Pope Francis: Legacy of Mercy
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
~ Matthew 5:3-11
Christians have read these words for hundreds of years. Every once in a while, we see someone on a good day (or someone who always strives to be good) living up to these ideals we know as beatitudes. Then they become doers and not just hearers. It’s easy to listen, but it costs something to live up to these attributes. If these are markers of sanctity, then I can’t help but call Pope Francis a man who strove after a life of sanctification. Because he lived the beatitudes. He became the beatitudes.
We had visited my wife’s side of the family in Peoria, then drove to Springfield on Easter Sunday to spend time with my side of the family. The following morning, in the hotel room, I got the message from my parents that the pope had passed. It struck me as poetic and natural that the man who shepherded the Catholic Church, the Church of the “Easter people” for whom the Resurrection is the pinnacle of victory and the source of our hope, should pass from this world only a matter of hours after celebrating that highest of feasts with the Church and with that world he would soon leave.
Christians and even nonbelievers, Catholics who lean politically left and those who lean right, agree that if one charism of the Francis papacy lingered on as a lasting legacy, it would be his message of mercy. Of course, there are outliers who refuse to see the good and could not be happy with anything the pope said or did.
Liberal Catholics like Lily Adams on the podcast Left, Right & Center as well as more conservative thinkers like Monsignor Roger Landry on Conversations with Consequences have, in a united voice, applauded the pope’s fixation with mercy.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Francis, who knew he was a sinner, believed in Divine Mercy for himself and wished to share that forgiveness and intimacy of God’s with everyone he could. The Divine Mercy devotion, when depicted in art, reminds the faithful of paintings of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which is, for believers, the source of that Divine Mercy the pope tried to emulate. The last two years of his pontificate were prolific. Francis published two books, Life: My Story through History (2024) and Hope: The Autobiography (2025). Last year, he also released a new encyclical (a letter written by the pope and directed to the faithful) titled “Dilexit nos“ or “He loved us.” This document focuses on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Francis was often accused by conservative Christians of being liberal. An insult often thrown at left-wing politicians is the label “bleeding-heart liberal,” which refers to their interest in the sufferings of others; the image also harkens back to the pierced Heart of our Savior. If imitating the Sacred Heart in love and mercy be considered a crime, then Francis was certainly guilty. Some said he was a Marxist, an accusation he flatly rejects in Life: My Story through History. In interviews, he spoke in words similar to his predecessors, stating that ideology is not healthy. For this is the paradox of the Church: True Christianity transcends political boundaries while it must also address issues which society makes political.
His critics within the Church, although not even necessarily harsh in their comments, admitted (after his passing) that some of what Francis said was prone to ambiguity. His belief that same-sex unions cannot themselves be blessed but that the individuals themselves can be sounds like the age-old mantra “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” (Francis made a distinction just as the great thinkers of the past, like Thomas Aquinas, went to great efforts to make distinctions. But in today’s fast-paced, sound-bite culture, making distinctions isn’t appealing.) The world outside the Catholic bubble saw this as the pope sanctioning “gay marriage,” but Francis expounded on his comments, confirming that sacramental marriage is an exclusive relationship between a man and a woman.
Yet, it was statements like these that blurred the lines and made him unpopular in certain circles. Many of the faithful – your everyday Catholics who regularly attend Mass and the Sacraments – felt disconnected from him, wishing he had been clearer in regards to Church teaching.
When you oppose ideology, or the camps that human beings entrench themselves in on this earth, you find enemies aplenty. While there were those who accused him of being a leftist, others could find fault with him, for example, regarding his pro-life views.
In his recent book Life, Francis said, “Abortion is murder, a criminal act: there is no other word for it. It involves discarding, eliminating a human life that is without fault. It is a defeat for anyone who carries it out and anyone who is complicit in it.” He opposed the death penalty as well as abortion. He despised war across the globe, what he referred to as the “dispersed Third World War,” as well as the war waged on the innocent in the womb. He writes “that the most profitable shares are shares in arms manufacturing and abortion drugs. It’s scandalous!”
Fr. Leo Patalinghug, in his commentary on Pope Francis, said that extremists on both sides are wrong about their portrayal of and beliefs about the late vicar. Too often, the priest said, media wish to frame the Church in political terms when, of course, the Church breaks with any and all ideologies. No one political philosophy has a monopoly on the truth.
While he always opposed evil, Francis wasn’t a man who focused on the negative. He also wanted to be affirmative, living up to that moral of “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” As a sinner himself, the pope hoped to give God’s mercy to others. Churches are welcome to all. Listen to the needs of the women considering abortion. Peace is possible. Christianity is the religion “of compassion and closeness.” God is love. “To learn to live…we must all of us learn to love.” This was the message from the fatherly and fraternal heart of Francis.
Perhaps his most important changes to the Church were ones geared toward furthering the humility and poverty of the role of the pope himself. The Vicar of Christ is meant to be the guardian of the Good Shepherd’s flock and of His teaching. Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world” (see John 18:36). But many popes have displayed a desire for building up their own kingdoms instead of Christ’s and, in a thirst for worldly authority and political power, have gotten themselves into tricky situations. The student of medieval history knows this fact.
Like the Israelites of old who wanted a king like all the other countries, the popes of times past wanted to be like the rest of the world and rule with power and authority in the secular sphere. Yet, that is neither the nature nor the goal of the papal mission. Francis, in contrast, recognized the Chair of St. Peter is not a seat of worldly power.
The simplification of papal funeral rights and his own humble tomb suggest an authentic meekness and selflessness. By the generic shoes and less showy garments that he wore on a regular basis, he communicated the desire to see less of the opulence too often associated with his position. He understood his role as that of messenger, liaison, and advocate.
In death, Francis is said to have had only about $100 of personal wealth. He was a pope not powerful, rich, or far-reaching but humble, a pope whom neither America nor any country need fear but whom many respected as evidenced by the lowering of the flags to half-mast for the week following the Holy Father’s death and by the large attendance at his funeral.
Contentious at times – yes. A man of true humility and charity – also yes. Whether you liked Pope Francis and the past 12 years of his pontificate or not, I leave you with the same sentiment he left his readers at the closing of his book Life: Pray for him…