The Faith of Francis

All of us fall short of living a Christ-like life, but some people like Pope Francis get close.

The first and only Christian died 2000 years ago. The rest of us are poor imitations. He was a Jewish radical that preached forgiveness and empathy, condemned wealth and hypocrisy, and demanded that his followers hold themselves to the highest possible standards in anticipation of the coming Kingdom of God. He was executed as a state criminal of the Roman Empire for the revolutionary nature of his ministry. While all of us fall short of living a Christ-like life, there are some people that get closer than others. Pope Francis was one of those very few figures that even with their imperfections led an exemplary life that all of us should strive to imitate.

With the passing of Pope Francis, people across the globe are mourning the loss of a Christ-like figure so rarely seen in our world. Pope Francis dispensed with the trappings of power that had been associated with the papacy for centuries and focused his life and love on what should always be the focus of the church: the poor. His righteous anger at the oppression of the impoverished, the poisoning of our environment, and the stripping away of human dignity in our modern world was a wakeup call to the complacent and a charge against the complicit.

As revolutionary as the papacy of Francis appeared, and in comparison to his predecessors he was undeniably a trailblazer, Pope Francis did not reinvent Catholicism. Pope Francis tried to bring the Church into the future by returning it to its roots. His servant leadership that concentrated on uplifting the downtrodden and chastising hypocrisy aligned well with the teachings of Jesus. It reminds me of the higher standard that Jesus called on his disciples to follow in the Sermon on the Mount. “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment,’” Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew. “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” The ministry of Jesus and the papacy of Francis both called their followers to follow their faith in a deeper way that was much harder.

Pope Francis’s leadership came at a critical time for Christianity and every global religion. Much of the world is moving on from organized religion. Religion is associated with hypocrisy, bigotry, the subjugation of women, and creates a permission structure for hate. Looking around at what Christianity has become synonymous with in America in 2025, I cannot blame anyone for wanting to shed their associations. The vacuum left by many open minded and progressive people leaving organized religion has been filled by even more extreme and hateful ideologues. Pope Francis stayed and fought. He would not cede his church to the people who use religion as a tool of oppression and to further their own selfish aims. Through those efforts, while they often fell short, Pope Francis reminded many people like myself that needed to hear it that religion can still be a force for good. His efforts were reminiscent of the Christian humanist Erasmus at the dawn of the Reformation: “I will put up with this Church until I see a better one; and it will have to put up with me, until I become better.”

I feel more comfortable in my internal dialogue with God than I am in how to converse with others about God. In America today, the people who rejoice ecstatically at the expulsion of immigrants, shredding of environmental protections, and hoarding of wealth are the most likely to proclaim Jesus Christ as their “lord and savior” each Sunday. People like Pope Francis give me hope that Christianity will not be lost to the forces that seek to hollow it out. I hope to be of help in that struggle but for now, I relate to a dear friend who said that she considers herself “Less a Christian and more a follower of Jesus.”

Pope Francis was a gift to our world. Far more unique than his selflessness was its pairing with a pulpit which he used to preach to all of us. The most Christ-like figures today toil in obscurity. Their good works are known only to their God. While Pope Francis was imperfect like all people, he was far closer to following the teachings of Jesus than most people who identify as Christian. If what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew is true that “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” then Pope Francis will truly rest easy.