Numerous tributes have been paid to Pope Francis’ personality and Christian character, but a proper appreciation of his legacy also requires us to consider his theological vision. This vision, firmly focused on Jesus, informed his unwavering emphasis on the mercy of God, the joy of the Gospel and the freedom to be found in humble service.
Francis began each day at 4am, contemplating Jesus as we know him in the four gospels. He was, surely, a mystic at one with the life of God become flesh for us. In his weekly public audiences, he shared this intimate knowledge. During his illness, simple, clear and profound meditations were read out on the merciful encounters of Jesus with Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, another woman who anointed his feet in a pharisee’s house and Zaccheus—each a character without hope, ‘mercied’, as the Pope liked to say, by God in his Son.
This insight became a simple triptych of God: close, tender and merciful. Over and over: God is close, tender and merciful.
On the day when he had decided that he would tell a particular girl that he loved her, a young Jorge Bergoglio went first to confession. He came away convinced that God had embraced him, a sinner, and that he was called to be a priest. Five years later, he became a Jesuit novice.
His episcopal motto, Miserando et eligendo (‘Mercifully calling’), reflects his experience of forgiveness and vocation. It evokes a sermon of St Augustine on the call of Levi, the tax collector who is traditionally identified with St Matthew.
Although each modern Pope has written of God’s mercy, it is the heart of Francis’ preaching and teaching. His emphasis has been criticised, but perhaps it is in being merciful ourselves that we come to know what Francis means.
The freedom to serve
Late 2015 in Florence, Pope Francis addressed representatives of the Church in Italy. Beneath the magnificent mosaic of Christ the Judge of the World, the inscription reads, ‘Ecce homo’ (‘Behold a human’). A Christian man or woman, he said, is humble, as Jesus who became one of us was humble, lives free from attachments to what is prized in a selfish culture, and lives the Beatitudes that Jesus himself lived by. Being Christian is having the inner freedom to serve our neighbour.
In his final encyclical, Dilexit nos (He loved us), Francis describes these three qualities as the fruit of a divine gift. We understand a Christian life in the light of the incarnation of the Son of God, ‘who constantly carries us in his heart’ (DN115) and in whom ‘divine love is inseparable from his human love’ (DN 60). Much in contemporary culture ‘depreciates the deep core of our humanity—the heart’, Francis wrote (DN 10), yet in each of us, ‘everything finds its unity in the heart’ (DN 21). For in a prayerful life, the many ‘movements’ of attraction or fear are but ‘the “inbreaking” of God’s desire and the desire of our own heart’ (DN 24).
Truth and charity
Ceaselessly, he defended human dignity—dignity denied by a plague of wars fed by the arms trade, denied by abortion, by starvation, by safe refuge refused, by interpersonal violence or discrimination, by euthanasia, by anything that constitutes a ‘culture of rejection’, words that he used recently when encouraging the Italian ‘Movement for Life’ to ‘keep truth closely united to charity towards everyone.’ Truth united to charity underpins all his moral teaching.
Three synods of bishops in succession were dedicated to young people and the family. At each, he shared a meditation on the ‘hymn to charity’ in 1 Corinthians 12:31–13:1. He encouraged those in difficult situations to correctly examine their consciences, with pastoral accompaniment, and allow their conscience to judge them, an attitude founded on the truth that, ultimately, only God can judge and that not every situation can be adequately resolved through external processes and tribunals. At the same time, he urged communities to give as much care to couples wanting to live a Christian marriage as they give to catechumens preparing to live a Christian life.
He understood environmental issues theologically as a demand of justice for the future (Laudato si’) and a demand of solidarity in the present (Fratelli tutti).
‘Rejoice and be glad’
He was serene in acknowledging that the Church is no longer the institution that shapes culture. We are, in his words, not in a time of change but in a change of era. Humanity is crossing a spiritual desert. Even so, ‘The Church will continue to “go forth” towards new horizons’ (Mission Day message 2022). His letter on the call to holiness (2018) invites us to ‘Rejoice and be glad’.
In 2022, while visiting Quebec, a city very like ours, he asked, ‘Is there a faith in our communities that can attract by the joy it communicates?’ Reflecting on the call we each receive to reflect God’s mercy, he pointed out that the Lord ‘makes himself incarnate in historical situations, not to condemn, but to give growth to the seed of the Kingdom … He asks us to be mature and responsible persons in life and society.’
‘The hope that does not fade’
As we come to terms with Pope Francis’ death, praying for him and seeking his prayers in uncertain times, the homily he prepared for this year’s Paschal Vigil liturgy provides a profound and fitting encouragement. ‘When the thought of death lies heavy on our hearts, when we see the dark shadows of evil advancing in our world, when we feel the wounds of selfishness or violence festering in our flesh and in our society, let us not lose heart,’ he wrote. ‘The light quietly shines forth … a new beginning … can take us by surprise, for Christ has triumphed over death.
‘The risen Christ is the definitive turning point in human history. He is the hope that does not fade.’
At his burial, the guard of honour was formed by people often rejected by society, prisoners and poor men and women of Rome. In the same vein, Francis bequeathed his life savings to the prison population in Italy. Just as St Francis of Assisi did, Pope Francis recognised Jesus, who did not cling to divinity, in each poor woman or man. The gift of the Gospel is given first to the poor, to all those treated as ‘rubbish’ (‘scarti’).
His last words as Pope as he blessed the entire world on Easter Sunday were, ‘Let us entrust ourselves to Christ, who alone can make all things new.’
This reflection is adapted from a homily preached on Sunday 27 April 2025, the Second Sunday of Easter, Year C, at Sunday Mass in Greythorn and North Balwyn.
Banner image: Pope Francis embraces a young woman during an encounter with youth in Cagliari, Sardinia, on 22 September 2013. (Photo: CNS/Paul Haring.)
