Twelve years of new paths, processes, and open doors
Following the announcement his passing away on Easter Monday, we offer an overview of the highlights of Pope Francis' pontificate, his journeys, reforms, writings, work for peace and human fraternity, and outreach to the poor and migrants.
By Salvatore Cernuzio
Pope Francis became the first of many things. The first Jesuit pope, the first pope from Latin America, the first one to choose the name Francis, the first to be elected with his predecessor still alive, the first to live outside the Apostolic Palace, the first to visit lands never reached before by a pope – from Iraq to Corsica – the first to sign a Declaration on Human Fraternity with one of the highest religious authorities of the Muslim world.
He was also the first Pope to establish a Council of Cardinals to govern the Church, assign roles of responsibility to women and lay people in the Curia, initiate a Synod prepared by a worldwide consultation with the people of God, the firts one to abolish the pontifical secrecy for sexual abuse cases, and to formally remove the death penalty from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
He led the Church during a time marked by many wars, small and large, fought in “piecemeal” across different continents. He said war is “always a defeat,” as he repeated in over 300 appeals, even when his voice faltered, in his hundreds of public statements after the outbreak of violence in Ukraine and the Middle East.
New paths and processes
However, Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, likely would not have wanted the concept of “first” to be associated with his pontificate, which over these 12 years was not focused on reaching milestones or breaking records but on initiating “processes.”
Ongoing processes, completed processes, or distant processes, which will likely be irreversible even for whoever succeeds him as Successor of Peter.
They marked actions generating “new processes” in society and in the Church – as he wrote in the "roadmap" for his pontificate, Evangelii Gaudium – always within the perspective of encounter, exchange, and collegiality.
From the ends of the earth
“And now, we take up this journey: Bishop and People,” were the first words spoken from the Central Loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, on the late evening of 13 March 2013, to a crowd that had filled St. Peter's Square for a month under the spotlight following the resignation of Benedict XVI.
To that crowd the newly elected 76-year-old Pope, chosen by the Cardinal Electors “from the ends of the earth,” asked for a blessing. He wanted to lead a Hail Mary with the people and struggled with his Italian he had not been speaking regularly, given his rare visits to Rome.
The following day, he wished to greet the people up close during a visit to the Vatican’s Parish of Sant’Anna. He then went by car to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major where he visited the chapel with the icon of Our Lady Salus Populi Romani, protectress of the Roman people.
He continued to pay visits to the Liberian Basilica throughout his pontificate for prayer and to express his gratitude at every important moment. And it was the church where Pope Francis expressed his wish to be buried.
A shepherd among the people
Pope Francis showed his closeness to the people, a legacy of his Argentine ministry, in many ways over the following years: with visits to Vatican employees in their offices, with the Fridays of Mercy during the 2016 Jubilee in places of marginalization and exclusion, with Holy Thursday Masses celebrated in prisons, nursing homes, and reception centres, with a long tour of parishes in the Roman suburbs, and with surprise visits and phone calls to people of all walks of life.
He demonstrated this in every Apostolic Journey, starting with his first one to Brazil in 2013, a trip he inherited from Pope Benedict, where the image of the popemobile caught up in the crowds marked a memorable moment.
First Pope to visit Iraq
Pope Francis made 47 international pilgrimages in response to invitations at events and celebrations, special invitations from authorities, or to fulfil a long-standing desire of his, as he revealed during his return flight from Iraq in 2021 during the Covid pandemic.
He spent three days in the country amidst general concerns about security, visiting Baghdad, Ur, Erbil, Mosul, and Qaraqosh, still bearing the visible scars of terrorism, with bloodstains on walls and tents of displaced people along the roads.
Many had advised him against the visit, due to sanitary concerns and the risk of terrorist attacks, but he insisted on making it. It was “the most beautiful” journey, as Pope Francis himself always said. He was the first Pope to set foot on the land of Abraham, where John Paul II was unable to go, and to have a meeting with the Shiite religious leader Al-Sistani.
The Holy Door in Bangui and the longest trip in Southeast Asia and Oceania
With the same resolve in 2015 he went to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, ravaged by a years-long civil war that left dead bodies on the streets even during the visit.
In the African nation, where he said he wanted to go even if it meant “jumping out of a plane,” Francis opened the Holy Door of the Jubilee of Mercy in a moving ceremony , marking the first Holy Year to be opened not in Rome, but in one of the poorest regions of the world.
That same determination also led to his decision to undertake, at the age of 87, the longest journey of his pontificate in September 2024: Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore. For two weeks the Pope travelled through two continents, four time zones and four different worlds, each representing key themes of his magisterium: fraternity and interreligious dialogue, peripheries and climate emergency, reconciliation and faith, wealth and development in service of the poor.
From Lampedusa to Juba
Among the Apostolic Journeys and pastoral visits, one cannot forget the first journey outside Rome to the small Italian island of Lampedusa, a site of many migrant tragedies where he threw a wreath of flowers into the Mediterranean, “an open-air cemetery.” This issue was raised again in the two journeys to the Greek island of Lesbos (2016 and 2021) during his visits to refugee camps.
