] On 26 November 2020, Francis became the first pope to write an op-ed for The New York Times, addressing issues such as COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings and the need for global solidarity.[477][478]
Francis was a longtime supporter of the football club San Lorenzo de Almagro. When the Argentine club won the 2014 Copa Libertadores, he received the team at his guest house near St. Peter's Square, where he was gifted a replica trophy and a glove of goalkeeper Sebastian Torrico.[479]
Health
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Elected at the age of 76, Francis was reported to be healthy; his doctors had said the lung tissue removed in his youth did not significantly affect his health.[480] The only concern would be decreased respiratory reserve if he had a respiratory infection.[481] The Pope had suffered from chronic lung damage, due in part to the lung excision he had as a young man. In the last few years of his life, he was prone to bouts of influenza and bronchitis in the winter. Knee problems and sciatica prompted him to frequently use a wheelchair, walker, or cane.[482] In 2021, the Pope's health problems prompted rumors that he might resign,[483] which Francis dismissed.[484] In June 2022, after undergoing treatment to his knee, Francis canceled planned trips to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.[485]
In March 2023, Francis was hospitalized in Rome with a respiratory infection.[486] He returned to celebrate the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday, in April.[487] In June, Francis underwent abdominal surgery after suffering from a hernia.[488] He acknowledged that his recurring mobility problems had precipitated the beginning of what Reuters termed "a new, slower phase of his papacy",[489] although he was praised by disabled Catholics for making his "disability part of his visible identity".[490]
In February 2025, Francis entered Gemelli Hospital in Rome due to bronchitis.[491] He remained for more than a month after developing a polymicrobial infection of his respiratory tract and bilateral pneumonia.[492][493][494] Vatican News described his condition as critical and reported that he was given blood transfusions and high-flow oxygen.[495][496] Eventually, Francis was put on mechanical ventilation for a number of days, and suffered two episodes of "acute respiratory insufficiency".[497] After the infection improved, he was discharged from the hospital on 23 March,[498] immediately after blessing a crowd from his balcony. He was expected to spend at least two months recuperating at his home in Domus Sanctae Marthae in Vatican City,[499] maintaining a reduced work schedule.[500][501] He appeared in public for the first time since his hospitalization on 6 April.[494]
Death
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Francis's last public appearance was at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City on Easter Sunday, 20 April 2025, where he gave his final Easter address and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.[13][502][406] He died at 07:35 local time (UTC+02:00) on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, aged 88, in his residence in Domus Sanctae Marthae.[503][504] His death, announced by Cardinal Kevin Farrell on the Vatican's TV channel and in a video statement,[505] was caused by a cerebral stroke, which led to a coma and irreversible cardiac arrest.[506][507]
The pope's death began a papal interregnum and a nine-day period of mourning known as the novendiales (Latin for 'nine days'). His funeral took place on 26 April 2025.[508] Cardinal electors arrived in Rome to attend the congregation of cardinals and decided that 7 May 2025 shall be the start of the conclave set to elect Francis's successor.[509] On 8 May, Robert Francis Prevost, who was made a cardinal by Francis in 2023, was elected as Pope Leo XIV.
Francis's spiritual testament, dated 29 June 2022, repeated his wish to be buried at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Upon his death, he was laid to rest there in accordance with his testament, becoming the first pope to be interred in the Santa Maria Maggiore since Clement IX in 1669.[510][511] His testament ended:
Legacy
Francis's papacy coincided with a period of widespread change and reckoning within the global Catholic order and within society at large. Throughout his papacy, he was noted for his support for the plight of refugees, migrants, and the impoverished.[512] Since their beginnings, he had been outspoken in his criticism of the wars in Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, DR Congo, and Myanmar, notwithstanding numerous other conflicts and acts of suppression against the civilian population globally.[513][514][515] He appointed more than 80% of the cardinals that elected his successor, notably reducing the European share of the College of Cardinals from a majority to a plurality.[516][517] He was celebrated for his outreach to China and the African continent, his tolerance towards differing faith communities, and his attention to younger Catholic adherents and the changing nature of the faith.[513][518] Additionally, he formalized the church's policy of opposition to the death penalty in all cases.[519][520][516]
Under his papacy, women remained banned from becoming priests, joining the Diaconate, or being appointed to the College of Bishops or Cardinals. However, Francis made significant strides towards increasing women's presence in the senior and central administration of the church.[521][516][522] He was the first to grant them voting rights within the Synod of Bishops, and increased their presence in functions and institutions of the Church that had previously been restricted to or dominated by men.[251][523] He has nonetheless been criticized by some as having only produced reform within existing frameworks of gender division within the Catholic Church, doing little to advance serious, radical reform of its institutions to ensure an ideal of inclusion and parity.[521]
He set himself apart from other Popes in upholding the Church's departure from the Tridentine mass, which had only been loosely enforced by both predecessors whose reign occurred after the institution of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.[375][524][516][525] Though it was not banned outright during his tenure, he nonetheless greatly increased Vatican oversight over the facilitation of the ritual, and restricted the right of new priests to engage in the practice.[525][526] Some have stated his view as having been that "the Tridentine liturgy [had become] a symbol of the rejection of Vatican II itself as well as of the pope's teachings."[527]
In 2022, he issued the first apology by the Vatican for its role in the cultural erasure and forced assimilation of First Nations peoples in Canada from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries.[528] His endorsement of the conditional blessing of same-sex couples earned him praise from many progressive outlets within and outside the Church. Some groups, though, have been critical of the extent of his tolerance on various LGBTQ issues, particularly the question of his acceptance of transgender identity and his answer to the larger issue of homosexuality, queer identity, and sin.[529][530][522] The progressive stances he held drew significant criticism from conservative elements within the college.[516]
