Reading Francis

Last summer, I went on retreat in Assisi with an outline I called “Francis x Francis”, and I don’t think I ever got around to sharing it here. The bottom line, though, is that I think you can find a lot of similarities between the life and teaching of Pope Francis and those of the man whose name he took, St. Francis of Assisi. There are lots of great takes about the legacy of Pope Francis in the wake of his death earlier today, and this may not be one of them. In a relatively short time, though, Francis said and did a lot, and the themes I’ve seen over the years of studying the life of St. Francis align well with some of the primary themes in this papacy.

Joy. Let me start with joy. When I first started to try to make sense of St. Francis, I identified six themes, and this wasn’t one of them. But joy is irrepressible and essential to understanding them both. Pope Francis’ first major document, seen by experts as the roadmap to his entire papacy, was called “The Joy of the Gospel.” St. Francis won people of all walks over with his joy, and Pope Francis followed suit. When I ask people about Pope Francis, his smile, and the joy behind it, is among the first things people remember.

I should add that for both Francises (Franci?), that joy was independent of their circumstances. St. Francis suffered greatly at the end of his life; we know now that Pope Francis’ last days were also pretty fraught. Whatever the source of their joy, it was more powerful than the very real pains of the day.

Creation. Recall that Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical on care for creation, Laudato si, takes its title from a poem written by St. Francis, The Canticle of the Sun. Both men helped us understand God’s love for all of Creation, not just us humans, in a new and more expansive way.

Poverty. St. Francis embraced the call to poverty with such fervor that bishops and popes were worried that he overdid it. Both in his commitment that he and his followers would own nothing and beg for their needs, and in the priority he gave to ministering to the poorest of the poor around him, St. Francis embodied poverty. Twelve centuries later, Pope Francis’ first impressions were rooted in a humility formed by a priest who felt at home in the favelas of his native Argentina, a pope who from early on hoped for a poor Church among the poor. Humility, a poverty of ego, was one of the most striking and countercultural aspects of the personalities of both men.

Peace. Recall how St. Francis sought to make peace amidst Holy Crusades and petty fights between bishops and mayors. Recall how Pope Francis bowed to the feet of the leader of opposing factions in Sudan, how he called on the Russian embassy in Rome to beg them to stop the war in Ukraine, how, for years now, every address he gave included the phrase “war is always, always a defeat.”

Community. St. Francis formed a community of brothers who followed him, but then expanded his circle to include an order of women, and a third order for lay people. He knew well that nobody can live in poverty without living in community, and nobody living in true community is ever really poor. 

Pope Francis’ example of community stretches us. While much religious tradition centers on strengthening the bonds of community among fellow “true believers”, on securing the love amongst the in-group, Pope Francis constantly pulled the Church toward expanding our concept of community and treated virtually everyone as brothers and sisters. Migrants and refugees. Imams and rabbis. Men and women. Gay, straight and trans. Canonically married and everyone else. Speaking to hundreds of thousands of youth, his message was one word: Todos, todos, todos. Everyone, everyone, everyone is beloved by God and welcome in God’s family.

Worship. St. Francis reinvigorated the celebration of Christmas with the popularization of the nativity scene, and while he was not himself a priest, worship and prayer were central organizing principles to his life. Pope Francis sought to shape the Church’s worship in some big and small ways, which may have made him more internal enemies than anything else he did. He consistently pushed priests to shorten their homilies and reminded them that the sacrament of reconciliation should be a joyful homecoming and the confessional never a “torture chamber.” More systematically, his official rejection of the pre-Vatican II mass, including stringent limits on when and where it can still be used, sent a statement that the theology behind the changes in Catholic worship were significant and irreversible.

Witness. St. Francis’ whole ministry was to spread the good news and call people to a change of heart. Likewise Pope Francis. If non-believers felt more comfortable with him, because he led with an authentic smile, a joy in the moment, and a message not of judgment but of mercy, well, is that not the gospel to which we Christians are called to bear witness?

Those were the themes that I took into my retreat last year, and I do think that they apply to both Pope and Saint Francis. But there is one more theme that, if I’m honest, is more central than all of these.

Mercy. Pope Francis should (I think) be remembered most as the pope of mercy. He called a special jubilee year of mercy in 2016 to underscore how important it is in our lives. And if you want to understand the many places in which his leadership has rankled, I think you have to understand the centrality of mercy in the gospel Francis lived. Often, he seemed like a contradiction in our bivalent world. He welcomed transgender people and spoke up for LGBTQ participation, but did not change Church teaching on “gender ideology”. He pushed for a path for divorced and remarried couples to return to the Eucharist without changing the Church’s definition of marriage. And as a result, he disappointed people on both sides of our arguments. 

I don’t think he really was a contradiction though. I think he was trying to represent a way of being that prioritized love over judgment, which is the way of the Gospel. As a man who knew his own need for mercy, he tried to help the institutional Church recognize that it is our job, as God’s stand-in, to embody that mercy in the world.

As I said before, there are a lot of great takes out there about the Francis papacy. The good thing about dying at an advanced age after several months of health concerns is that the full-time writers have already drafted your obituary and any number of think pieces. But if you want to connect this pope with the saint who inspired his name, maybe these themes will help. And if you want to spend this Easter season becoming a better version of yourself, I recommend you join me in reflecting on how you embody these values and explore whether there is any room for your growth.