People’s Pope

By Artchil B. Fernandez

The day after Easter, Pope Francis left this world for the afterlife.

His departure following Easter Sunday is spiritually rich and symbolic.

Easter is celebrated by the Christian world as the day of resurrection — Christ rising from the dead.

Pope Francis’s passing right after Easter is a celebration of the resurrection, the most important event in the Christian belief.

Christ’s resurrection is the heart of the Christian faith.

Without the resurrection, there is no Christianity.

The election of Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio as the 266th successor of St. Peter marked the resurrection of reform in the Catholic Church after a long reign of orthodoxy during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Pope Francis undertook a different path from that of his two immediate predecessors.

Instead of focusing on the “culture wars,” which occupied the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Pope Francis embarked on a pastoral path.

Mercy and compassion, not fire and brimstone, were the hallmarks of Pope Francis’s pontificate.

“Without mercy,” Pope Francis warned, “even the moral edifice of the Church is likely to fall like a house of cards.”

Redemption, not condemnation, was the cornerstone of his reign.

While his two immediate predecessors were engrossed in dogma, condemning beliefs and practices contrary to orthodoxy, Pope Francis chose to focus on the redemptive aspect of faith.

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible… The Church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently,” he reminded Church leaders.

The Church for Pope Francis is not just a warrior waging war on heresies, apostasies, and deviations but also a healing vessel.

“The Church,” according to Pope Francis, “is like a field hospital after a battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars. You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else.”

He believes “the people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.”

He did not change core doctrine but tried to bend it.

Unlike previous popes who took hardline positions on gays and homosexuals, Pope Francis adopted a pastoral stance.

Asked what he thinks about homosexuals who are of goodwill and in search of God — particularly about a gay lobby in the Vatican — his reply sparked controversy.

“If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” he told reporters.

Conservatives feared he might be changing doctrine, which he did not.

He was merely emphasizing that mercy is “the first attribute of God,” proclaiming that “the name of God is mercy.”

While Pope Francis did not change the Church’s stance on same-sex marriage, he expressed openness to civil same-sex unions but not Church-sanctioned ones.

He voiced opposition to the criminalization of homosexuality, stating the homosexual act is “not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin.”

His delicate balancing between mercy and doctrine is a defining feature of his papacy.

He was pastoral, not doctrinal, in his ministry — perhaps his greatest legacy.

What John Paul II and Benedict XVI censured, Pope Francis rehabilitated.

This is another distinctive trait of his pontificate.

Liberation theology, which emerged in Latin America, was reproached by the two previous popes but was treated by Pope Francis with rapprochement.

This is no surprise, as Pope Francis is the first Latin American pope.

He canonized the martyred champion of liberation theology, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.

Unlike John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who were allergic to people with Marxist thinking, Pope Francis was not.

“I have known many Marxists, and they are good people,” he said.

Pope Francis himself was critical of unbridled capitalism and denounced the global economic system that victimizes the poor.

He was the first pope to issue a papal encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, which linked global exploitation and environmental destruction.

He spoke of the “ecological debt” of wealthy nations and supported the science of climate change.

Laudato Si helped build global consensus toward the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement — a testament to his enduring influence.

A child of migrant parents, Pope Francis also championed the cause of migrants.

His first overseas trip as pope was to the Italian island of Lampedusa, where he visited refugees and migrants from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

He called for building bridges, not walls, and denounced the “globalization of indifference,” which “makes us think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of other people.”

A tireless advocate and promoter of peace, Pope Francis denounced the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

He made nightly calls to the lone Catholic Church in Gaza while the Israeli invasion raged, consoling and comforting the tiny Christian community.

A pope from the periphery, giving voice to the issues and problems of those on the margins, Pope Francis is truly a people’s pope.

He did not write elegant and sophisticated theological or philosophical treatises like Benedict XVI, nor did he have the political star power of John Paul II.

Pope Francis was a simple pastor, ministering to the wounds and bruises of his flock, assuaging their hurt and pain.

His sensitivity to the problems and needs of his congregation made him the universal father of the universal Church.

Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio truly lived up to his papal name and the saint bearing that name, whose radical poverty and simplicity he emulated.

The global community — particularly the poor and those on the periphery — lost a champion in Pope Francis.