Distinctions
Titles and styles
The official form of address of the Pope in English was His Holiness Pope Francis. Holy Father was among the other honorifics used for popes.[531]
Foreign orders
Bolivia: 
: Grand Collar of the Order of the Condor of the Andes (9 July 2015)[532][533]- Bolivia: Order of Merit "Father Luis Espinal Camps" (9 July 2015)[532][533]
Poland: 
: Order of the Smile (26 April 2016)[534]
United States: 
: Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction (11 January 2025)[535]
.svg){kind=small}
Awards
- Olympic Order (2013)[536]
Germany: International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen (2016)[537]- "Person of the Year" by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (2015) for his request that all Catholics be kind to animals.[538]
- Francis was made an honorary Harlem Globetrotter on 7 May 2015.[539]
- Francis was granted an honorary black belt by World Taekwondo in 2017.[540]
- Zayed Award for Human Fraternity in October 2020 for significant contributions to the service of humanity from around the world.[541][542]
Brazil: Medalha Mérito Legislativo awarded by the Congress of Brazil in November 2021.[543]- Grand Chief Willie Littlechild gifted Francis with the Indigenous name "Wapikihew" ("White Eagle") on behalf of the Ermineskin Cree Nation and presented him with a traditional Cree War bonnet following the Pope's apology to the Indigenous peoples in Canada at Maskwacis, Alberta, on 25 July 2022.[544]
Honorific eponyms and dedications
Philippines: The Pope Francis Center for the Poor – Palo, Leyte (12 July 2015)[545]
South Sudan: "H.H. Pope Francis Road" in Juba was inaugurated by President Salva Kiir days before his 2023 visit to the country. The President said, "the road was named after the Holy Father as a gift by South Sudanese to Pope Francis."[546]- Ennio Morricone composed a Mass setting (Missa Papae Francisci) named after the Pope for the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the restoration of the Jesuit order. The performance aired on Rai 5 and was attended by former Italian president Giorgio Napolitano and other dignitaries.[547][548][549]
- The composer Ludger Stühlmeyer dedicated his work Klangrede – Sonnengesang des Franziskus, for choir (SATB) and instruments – to Pope Francis (Suae Sanctitati Papae Francisci dedicat). First performance: Capella Mariana 4 October 2015.[550]
- The rodent species Oecomys franciscorum, discovered in 2016, was named after both Francis and Francisco Maldonado da Silva, a victim of the Peruvian Inquisition.[551]
- In the oratorio Laudato si' by Peter Reulein (music) written on a libretto by Helmut Schlegel OFM, the figure of Francis appears. It was first performed at Limburg Cathedral in 2016.[552][553]
Coat of arms
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Media
By 2015, there were two biographical films about Francis: Call Me Francesco (Italy, 2015), starring Rodrigo de la Serna, and Francis: Pray for me (Argentina, 2015), starring Darío Grandinetti.[556] A music album, Wake Up!, consisting of speeches by Francis accompanied by music was released on 27 November 2015.[557][558][559]
Several documentaries have been created about Francis. Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (2018) is a documentary film co-written and directed by Wim Wenders.[560][561] On 21 October 2020, the documentary Francesco directed by film producer Evgeny Afineevsky premiered.[562][563] On 4 October 2022, the documentary The Letter: A Message for our Earth premiered on YouTube Originals, directed by Nicolas Brown and produced by Off The Fence in partnership with Laudato Si' Movement.[564]
Francis was played by Jonathan Pryce in the biographical film The Two Popes (2019).[565]
See also
Notes
- Press reports have provided a variety of translations for the phrase. According to Vatican Radio: "Pope Francis has chosen the motto Miserando atque eligendo, meaning 'lowly but chosen'; literally in Latin 'by having mercy, by choosing him'. The motto is one Francis used as bishop. It is taken from the homilies of the Venerable Bede on Saint Matthew's Gospel relating to his vocation: 'Jesus saw the tax collector and by having mercy chose him as an apostle saying to him: Follow me.'"[1]
- Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco; Spanish: Francisco.
- Pronounced [ˈxoɾxe ˈmaɾjo βeɾˈɣoɣljo] in Spanish and [berˈɡɔʎʎo] in Italian.
- John Paul I, elected in 1978, took a new combination of already used names, in honor of his two immediate predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI.[162]
- Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did not do this during his eight-year papacy from 2005 to 2013; his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, married a group of couples from all over the world in 2000, as part of the Jubilee for Families, and before that in 1994 during the church's Year of the Family, as well as presiding over a number of private marriages as pope.[474]
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Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; habemus Papam: Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Georgium MariumSanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Bergoglio qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum
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It was so hard to sell anything under Benedict. This pope attracts huge crowds, and they all want to bring back home something with his smiling face on it.
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Further reading
- Allen, John L. (2015). The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church. New York: Time. ISBN 978-1-61893-131-3.
- Borghesi, Massimo (2018) [Italian original, 2017]. The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio's Intellectual Journey. Translated by Hudock, Barry. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-8146-8790-1.
- Castagnaro, Mauro; Eugenio, Ludovica (2013). Il Dissenso Soffocato: un'agenda per Papa Francesco [Dissent Stifled: an agenda for Pope Francis]. Molfetta, Italy: La Meridiana. ISBN 978-88-6153-324-0.
- Colonna, Marcantonio (2018). The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-1-62157-832-1.
- Douthat, Ross (2018). To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-5011-4692-3.
- Lawler, Philip F. (2018). Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis Is Misleading His Flock. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway. ISBN 978-1-62157-722-5.
- Liedl, Jonathan (6 March 2023). "Francis' Pontificate Turns 10: Outward-Facing Emphasis Has Shaken Up Church's Inner Equilibrium". National Catholic Register. Retrieved 7 March 2023.
- Willey, David (2015). The Promise of Francis: The Man, the Pope, and the Challenge of Change. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4767-8905-7.
