Beatriz Sanabria was on her way to a Buenos Aires soup kitchen when she saw the words painted under a highway overpass in a new light.
Her neighborhood, Barrio 31, a low-income community on the outskirts of the Argentine capital, is one where the late Pope Francis once tended to parishioners before becoming Latin America’s first pontiff in 2013.
“Caring for the neighborhood and ourselves is our commitment,” read one message. It was a reminder to her – evidence, even – of how this community internalized Francis’ emphasis on forging social justice and combating global indifference.
Why We Wrote This
Pope Francis heralded migrant rights, rang alarms over climate change, and served as a bridge toward peace on several continents. He spurred many citizens to action.
“He was very much with … poor people, and he encouraged society to not give up, to be firm and fight,” she says.
Catholics and non-Catholics around the world will mark the life of Francis at his funeral Saturday. But his death this week has also surfaced the ways his 12 years at the helm of the Catholic Church – highlighting migrant rights and concern over climate change and conflict – has influenced their perspectives on these issues in their own lives.
He led by example. Although social justice has been central to Catholic teachings that date back centuries, Francis approached it with a personal style that relied on a closeness to those most overlooked or rejected by society.
To be sure, the late pope also created divisions. While some saw his ideas, especially around inclusion, as threats to the foundations of Catholicism, others were frustrated he didn’t push further to change church doctrine or take sides in armed conflicts.
“The style of Catholicism that was promoted by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI rested on sharp definitions and clear boundaries. Their combined 30-some years in office were informed by the idea that Catholicism had lost its shape because it had meshed too much with modernity,” says Daniel Speed Thompson, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio.
“But Francis blurred the boundary lines of acceptance,” says Dr. Thompson. “He attempted to reach out to include people [who historically had been marginalized] in the life of the church and listen to their stories and concerns,” he says. It “caused consternation that the church was moving away from things that were essential to the Catholic faith, and therefore endorsing mass immorality.”
Alessandra Tarantino/AP/File
The kiss of feet
Francis, the son of Italian immigrants who arrived in Argentina seeking a better life, made advocacy for migrants a central feature of his papacy.
His first visit outside Rome in 2013 was the island of Lampedusa, the Italian gateway for migrants attempting to reach Europe, where he condemned what he called the “globalization of indifference” toward the suffering of those fleeing poverty and violence.
He showed the world how he believed migrants should be treated, in one case turning a Holy Week tradition of washing feet into a powerful symbol of acceptance: The pope washed and kissed the feet of Muslim migrants.
Francis understood the church as something “of the people,” and that implies a church focused on “this world,” says Neomi de Anada, executive director of the International Marian Research Institute at the University of Dayton. That pushed many out of their comfort zones, she says, because if one is focused on “this world,” they must focus on migrants, incarcerated people, children, and beyond.
For those working in the trenches of global migration, Francis’ example eased some of the stresses inherent in their jobs.
“He made our work so much easier … by raising awareness and opening a door for us to speak with greater confidence,” says Jennifer Gómez Torres, who works for the Catholic charity Cáritas in Madrid. She often relied on the pope’s words and writings on immigration in her own advocacy; she says she saw her counterparts at migrant centers not linked to the church do the same.
Francis’ words on the environment sparked concrete shifts for many in and outside the church as well. His encyclical, or letter, entitled the “Laudato Si’” warned about global warming and the destruction of the environment.
That attention led to tangible results, such as local priests suddenly preaching about the religious duty of protecting the Earth.
At the same time, global polarization around topics like migration and climate change has only grown since 2013, showing the limits of his influence in secular life. His stances also earned him many foes.
While he made strong statements about the immorality of abortion, it wasn’t enough for conservatives. “I didn’t see him actually following through with … protection of innocent life in the womb with the same sense of urgency that he had about climate change, about immigration, or poverty,” says Robert Royal, president of the Faith & Reason Institute, a think tank in Washington. “I think he’s left the church in a more divided state than it was when he became pope.”
