Might every age get the Pope it deserves? If so, then what of the Age of Francis I? Jorge Mario Bergoglio, once Archbishop of Buenos Aires and the latest Bishop of Rome, died on Easter Monday, aged 88. Elected to the See of St Peter in 2013 after the unprecedented resignation of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, not since the end of the Western Schism of 1417 had two Popes lived simultaneously.
Benedict, a baroque Bavarian of crystalline intellect and quiet courage, was perhaps more beloved in death than in life. His shoes, maybe, as the old cliché goes, were never meant to be filled by a similar shape in feet. But what pairs! Famous for their exquisite silk, velvet and red Morocco leather, Benedict’s footwear, attributed to Prada, in fact was the handiwork of Piedmont cobbler Adriano Stefanelli and his Roman contemporary Antonio Arellano.
More likely to be barefoot or in scuffed black brogues, how did Pope Francis fill the Papal shoes? Did the Church move forward or shuffle sideways during his 12-year pontificate? Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the eldest of five children in a devout Catholic family. Although hailed as the first pontiff from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, he was of Italian stock, his parents having emigrated south in 1929.
After earning a chemical technician’s diploma, Jorge Mario felt called to the religious life and entered the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, in 1958. He studied humanities in Santiago, earned a degree in philosophy from the Colegio Máximo de San José in San Miguel and taught literature and psychology at several Jesuit institutions before studying theology.
Although ordained priest in 1969, as a member of an order, he never experienced a typical long-term parish assignment as is common for diocesan priests. As a Jesuit, he taught, gave spiritual direction and held leadership roles within the Society of Jesus.
Following further studies in theology and leadership positions, he served as Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in Argentina from 1973 to 1979. He then became Rector of the Colegio Máximo, where he continued teaching. In the 1980s, he completed his doctorate in Germany. Having returned, by 1992 he was Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires, and six years later was Archbishop. Notable for his humility, simple lifestyle and commitment to social justice, he was appointed cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II.
His 2013 papacy got off to a good start – not least in a place where it didn’t matter. Months after his enthronement, Time magazine named Pope Francis its Person of the Year, citing his ability to “pull the papacy out of the palace and into the streets”.
The citation highlighted Pope Francis’s first nine months in office. During this period he “placed himself at the very centre of the central conversations of our time,” including discussions about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, globalisation, and the role of women. Time recognised his ‘reformist’ agenda and his acknowledgement of the Church’s potential to inflict wounds as well as to heal.
No one denies Pope Francis’ humility. A Roman friend recalls to this correspondent seeing the Pope on public transport. Another tells of bumping into His Holiness sitting at a table, talking to workers in a workplace canteen. In tune with the life of the saint whose name he took, Pope Francis lived in a modest lodging house rather than in the Papal apartments. He drove around Rome in – depending upon who you believe – a Dacia Duster or a Ford Focus.
He visited the illegal immigrant destination of Lampedusa to mourn those killed on the crossing from North Africa. He went to prison to wash the feet of prisoners on Maundy Thursday. He took illegal immigrants into a Vatican surrounded by a 100-foot-high wall. Albeit only a symbolic twelve Syrians from the millions arriving in Europe. Given visits to Lampedusa and washing prisoners’ feet are also symbolic, what of substance happened to the Church at large in this Pope’s age?
Four papal encyclicals – letters written by the Pope to guide bishops and thence to the whole Church, called by the first two words of their Latin text – came out during Francis’s twelve years. The first, Lumen Fidei, The Light of the Faith, appeared in the year of Benedict’s resignation and shouldn’t be considered the work of his successor.
Laudato Si (Praise Be to You) followed in 2015 and focused on environmental issues and integral ecology. It urged action against climate change and critiqued consumerism and irresponsible development. It connected care for creation with social justice, and as such was another reference to the earlier, saintly, Francis.
Five years later, Fratelli Tutti (All Brothers) was a wide-ranging social encyclical calling for universal fraternity and societal friendship. It promoted dialogue, peace, and solidarity, condemned war and the death penalty, and criticised economic inequality and nationalism. It also contained the phrase ‘love without borders’.
Francis’s final publication, Delexit Nos, appeared the year before his death and emphasised God’s enduring love for humanity, calling for renewed commitment to compassion, solidarity, and ecological responsibility. Pope Francis highlighted the moral imperative to care for the vulnerable and the environment, urging global unity, dialogue and action grounded in the teachings of Christ and the Gospel.
So much for the Pope in his boarding house and the bishops in their palaces, what of the worshipper in the pew?
Beyond different branches of mainstream media hailing His Holiness as a progressive man of the people or a net zero communist, this reviewer didn’t realise any of the above until researching this appreciation. But there are changes hereabouts. Closer to the altar-face, those changes have been administrative, both in the interest of efficiency and because of a shortage of clergy.
Here, one city-wide parish replaces a larger number of smaller parishes. Thus, one bureaucracy replaces several. You are less likely to be volunteered. If that’s what’s keeping you away, come back. The shortage of vocations appears to be a step change rather than the terminal decline beloved of the heathens at the BBC. Priests are in training, others are newly ordained, but less than in previous generations. A priestly Church will continue, but of the twenty-first, not the nineteenth or twentieth centuries.
With one big parish, clergy can live in community while serving a number of congregations. They are kept busy. Not all church buildings have survived. Some have been repurposed. Others, sold or rented to buoy the finances. African nuns have arrived. Local Catholic primary schools are organised into one 16-school academy trust covering the whole diocese. Those in our parish have struggled in recent years, not least because of immigration. Additionally, the bishop notes the consequences of the collapse of the traditional family unit.
Despite what mainstream media and tautological reading of statistics might suggest, there are more worshippers. Our churches attendances are rising and have been over a long period. In 2004, EU accession brought Poles. However, they quickly segregated. This Sunday, they celebrate 20 years of holding their own services in their own language with their own Polish priest.
The latest wave of incomers are from further afield. Described by the nudge units as ‘healthcare workers’, they segregate already and have their own African choir. Will we see separate black and white congregations? Not quite ‘All Brothers’, more the inevitable consequence of the mass movement of people.
What of Francis the man? Your correspondent had an audience early in the papacy and recalls meeting a lively character with an excellent connection to ordinary people. Neither bookish like Benedict nor the bull of a man that was John Paul II, Pope Francis held the common, approachable touch of the bishop or parish priest on top of his game.
Of his successor, we know not yet. Whoever he may be, in this part of the world at least, he is inheriting a better-organised, forward-looking, confident Church, swelling in numbers, dismissive of a hostile mainstream (and encyclicals dabbling in secular politics) but concerned about the divisive consequences of the mass movement of people.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