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Pope Francis, who rose from modest means in Argentina to become the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff, who clashed bitterly with traditionalists in his push for a more inclusive Roman Catholic Church, and who spoke out tirelessly for migrants, the marginalized and the health of the planet, died on Monday at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. He was 88.
The pope’s death was announced by the Vatican in a statement on X, a day after Francis appeared in his wheelchair to bless the faithful in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday. The cause of death was a stroke followed by a coma and irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse, the Vatican said.
Listen to this article, read by James Patrick Cronin
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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Francis steadily steered the church in another direction, restocking its leadership with a diverse array of bishops who shared his pastoral, welcoming approach as he sought to open up the church. Many rank-and-file Catholics approved, believing that the church had become inward-looking and distant from ordinary people.
The Legacy of Pope Francis
Pope Francis passed away after leading the Roman Catholic Church for 12 years. His supporters remembered the first Latin American pontiff for his inclusive leadership style, while conservative Catholics accused him of diluting church teachings.
Pope Francis passed away after leading the Roman Catholic Church for 12 years. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Pope Francis made history as the first pontiff from Latin America, the first Jesuit and the first to take his papal name from Saint Francis of Assisi, a saint who dedicated his life to the poor. When Francis became pope, he took over the Roman Catholic Church at a moment of crisis. The church was being rocked by clerical sexual abuse scandals, falling attendance, a dire shortage of priests and demands for a greater role for women. After decades of conservative leadership, Francis set out to lead the church in a new direction of inclusivity — filling the church’s leadership with an ethnically diverse array of bishops who shared his approach. His willingness to discuss once taboo subjects within the church was one of his biggest achievements, opening doors that had once been sealed shut. Francis initially faced criticism when he addressed sex abuse scandals involving the clergy, supporting the accused bishops and publicly doubting some victims. But after speaking with sex abuse survivors, Francis adopted new rules to hold religious leaders, including bishops, accountable. Still, Francis did not adopt the level of transparency that many advocates had hoped for. Francis’s stance was less clear on L.G.B.T.Q. issues. While he rejected same-sex marriage, he called on priests to be welcoming to non-traditional relationships between gay men, lesbians and unmarried couples who lived together. Francis tried to shift the church’s focus to global problems like climate change, poverty and migration. Conservative Catholics clashed with Francis over his less than traditional leadership style and accused him of diluting church teachings. But his supporters will remember him for his willingness to open questions for debate and his attempt to introduce long-lasting change.
Francis reached out to migrants, the poor and the destitute, to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy members, and to alienated gay Catholics. He traveled to often-forgotten and far-flung countries and sought to improve relations with an antagonistic Chinese government, Muslim clerics and leaders from across the fragmented Christian world.
After some early stumbles, he took strong steps to address a clerical sex abuse crisis that had become an existential threat to the church. He adopted new rules to hold top religious leaders, including bishops, accountable if they committed sexual abuse or covered it up, though he did not impose the level of transparency or civil reporting obligations that many advocates demanded.
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In his final years, slowed by a bad knee, intestinal surgery and respiratory ailments that sapped his breath and voice, Francis used a cane and then a wheelchair, seemingly a diminished figure. But that was a misleading impression. He continued to travel widely, focusing on exploited and war-torn parts of Africa, where he excoriated modern-day colonizers and sought peace in South Sudan.
His insistence on shaking up the status quo earned him no shortage of enemies. He demoted conservatives in Vatican offices, restricted the use of the old Latin Mass dear to traditionalists, opened influential meetings of bishops to laypeople, including women, allowed priests to bless same-sex couples and made clear that transgender people could be godparents and that their children could be baptized.
He also refused to endorse calls to deny communion to Catholic politicians supportive of abortion rights, including when he was president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., who said Francis had called him a “good Catholic.”
His avuncular charm and easy smile belied his reputation inside the Vatican as a steely — his opponents said ruthless — administrator as he brought greater transparency to church finances and overhauled the Vatican’s bureaucracy.
The traditional Italian power bases of the Vatican grew frustrated with his purposefully unpredictable governing style, which relied on a small group of confidants, many of them Jesuits like himself, and his own gut.
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Conservative Catholics accused him of diluting church teachings and never stopped rallying against him. Simmering dissent periodically exploded into view in almost medieval fashion, with talk of schisms and heresy.
But Francis also disappointed many liberals, who hoped that he might introduce progressive policies. His openness to frank discussion gave oxygen to debates about long-taboo subjects, including priestly celibacy, communion for divorced and remarried people, and greater roles for women in the church. While he opened doors to talking about such issues, he tended to balk at making major decisions.
“We are often chained like Peter in the prison of habit,” he said of the church in 2022 in a speech in St. Peter’s Basilica. “Scared by change and tied to the chain of our customs.”
A New Style
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of his papacy was that he became pope at all.
Francis was elected in March 2013 after the resignation of Benedict, the first pontiff to step down in nearly six centuries, amid turmoil and intrigue about secret lobbies and financial chicanery. The cardinal electors sought a reformer with a strong administrative hand, but few anticipated how Francis, then the 76-year-old archbishop of Buenos Aires, would blend reformist zeal and folksy charm in a push to clean house and transform the church.
“Buona sera,” good evening, Francis announced to the faithful in his first remarks as pope from the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, breaking the ice with unaffected style. He joked about being from Argentina, noting that in fulfilling their duty to produce a pope, “it seems that my brother cardinals have gone almost to the ends of the Earth to get him.”
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Francis not only came from another part of the world: influenced by his Latin American populist roots, he also saw the world differently than his predecessors did. He became the first pontiff to take his papal name from St. Francis of Assisi, the austere friar who dedicated his life to piety and the poor and who, according to tradition, received instruction from God to rebuild his church.
Francis signaled his humble style from the outset. He paid his own bill at the Vatican hotel where he stayed during the conclave that elected him, rode about town in a modest Ford Focus, lived in a Vatican guesthouse rather than the ornate papal apartments and, in a Holy Week ritual performed at a youth prison, washed the feet of a young Muslim woman. Later, in his ailing years, he referred to his own frailty in demanding dignity for the aged.