Other memorable Apostolic Journeys included to the visit to the Holy Land (2014), to Sweden, in Lund (2016) for the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, and to Canada (2022) with his apology to the First Nations people for the abuses commited in the past in Church-run residential schools.
And then came his Apostolic Journey to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan (2023), the latter shared together with the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Ian Greenshields, to emphasize the ecumenical desire to heal the wounds of a people. The same wounds he had asked South Sudanese leaders to heal, when he invited them for a two-day retreat at Santa Marta, and which concluded with his poignant gesture of kissing their feet.
His visit to Cuba and the United States in 2015 led to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries after decades of tensions.
Pope Francis had worked for this historic event for months, sending letters to both U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban Raúl Castro to urge them to “start a new phase.” President Obama himself publicly thanked him for those efforts.
In Havana, Pope Francis also met with Patriarch Kirill signing a joint declaration to implement the “ecumenism of charity,” the commitment of Christians to a more fraternal world. This commitment tragically became relevant years later with the outbreak of the war in the heart of Europe.
The signing of the Document on Human Fraternity in Abu Dhabi
In 2019 Pope Francis travelled to Abu Dhabi , United Araba Emirates, where he co-signed the Document on Human Fraternity with the Grand Imam al-Tayeb, marking the culmination of relations with the Sunni University of Al-Azharand and a cornerstone of Christian-Muslim dialogue, now also incorporated into several documents.
The Encyclicals
The dialogues and gestures made during these travels reflected in his writings. During his pontificate he wrote four Encyclical Letters, the first of which was 'Lumen Fidei' on the theme of faith, which he had written with late Pope Benedict XVI.
The Encyclica was followed in 2015 by 'Laudato si’', a cry for the Earth calling for a “change of course” for our “common home” devastated by climate change and exploitation, and urging action to eradicate poverty and ensure equitable access to the planet’s resources.
The third Encyclical, 'Fratelli Tutti', a cornerstone of his magisterium following the Abu Dhabi Document, was a prophecy of fraternity as the only way for the future of humanity.
Finally, in 2024 he issued 'Dilexit Nos', which revisited tradition and the current relevance of the “human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus” sending a message to the world that seems to have lost its heart.
Apostolic Exhortations and Motu Proprio Letters
Pope Francis wrote seven Apostolic Exhortations, starting from the 'Evangelii Gaudium 'in 2013 to 'C’est la Confiance', published in 2023 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Therese of Lisieux.
In-between he issued three Post-Synodal Exhortations – 'Amoris Laetitia' (Synod on the Family), 'Christus Vivit' (Synod on Young People), 'Querida Amazonia ' (Synod on the Pan-Amazon Region) –, and then 'Gaudete et Exsultate' on the call to holiness in the contemporary world, and finally, 'Laudate Deum', the follow-up to Laudato si’ integating his call to listen to the cry of Mother Earth before reaching a “breaking point.”
Pope Francis also signed nearly sixty “Motu proprio” Letters aimed at reconfiguring the structures of the Roman Curia and the territory of the Diocese of Rome, modifying Canon Law and the Vatican judicial system, issuing more stringent norms and procedures for the fight against abuses on children and vulnerable people in the Church.
Among them was ‘Vos Estis Lux Mundi’, a document that incorporated the recommendations and suggestions emerged from the Vatican’s Summit on the Protection of Minors, held in February 2019. That landmark summit was the culmination of the Church's efforts to combat clerical abuses, not just sexual, and an expression of the Church’s desire to act with truth and transparency in a penitential manner.
In ‘Vos estis lux mundi’ Pope Francis established new procedures for reporting abuses and introduced the concept of accountability, ensuring that bishops and religious superiors are held responsible for their actions.
The reform of the Roman Curia
Church reform was a central concern throughout his pontificate. He took to heart the recommendations made by the Cardinals during pre-conclave congregations, asking that the future pope restructure the Roman Curia and especially the Vatican’s finances, which had been the centre of scandals for years.
Immediately after his election, Pope Francis established a Council of Cardinals, the C9 (which later became C6 and C8 with the changing of members), a small “cabinet” to assist him in governing the universal Church and working on the reform of the Curia.
Mergers of departments and other changes in titles and organizational structures reflected this ongoing work which culminated in the publication of the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium in 2022.
Among the most significant innovations introduced by this eagerly-awaited document was the establishment of a new Dicastery for Evangelization, directly headed by the Pope, and the involvement of laypeople “in leadership and responsibility roles.”
This wave of change also included the appointment of the first lay person, Dr. Paolo Ruffini, at the head of the Dicastery for Communication, the appointment of the first woman as Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Sister Simona Brambilla, and of the first woman as Governor of Vatican City, Sister Raffaella Petrini…
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