What Pope Francis might ask

By Herman M. Lagon

There is something oddly personal about remembering Pope Francis a year after he passed. Not distant, not formal—more like remembering a lolo who sat quietly in the corner, listening more than speaking, but somehow knowing exactly what to say when it mattered. April 21 comes and goes. Rome pauses for Mass and memory, but everywhere else, life just keeps moving—wars go on, prices rise, storms come. Life does not pause. And maybe that is where the discomfort sits. Because if Lolo Kiko were still here, he probably would not be asking for remembrance. He would be asking us to look again—at what is happening, and at what we are getting used to.

The Jesuit Pope had this habit of not competing with noise. While others raised their voices, he lowered his. While debates became sharper, he became simpler. And that simplicity had weight. When leaders talked about security, he would, like his predecessor Pope St. John Paul II and his Agustinian successor Pope Leo XIV, quietly ask, “What about the people?” When nations justified decisions, he would gently press, “At what cost?” It was never dramatic, but it was difficult to ignore. Because it shifted the focus from winning arguments to facing consequences.

If he were looking at the Middle East now, he would not start with explanations. He would ask: Who is paying the price? That question changes when you picture a child pulled from rubble or a parent with no medicine left. The reports say tens of thousands have died—many of them civilians, many of them children (United Nations, 2025)—but Francis had a way of making those numbers feel like people.

That way of seeing is not foreign to us. A DepEd teacher I once spoke to in Iloilo shared how some of her students would quietly sit through class on an empty stomach after a storm. No complaints, just silence. It stays with you. Pope Francis would have recognized that silence. He had a simple way of saying it—hunger is not about food, but about who gets to eat. The world has enough, yet many are left out (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2024). And that gap goes beyond economics. It is human.

He carried the same message into Laudato Si’, his encyclical on caring for our shared home. Not in slogans, but in stories. A flooded home. A farmer waiting for rain that comes too late. A community rebuilding again, and again. When he wrote about the earth, it did not feel abstract. It felt close. Countries like ours do not experience climate change as theory—we go through it. Stronger typhoons, longer recovery, quieter losses. Studies consistently show that the most vulnerable carry the heaviest burden of climate change (IPCC, 2023). The soft-spoken Pontiff, trained in the sciences, was not trying to accuse. He was simply reminding us.

What made him different was how he noticed people. The troubled migrant, the outcast prisoner, the tired nurse, the street vendor, the jeepney driver, the elderly waiting in line—those often overlooked. We understand that. Pakikipagkapwa is not explained; it is lived. In sharing food, checking on others, staying present even in silence. Francis lived that way. Quietly.

Not everyone was comfortable with him. Some thought he listened too much. Others thought he should have done more. That tension is real. Listening slows things down. But it builds trust. And trust, studies show, is built more on fairness and consistency than on strong words (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2024). The charismatic Francis was not trying to sound strong. He seemed more interested in being steady.

There is one image that still lingers. The Pope, alone in an empty St. Peter’s Square during the pandemic. No crowd, no applause. Just rain, silence, and a voice that did not rush to fix things. He spoke of choosing what matters. That moment did not solve the crisis, but it made people pause. A year after his passing, that kind of pause feels rare.

Because today, everything moves fast. Opinions come quickly. Reactions come even faster. And somewhere in that speed, reflection gets lost. Francis offered something slower. Not indecision, but thoughtfulness. Not neutrality, but care. In a classroom, it might mean listening first. In leadership, it might mean thinking ahead. In daily life, it can be as simple as pausing.

Still, his way of seeing shows up quietly. A pantry that keeps feeding people. A student who gathers help for those affected by floods. A teacher who stays late because someone needs it. These are not big stories. But they are real. Francis treated them as signs—that even in difficult moments, care has not disappeared.

Requiescat in pace, Pope Francis. A year later, the world feels more restless. But your way was never about rushing. It was about noticing. And maybe that is what remains—a quiet question that does not leave easily: in all that we are doing, are we still looking out for one another?

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.