His humility could be disarming. When asked about a priest who was said to be gay, he responded, “Who am I to judge?”
The comment made global headlines and signaled a dramatic change underway inside the Vatican.
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Francis took over the church at a moment of crisis. In the industrialized world, it suffered from falling attendance, faith-draining clerical sexual abuse scandals, demands for a greater role for women and a dire shortage of priests. And in Latin America, Asia and Africa, where the faith was continuing to grow, the Catholic church faced increasing competition from Protestant evangelical and Pentecostal churches.
He soon tried to move the church away from divisive issues like abortion and homosexuality, and shifted its emphasis to global problems like climate change, poverty and migration. His first papal trip out of Rome was to Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island that had become the point of arrival for thousands of African migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
His vision, expressed in major documents like the encyclical “Laudato Si,” or “Praise Be to You,” linked Catholic theology to protecting the environment and championing those on the margins, while denouncing the excesses of global capitalism in exploiting the poor.
He traveled frequently to the Arab world, where Christians faced persecution, to pursue détente with Islam, and repeatedly visited what he called the “peripheries,” the places and people often overlooked.
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In 2019, Francis got on his hands and knees before the warring leaders of South Sudan’s government and its opposition, kissing their shoes and imploring them to make peace. In 2023, in declining health, he traveled to the capital city, Juba, to upbraid them on their lack of progress.
“No more bloodshed, no more conflicts, no more violence and mutual recriminations about who is responsible for it,” Francis said in the gardens of South Sudan’s presidential palace. “Leave the time of war behind and let a time of peace dawn!”
He repeatedly denounced violence and, after an initial reluctance to take sides in the war in Ukraine, spoke out in support of Ukraine. But Ukrainian officials worried that what he called the Vatican’s secret “mission” to mediate an end to the war, without explicitly rejecting Russia’s occupation, could unwittingly aid their enemy.
Francis could be scathing toward the prelates in the Vatican. He once compared the hierarchy to a “ponderous, bureaucratic customs house.” He accused some church officials of deluding themselves as being “indispensable” and afflicted by the “terrorism of gossip.”
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His Christmas speeches to Vatican leaders became reliably blunt lectures about a church weighed down by clericalism — the notion that the “peacock priest” and “airport bishop,” who drop in when convenient, see themselves as superior to their flock and had become out of touch. Clericalism, he contended, lay at the heart of many of the church’s ills, including the child sexual abuse crisis.
Some powerful conservatives tried to use those scandals as a cudgel to destroy Francis, accusing him of covering up for Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, an American who was removed in disgrace for the sexual abuse of a minor.
That accusation against Francis proved unfounded, but he nevertheless had a long and painful learning curve on the sex abuse scandals. His initial calls for action yielded little, and when the crisis exploded again on his watch, he instinctively supported his fellow bishops and publicly doubted some victims, endangering his legacy as a defender of the downtrodden.
He ultimately regained his footing on the issue by recognizing his own blindness and by talking with abuse survivors. He never held bishops to account as much as some of his supporters had hoped. But he enacted meaningful reforms, sought to make the protection of children a priority for bishops around the world and, remarkably, ordered an exhaustive investigation that placed blame for Cardinal McCarrick’s ascent at the feet of Saint John Paul II.
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On other issues, Francis could make it difficult to understand where he stood. He rejected same-sex marriage yet called on priests to be welcoming to people in nontraditional relationships, such as gay men and lesbians, single parents and unmarried couples who live together.
He supported civil unions for gay couples but approved a Vatican decision to bar priests from blessing them — a decision he later said he regretted, and then reversed.
He called the criminalization of homosexuality “unjust,” but also backed the Vatican’s opposition to a proposed Italian law extending protections to L.G.B.T.Q. people. And when Germany’s bishops overwhelmingly voted to bless gay couples in 2023, the Vatican cracked down with the pope’s approval.
Some of Francis’ defenders argued that his ambiguities and incrementalisms reflected a strategy to build a consensus for a larger, longer-lasting project — that of creating a more collegial church that shifted power away from Rome to local bishops and priests in the trenches.
After Benedict’s death ended the anomalous situation of two living popes, some of Francis’ supporters expected him to exercise a freer hand. They hoped for bold changes from a meeting of the world’s bishops in 2023 and 2024, where topics such as ordaining women as deacons and priestly celibacy and marriage were on the table. But the potentially explosive meeting ended with a whimper. The bishops called for women to be given more leadership roles but left the other major questions for another day.
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Indeed, Francis’ most enduring legacy may be the transformation of the clerical ranks and the reshaping of the College of Cardinals, once dominated by conservatives appointed by Benedict and John Paul II.
In a hierarchy where personnel is policy, Francis’ supporters hope the clergy he promoted — and the successor they will choose — will cross the lines he dared walk up to.
Roots in Italy
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on Dec. 17, 1936, in the Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires to Mario Bergoglio and Regina (Sivori) Bergoglio, both of Italian descent.
The family’s passage to Argentina would become part of Bergoglio lore: Booked in steerage on the ocean liner Principessa Mafalda, the future pope’s paternal grandparents missed their departure because of delays in selling their coffee shop in Turin, Italy. But frustration soon turned to relief: The ship sank at sea. A few months later, they arrived safely in Buenos Aires aboard another liner, the Giulio Cesare.
Jorge, who was the eldest of five siblings, is survived by a sister, María Elena Bergoglio.
Growing up, Jorge was deeply influenced by his grandmother Rosa Bergoglio, who in Italy had joined Catholic Action, the 1920s movement that defended the church against the encroachment of Mussolini’s Fascist state. The rise of Fascism had helped push the family to leave.