Seeking peace
Yet Francis generated moments of awe in his calls to overcome differences. After years of brutal civil war, he invited South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his bitter political rival Riek Machar to the Vatican for a spiritual retreat in 2019. He urged them to make peace and stunned the world when, in front of television cameras, he knelt and kissed their feet.
“I was shocked,” recalls Riya Williams Yuyada, a women’s rights activist in South Sudan’s capital, Juba. Those kisses “kick[ed] open doors” to peace, she says, in part crediting the move for the formation of a unity government the following year.
Francis had approval among 80% of U.S. Catholics in the majority of surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center.
But where Francis saw an opportunity for inclusion in the church by “blurring” some traditional boundaries of Catholicism, conservative Catholics saw an erosion of the basic truths of their religion.
Among Francis fans also, there were pockets of frustration.
“He was actually quite a conservative man. I think his pastoral approach is what encouraged people to think that he would bend more than he really” did, says Phyllis Zagano, adjunct professor of religion at Hofstra University, who served on Francis’ initial Study Commission on the Women’s Diaconate.
He created a seismic shift around the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community within the Catholic Church when responding “Who am I to judge?” to a question about sexual orientation in 2013. But he objected to blessing the marriages of gay couples, and women still cannot be ordained as deacons.
Francis, peacemaker?
The day after Francis’ death, two Catholic women in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv adorned a portrait of the late pope with a black ribbon, just in time for evening Mass. Prayers that night were focused on the pope, peace for Ukraine, and the protection of its soldiers.
Many in Ukraine feel Francis should have been a stronger critic of Russia. Suggesting that Kyiv should consider giving up some demands to end the war and referring to the “brotherhood” between Russia and Ukraine offended those who saw him as out of touch with the existential stakes that Ukrainians face.
“We as Ukrainians didn’t like everything he did, but we appreciate that he tried to put an end to the war,” says Adelina Kisilevska, an administrative volunteer at the Church of St. Nicholas.
In Gaza, too, many say Francis should have done more – though he famously called the only Catholic parish there every evening over the 18 months of conflict with Israel to talk, even from his hospital bed in his final days. He prayed for both Gaza and Ukraine in his final sermon the day before he died.
“There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and respect for the views of others,” he said in his Easter sermon.
Limits to change
Francis came into office when relations between the Vatican and the Muslim world were at a nadir – fueled by statements critical of Islam by his predecessor Benedict in 2006 that sparked protests in Pakistan, India, Turkey, and Gaza.
He made a lasting impression by visiting Najaf, Iraq, in 2021 to meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the leaders of the Shiite Muslim world. Mr. al-Sistani recalled the meeting, which he referred to as a “milestone” in rejecting hatred, this week in a statement expressing his sorrow over the pontiff’s death.
“Pope Francis not only repaired relations between the Vatican and the Muslim world, but took these relations to an even better place,” says Dr. H.A. Hellyer, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London.
He dedicated time and energy to parts of the world long overlooked by the Vatican, in part because they had small or marginalized Catholic populations.
In Asia, he was the first pope to visit Myanmar and Mongolia, a majority-Buddhist country with only about 1,500 Catholics.
But in China, any inspiration gleaned from Francis’ leadership was tempered among “underground” Catholics – long persecuted for their loyalty to Rome – by his stance on Beijing. The Vatican made unusual overtures to the Chinese capital under Francis and had a muted response to human rights abuses against Chinese Catholics by the ruling Communist Party.
“I’m not the only Catholic”
As Catholics look beyond the funeral and the beginning of the process to select the Vatican’s next leader, the staying power of the pope’s approach is top of mind for Dr. Thompson.
He recalls an unconventional synod in 2023, typically a formal meeting limited to bishops. But at this one, Francis sat at a round table discussing church doctrine with bishops, priests, and even college students.
“What he was trying to argue was a paradox: ‘I’m not the only Catholic. Part of this will be carried on by all of you,’” says Dr. Thompson. Even if Francis was the highest-profile Christian figure in the world, it was one more example of his belief that the church’s work should be carried out by the people – not only by the pope.
Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg; Taylor Luck in Amman, Jordan; and Ann Scott Tyson in Beijing contributed reporting.