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In Flores, Rosa taught her grandson Italian inflected with the family’s native Piedmont dialect and a love of literature. His father, Mario, eager to assimilate, insisted on speaking Spanish.
Catholicism was a sustaining and nurturing force in the Bergoglio household. When his mother was bedridden after the difficult birth of one of his sisters, Jorge, then 12, was placed in a school run by Salesian priests. The Salesians helped imbue him with a sense of duty toward the poor, as well as a realization of his own responsibility for improving the state of the world.
“I learned, almost unconsciously, to seek the meaning of things,” he recalled.
Bookish, intelligent and deeply religious, Jorge also played basketball and loved to dance the tango. Barely six weeks short of his 17th birthday, he was rushing to meet his friends in Flores when he paused in front of the Basilica of St. Joseph.
“I felt I had to go in — those things you feel inside and you don’t know what they are,” he recounted. In the sanctuary, he said, he “felt like someone grabbed me from inside” and took him into the confessional. “Right there I knew I had to be a priest,” he said.
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He often referred to a story about divine mercy describing the moment Jesus, by “showing mercy and by choosing,” miserando atque eligendo, captivated Matthew the tax collector. He said he felt the Lord was waiting for him too, and chose the Latin phrase for his motto.
“That’s me,” he later told the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest and friend who published an extensive interview with the pope. “How I felt.”
But Jorge hid his ambition from his family. In high school he had demonstrated a scientific aptitude, and his mother hoped he would become a doctor. He worked in a chemistry lab and earned pocket money as a doorman at tango bars.
In November 1955, just after graduating from high school, he finally told his parents of his plans for the priesthood. His mother was unhappy and accused him of misleading her. “I didn’t lie to you, Mom,” his sister, Maria Elena, recalled Jorge responding. “I’m going to study the medicine of the soul.”
Time in the Wilderness
After 13 years of training, Jorge Bergoglio was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969. The Jesuits had arrived in South America in 1580, along with colonists from Spain and Portugal who subjugated the continent with the complicity of Rome.
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The Jesuits, though, resisted some of the worst colonial abuses, creating self-ruled protectorates for Indigenous peoples. The future pope embraced this legacy: the closeness to the poor, the respect for Indigenous peoples, the suspicion of European expansion and the resistance to it, and a wariness toward secular ideologies.
Latin America and Catholicism were in turmoil when Father Bergoglio, at 36, took charge of the Argentine Jesuits. Argentina was in the throes of a “dirty war,” with a brutal military government killing and torturing thousands of opponents. And the Latin American church was sundered, as many senior prelates remained close to the ruling classes while many Jesuits embraced liberation theology, which called on the church to press for social change on behalf of the poor.
Conservative church leaders denounced that theology as Marxist. One of those critics was Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, an anti-Communist crusader from Poland, who in 1978 became Pope John Paul II and appointed conservative bishops who were antagonistic to liberation theology.
Father Bergoglio shared the view of the local church establishment that liberation theology was too political. He later faced accusations that as leader of the Argentine Jesuits he had done too little to protect two priests who were kidnapped and tortured by the junta, allegations later challenged by biographers and others. He eventually reconciled with one of the priests, but the other remained bitter.
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His Jesuit leadership ended in controversy. He had cultivated a passionate and loyal cadre of priests, but he had also made enemies, partly because of what critics called an imperious and autocratic management style. The church authorities sent him into de facto exile in Germany and then to Córdoba, Argentina, a period he later described as “a time of great interior crisis.”
After becoming pope, Francis acknowledged that his administrative style as a Jesuit leader had been imperfect.
“My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative,” he told Father Spadaro. “But I have never been a right-winger.”
His exile, though, was interrupted in 1992 when a senior figure in the Argentine church unexpectedly named him auxiliary bishop of the Buenos Aires diocese. He became archbishop six years later and focused on outreach to the poor, assembling a group of priests dedicated to ministering in the slums.
During the country’s 2001-02 economic crisis, he organized food kitchens, tripled the number of priests assigned to the slums and built schools and drug rehabilitation centers as state services retrenched. He converted his official residence into a hostel for priests and lived in a modest room in the diocesan building in central Buenos Aires. Before every Easter, he visited prison inmates, AIDS patients or older people, a practice he continued during his papacy.
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His suspicion of secular ideologies and theories, including capitalism, deepened. He contended that left-wing ideologies deified the state and economic neoliberalism eviscerated it. In 2006, at the traditional Catholic prayer of thanksgiving on Argentine Independence Day, Archbishop Bergoglio, by then a cardinal, made a thinly veiled critique of President Néstor Kirchner, who was in attendance.
Cardinal Bergoglio also had chilly relations with the Vatican. It represented “the heart of everything that he believed the church should not be: luxury, ostentation, hypocrisy, bureaucracy,” his former press officer in Buenos Aires, Federico Wals, told Austen Ivereigh, one of the pope’s biographers. “He hated going.”
After passing the bishop’s retirement age of 75, he reserved a simple room at a Catholic seminary, where he intended to live out his days in prayer and reflection, enjoying his beloved mate tea.
But Pope Benedict XVI changed all that on Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced that he would resign. It was the first papal resignation since Gregory XII’s in 1415.
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Cardinal Bergoglio flew to Rome to help elect a new pope. He never returned.
An Accidental Pope
In the 2005 conclave that elected Benedict as pope, Cardinal Bergoglio had finished second and left Rome that year with little reason to believe that he would have another chance at the papacy. There was little evidence that he even wanted the job.
With Benedict’s resignation, the news media was filled with speculation about who would succeed him, including expectations that the cardinals might select the first Latin American pope. Given his age, Cardinal Bergoglio wasn’t on the shortlist.
But as the voting began, a movement to elect him began to take shape. Many cardinals from outside Rome were furious about dysfunction at the Vatican and the imperiousness of the Roman curia, the bureaucracy of cardinals and other officials that oversees the church. They criticized the church’s response to the clerical sexual abuse crisis as inadequate. And a financial scandal was brewing at the opaque Vatican Bank.
Cardinal Bergoglio had a reputation as a tough, effective administrator, as well as someone who firmly believed in devolving power from the Vatican bureaucracies to bishops around the world.
A speech he made to cardinals before the conclave officially began made a mark, especially its emphasis on the church’s duty to come out of its comfortable shell in order to reach people at the physical and spiritual peripheries.
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After Cardinal Bergoglio began accumulating votes, the weight of the papacy seemed to settle on him, witnesses recalled. It took two days, and on the fifth round of balloting, he crossed the 77-vote threshold for a two-thirds majority. Asked if he would accept the papacy, he responded, “Although I am a sinner, I accept.”
Cardinal Cláudio Hummes of Brazil hugged him and said, “Don’t forget the poor!” He did not.
After his time in Argentina, “his papacy is a clear continuity, above all, in his focus on the poor,” the Rev. Augusto Zampini Davies, who once worked in the Buenos Aires slum of Bajo Boulogne, told The New York Times in 2015. “The church — those that appointed him — wanted a change. And they wanted a change from the periphery. But perhaps what some did not predict is that when somebody starts to see the world from the viewpoint of the poorest, he undergoes a profound transformation.”
In a conversation with Italian reporters in 2015, Francis concisely articulated that view: “Without a solution to the problems of the poor, we cannot resolve the problems of the world.”
A Global Force
Francis quickly established himself as a figure with global influence.
He helped broker a reconciliation between the United States and Cuba, and Vatican diplomats had a hand in the peace deal that ended the decades-old civil war in Colombia. At the height of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, he framed it as a moral issue and spoke up tirelessly for those risking their lives to reach Europe.
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As anti-migrant sentiment and populist politicians rose in Europe and the United States, Francis seemed out of step with the moment.
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Francis suggested that Donald J. Trump was “not Christian” because of his preference for building walls rather than bridges. Mr. Trump responded: “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian.” The battle lines were drawn.
Francis repeatedly sought to stand up to nationalism, and became a reliable opponent of ethnic, racial and sovereign appeals.
He visited Hungary in 2021 and appeared to chastise Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who often wrapped his hard line against migrants in an appeal to Christian values. But he returned to Hungary in 2023, a visit that a delighted Mr. Orban argued was a show of support for his values.
Francis kept speaking out, but fewer and fewer people seemed to listen.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the former head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture, said the pope had a duty to be a global conscience “even if it’s a losing effort.” The pope still reached a large audience, he said, even if “the world is going in another direction.”
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Francis stayed on message, incessantly reaching out to the faithful on the peripheries over more than 40 foreign trips. He also sought closer relations with other religions, especially in places where Catholic minorities risked persecution, while repeatedly courting Muslim leaders.
In 2017, he spoke at a conference in Cairo hosted by Al Azhar, perhaps the most influential center of Muslim learning in Sunni Islam, and established a strong interfaith relationship with its grand imam.
He took a risky trip to Iraq in 2021, undaunted by the pandemic and security concerns, and sought to forge bonds between Muslims and that country’s dwindling Christian community.
He spoke up for the religious rights of non-Christian minorities, too, including the Rohingya in Bangladesh and Myanmar and the Yazidis in Iraq.
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Building on the example of John Paul II, Francis honed the mea culpa into a diplomatic tool. In Dublin, he acknowledged “the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the church charged with responsibility for their protection and education.”
He apologized for the silence of church leaders in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and to the Roma people for a history of discrimination and mistreatment. In Canada, he begged forgiveness from Indigenous communities for the abuse and mistreatment of their children in Catholic schools.
On a flight from the United Arab Emirates in 2019, he acknowledged for the first time that priests and bishops had abused nuns.
In his global diplomacy, Francis sometimes did business with autocrats.
In China, he sealed a provisional deal with the government in 2018 to end a decades-old power struggle over the right to appoint bishops there. He won the first formal recognition of the pope’s authority over Catholics in China, but in exchange he had to recognize the legitimacy of seven government-appointed bishops who had previously been excommunicated.
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The agreement gave the church access to an immense population where the growth of Protestantism was far outpacing Catholicism. But critics, including bishops who had suffered at the Communist government’s hand, lambasted the deal as a shameful retreat and a dangerous precedent.
Some of his autocratic hosts exploited his visits for their own agendas and image. Francis and his advisers said it was worth such risks to deliver hope, seek breakthroughs and make amends.
Reforms Inside the Church
The true measure of Francis’ legacy is found perhaps less on the global stage than in the changes he made within his own church.
John Paul II and Benedict XVI believed in the concentration of authority in Rome. Francis emphasized a collegial, decentralized approach. The large meetings of bishops, called synods, which had historically been opportunities for lectures from the Roman curia, became policy meetings among empowered bishops.
For his supporters, decentralization brought the prospect of change that they had thirsted for over decades. For those who favored Vatican control, it was a nightmare.
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When it came to the so-called Liturgy Wars, which affected the way adherents prayed, and which especially in the English-speaking world long divided liberals and conservatives, Francis empowered local bishops to translate liturgical language as they saw fit.
He used his appointment powers to make his vision lasting. He replaced conservatives with allies at the Vatican’s Congregation of Bishops, which selects local church leaders. In choosing bishops, he was said to pick pastors over managers, street priests over power brokers. He preferred bishops closer to the people than those near the business-friendly Catholic group Opus Dei.
In the College of Cardinals, where a two-thirds majority of those under 80 will elect his successor, he appointed more than half its voters. He made the college less white (appointing the first African American cardinal), less Italian and less representative of the Roman curia.
Relying less on Europe, which he called “aged,” or America’s traditional feeder cities, like Philadelphia, he chose cardinals from nations with increasingly popular Pentecostal and evangelical movements in Latin America, Asia and Africa, the most fertile ground for Catholic growth and for priests, who are disappearing from Catholicism’s historic centers in Europe.
“You are important,” he told young Catholics in Mozambique in 2019. “Not only are you the future of Mozambique, or of the church and of humanity. You are their present.”
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While he pushed for a decentralized church, Francis also created a sounding board of nine trusted cardinals with extraordinary influence, including the authority to rewrite the Vatican’s constitution.
In a dramatic departure from the three decades of church leadership before him, he sought to revive the more open spirit of the Second Vatican Council. He canonized Pope John XXIII, who called the council, on the same day that he canonized Pope John Paul II. He later canonized Pope Paul VI, who oversaw the council’s reforms.
“You can be with the church and therefore follow the council, or you can not follow the council or interpret it in your own way, as you want, and you are not with the church,” the pontiff said in 2021, in a meeting with a group of Italian catechists.
Francis showed a deft political hand at isolating opponents. Instead of making a martyr out of Cardinal Robert Sarah, the arch-conservative leader of the liturgy department who championed the old Latin Mass, Francis simply ignored him, diluting his influence through empowered deputies, then quietly accepting his resignation when he reached retirement age.
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Less than a year later, and only days after leaving the hospital after undergoing colon surgery in 2021, Francis introduced sweeping restrictions on the Latin Mass, arguing that its proponents had exploited it to undermine the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and to create divisions in the church.
In key positions, he brought the ax down hard. In July 2017, he essentially fired the church’s top doctrinal watchdog, the conservative Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, by refusing to extend his term at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Francis folded the Pontifical Academy for Life, a headquarters for anti-abortion advocates, into a new umbrella department for Laity, Family and Life, which also opposed the death penalty. In 2018, capital punishment officially became contrary to church teaching.
Also that year, he put caring for migrants and the poor on an equal footing with opposition to abortion in the apostolic exhortation “Gaudete et Exsultate,” or “Rejoice and Be Glad.” Welcoming the stranger at the door is fundamental to the faith, he said, “not a notion invented by some pope, or a momentary fad.”
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One critical area where Francis’ collegial vision seemed poised to deliver concrete change was the deepening shortage of priests in remote and overwhelmed corners of the Roman Catholic Church. He appeared ready to hear the pleas of some of his bishops to ordain married men.
The tradition of priestly celibacy had held sway in the church for nearly 1,000 years, although exceptions exist for Eastern Rite priests and married Protestant ministers who convert to Catholicism. Historically, priests in the church’s first century were free to marry.
He considered whether married men of impeccable credentials could be ordained as priests to serve remote areas. “We need to think about whether ‘viri probati’ could be a possibility,” Francis told the German newspaper Die Zeit in 2017, using the Latin phrase for such “tested” men.
In 2019, he held a major Vatican summit of bishops from the Amazon region, who recommended that Francis allow the ordination of married men as priests. The proposal was limited to remote areas of South America, but if adopted it would have set a precedent for easing the restriction on married priests throughout the world.
Conservative opponents called it a threat to the tradition of the priesthood, and another troubling sign that Francis was willing to dilute the faith to pursue a more inclusive but less pure church. Even Benedict, who in retirement had largely resisted attempts to be drawn into an internecine ideological war, joined them, emerging in January 2020 with a contribution to a book in which he defended priestly celibacy.
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Ultimately, Francis set aside the proposal, disappointing his liberal supporters. Cardinal Müller welcomed the decision as potentially having a “reconciling effect of reducing internal church factions, ideological fixations and the danger of inner emigration or open resistance.”
Opposition Rises
The resistance to Francis was first tacit, then grumbling and ultimately full-throated.
Not long after his election, Vatican ambassadors briefed him on various situations around the world and suggested that he be especially wary when appointing bishops and cardinals in the United States.
“I know that already,” the pope interrupted. “That’s where the opposition is coming from.”
The American church had for decades been consumed with culture-war issues, and the de facto leader of the conservative opposition to Francis inside the Vatican was Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, an American canon lawyer who viewed Francis’ inclusive vision as a dilution of doctrine; he even suggested that the pope was heretical and that his laws were void. Francis removed Cardinal Burke from the Congregation of Bishops, ending his role in choosing bishops in the United States.
Cardinal Burke joined a few other cardinals in 2016 in signing a letter of “dubia” — Latin for “doubts” — demanding clarification from Francis about his apparent willingness to open the door for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion, which the signatories argued was against church law.
Francis enraged them by failing to respond.
Many of Francis’ conservative opponents invoked Benedict as the church’s real moral authority. Until his death, Benedict lived in a monastery inside Vatican City, not far from Francis’ own apartment, and mostly kept his promise to stay hidden from the world even while Francis undid parts of his legacy and showed a dislike for the high church style and traditionalism that Benedict preferred. Francis, a wily political operator, had made a habit of dropping in on his retired predecessor in showings of white-cloaked cordiality that were fictionalized in a 2019 movie, “The Two Popes.”
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The spats mostly remained internal, but the ascendance of Mr. Trump in the United States gave traditionalist forces in the Vatican a rival power to rally around. A constellation of conservative Catholic news sites, blogs and television channels, many financed by sources in the United States and Canada, constantly sought to weaken the pope.
Tensions escalated in 2017 when two close associates of Francis, in a Vatican-vetted journal, accused American Catholic conservatives of making an alliance of “hate” with evangelical Christians to back Mr. Trump.
In 2018, Francis criticized the hostile tenor that often reverberated throughout the conservative Catholic blogosphere.
“Christians, too, can be caught up in networks of verbal violence through the internet,” he said, citing vicious examples of defamation in some Catholic outlets where “people look to compensate for their own discontent by lashing out at others.”
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In September 2019, on the papal plane en route to Mozambique, Francis acknowledged the sharp opposition he faced from conservative detractors in the United States in an offhand remark. He said, it was “an honor that the Americans attack me.”
On the flight back to Rome a few days later, he was asked whether he worried that the sustained opposition from Catholic conservatives in the United States could drive traditionalists to break with the church. He said the church had been through plenty of such ruptures. “I pray there are no schisms,” he said. “But I’m not scared.”
Sex Abuse Scandal
The election of Francis seemed to signal a new energy in the church to eradicate the sex abuse scourge, which had severely damaged its reputation and depleted its ranks.
While Benedict had defrocked hundreds of priests, the church had not addressed the question of how or whether it would hold bishops accountable who had been negligent or covered up abuse.
In 2014, Francis established the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, led by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who was credited with cleaning up the disastrous scandal in Boston that had brought the issue to the world’s attention. The commission, which included victims of abuse, sought to hold bishops accountable for abuse of office. But that effort fell apart.
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In 2016, Francis issued an apostolic letter, “Like a Loving Mother,” which sought to use existing church law to dismiss negligent bishops — a proposal that critics found woefully inadequate. Members of the commission quit in frustration at the slow pace of change. The pope also seemed less than sensitive to the appeals of victims.
Then major investigations in Australia, Germany and the United States revealed thousands of victims preyed on by hundreds of priests, as well as the predatory behavior of Cardinal McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington and a church power broker, against adult seminarians as well as minors.
In January 2018, Francis seemed to pour salt in the wound when he was asked by a Chilean reporter about a bishop he had appointed there in 2015 despite accusations that the bishop had covered up for an abusive priest.
The accusations against the bishop, Juan Barros, were “all a calumny,” Francis told the reporter. On the flight back to Rome, he reiterated that there was no “evidence” against the bishop, who he insisted was the victim of slander. “I am also convinced he is innocent,” Francis added.
The backlash, even within his own church, was swift and fierce. Cardinal O’Malley, the commission’s leader, distanced himself, calling the pope’s remarks “a source of great pain for survivors.”
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Amid public pressure and internal disappointment, Francis reversed himself, acknowledging his error and taking swift action.
He dispatched the Vatican’s leading sex crimes investigator to Chile. He reactivated the moribund abuse commission. And, in an extraordinary letter to the bishops of Chile, he wrote, “I have made grave errors” in the handling of sexual abuse cases. He began accepting the resignations of Chilean bishops, including that of Bishop Barros, and befriended the victims he had previously accused of slander.
But his enemies inside the church tried to use the issue against him.
That August, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the disgruntled former papal envoy to the United States, published a remarkable j’accuse letter calling on Francis to resign for protecting Cardinal McCarrick. He called Francis part of a “conspiracy of silence” to protect a “homosexual current” within the Vatican.
Francis denied it. “About McCarrick I knew nothing,” he said in an interview. “Obviously, nothing, nothing.”
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In February 2019, he summoned bishops from around the world to Rome for an unprecedented meeting on protecting minors, a sign that the Vatican would finally treat the sexual abuse problem as a global crisis, and not the failing of a particular country or culture.
He issued the church’s most comprehensive response to the crisis, and it became the seminal document on Vatican culpability.
It obligated church officials worldwide to report cases of sexual abuse — and attempts to cover it up — to their superiors. Vatican officials described the measure as an effort to enshrine accountability for bishops into church law, and to impose a uniform response to accusations of sexual abuse, which had differed widely from country to country. In some dioceses, where leaders denied the existence of abuse, there had been no procedures at all.
However the edict, which was made permanent in 2023, did not require church officials to report abuse accusations to the police and prosecutors, an omission that outraged abuse victims and their advocates. Vatican officials argued that such an obligation could, in some places, result in victims being ostracized or priests being persecuted.
A New Openness
Arguably the most dramatic change Francis brought to the church, his supporters say, was perhaps the simplest: a willingness to open questions for debate, planting the seeds for deep, long-lasting change. He talked in 2018 about an “apostolate of the ear: listening before speaking.”
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He once told Father Spadaro, the Jesuit priest and friend: “Opposition opens up paths. I love opposition.”
Some of his predecessors had been less fond of it. Pope Pius X purged Catholic theologians who took a modernist approach to Bible studies. John Paul II treated theological disagreement as profane dissent, and with his doctrinal watchdog, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, the Vatican silenced theologians with differing visions of the church. When he became pope, Benedict ordered the removal of the editor of a Jesuit journal, America, because it entertained ideas anathema to conservative orthodoxy.
Francis did not stifle views he disagreed with and believed in a patient process — he called it discernment — in which ideas and proposals could be weighed before going forward.
“Bosses cannot always do what they want,” he told Reuters in 2018. “They have to convince.”
His closest allies said the slow and steady approach worked.
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“It’s been an intense 10 years,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, said on the anniversary of Francis’ election. Reforming the Roman bureaucracy that governs the church, which is deeply resistant to change, he said, “took a lot of time and a lot of energy.”
While some of Francis’ most ardent boosters worried that his fondness for debate and discernment resulted in a pontificate that was largely talk, he made undeniable substantive changes, like broadening the definition in church law of people who could be considered victims of clerical sex abuse, and seemingly bureaucratic ones, like devolving power away from Rome and stacking the hierarchy in the United States with liberals. Those efforts have the potential to yield even greater change.
His October 2023 meeting of world bishops, which for the first time included women and lay people as voting members, built momentum for a larger role for women in the church and at least broached some of the most sensitive topics, including the celibacy and marital status of priests, even if it didn’t change those policies. In the following weeks, he issued papal equivalents of executive actions to allow priests to bless gay couples.
For many liberals, that impetus stalled and the progress it promised never materialized. But in many ways, Francis’ willingness to discuss once-taboo issues was itself a breakthrough. And if, at the beginning of his pontificate, supporters predicted a “Francis effect” that would fill the pews with faithful, by the end they claimed a more modest achievement, that he had opened church doors that had for decades been sealed shut.
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