After a joyous Easter celebration, no one could have imagined the news that would flood the world and the media on Easter Monday morning. It did not come with the ringing of bells or shrill screams but with silence. The kind of silence that spreads gently across a campus courtyard when history pauses. Word had reached Hekima College that Pope Francis had passed on. A man who had taught us to walk with the wounded, listen before speaking, and touch the margins was now himself entrusted to God’s great mercy.
As students of ecclesiology, we found ourselves mourning a pontiff and revisiting a teacher whose lessons were not only about doctrine but about life: life shared, life listened to, life broken and redeemed by Christ. Francis was the first pope many of us had truly grown with. For some, he was the face of the Church when they first felt called to religious or priestly vocation. For others, he was the man who made it possible to hope that the Church could be otherwise – more open, more human, more poor. For all of us, he was the Pope at the start of our theology journey, a meaningful presence in our world, a presence – witnessing, encouraging, challenging, sometimes discomforting, but deeply inspiring.
“From the ends of the earth”
When Pope Francis stepped onto the world stage in 2013, few anticipated the quiet renewal that would follow. Chosen “from the ends of the earth,” as he introduced himself on that first evening, Jorge Mario Bergoglio came from Argentina and also from the margins -from a Church and a people deeply familiar with political unrest, economic fragility, and social exclusion.
However, what Francis brought with him was not novelty for novelty’s sake. Instead, it was a return, a retrieval of the Gospel message. The late Pontiff proposed a socio-spiritual transformation for the Church and the modern world. He re-positioned the role of Christianity in contemporary societies. A deep yearning for the continual familiarity with Christ’s call heard through socio-economic upheavals, political instabilities, and economic fragmentations, his vision for the Body of Christ was founded on the transformative power of peace, human well-being, and dignity.
As the first Pope from the contemporary global South, Francis, reinvigorated the Church with the Second Vatican Council’s vision, redefining its pastoral orientation by emphasising the place of God’s mercy, discernment, and synodality in the Roman Catholic Church’s self-understanding. His visit to Lampedusa embodied these values, reflecting of a Church that tirelessly seeks out its most vulnerable and marginalised members.
Lampedusa: The Beginning of a Path
His first pastoral journey, on 8 July 2013, to the Italian island of Lampedusa – a gateway into Europe for thousands of migrants, mainly from Africa and the Middle East, fleeing war, poverty, and persecution – was a moment of clarity for the pontificate to come. The visit inspired global awareness of the migrant crisis that was largely ignored and made a credible witness to the Christian values of solidarity and compassion. In the silence of the sea and in the faces of those lost and left behind, Francis named what the world too often refused to see: “the globalization of indifference.”
“Immigrants dying at sea, in boats which were vehicles of hope and became vehicles of death,” a tragedy that “has constantly come back to me like a painful thorn in my heart,” he lamented in his homily.
The Church, Francis insisted, could not remain neutral. During the visit to Kenya in 2015, Francis condemned the great disease of corruption that afflicts the many poor in the Global South. He described it as “sweet as sugar but kills like cancer”. It is a disease that needed to be treated. She should be a “Church for the poor” rooted in God’s mercy and encounter that demands a global culture of fraternity and solidarity. As the Body of Christ, her mission must be felt most palpably at the frontiers: geographical, social, and existential. Thus, throughout his pontificate, Francis prioritised visiting countries overlooked on the global stage and often marked by depravity and suffering. His presence in Kenya (2015), South Sudan (2023), the Democratic Republic of Congo (2023), the Central African Republic (2015), Myanmar (2017), the Philippines (2015), Bangladesh (2017) and Sri Lanka (2015), countries marked with socio-political upheavals, conflicts and wars reflected his desire to become the voice of the voiceless. From Lampedusa to Bangui, Kinshasa, Juba, and Baghdad, Francis carried the wounds of the world close to his heart, a concern that is powerfully reflected in his social encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, in 2020.
A Preferential Gaze: From and Towards the Peripheries
Francis was a Pope of the peripheries. Born in Buenos Aires amidst social turmoil, political instability, and economic inequality, Francis never forgot the poor. His insistence on a Church of and for the poor was not a political slogan, but a spiritual necessity. He carried the voice of the Global South and, more importantly, the Gospel imperative of a preferential option for the poor. In a 2013 interview with the magazine America, “A Big Heart Opened to God,” Francis describes the Church as a “field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else,” he emphasised.
This image captures the pastoral and theological vision he tirelessly proposed: a Church not obsessed with regulation but with healing; not standing above the world in judgment, but kneeling beside it, before the Lord, in love. Francis often echoed Pope John XXXIII’s desire that the Church be not a fortress but a “home of mercy.” The Church as the People of God, he showed, embodies a mandate to listen to the marginalised, the excluded, and the suffering, quite similar to the community of the unexpected that gathered around Jesus and the apostolic Church that centred on the Eucharist and sharing of Jesus’ message of salvation.
For the late Pontiff a Church in the peripheries is also an inclusive Church. It ought to bring to the centre those forgotten and neglected in modern societies. Francis had always attempted to include women in the life of the Church by appointing women to key Vatican roles, opening the ministries of lector and acolyte to women, and including women in the synodal process.
A Man of Dialogue
A deep drive towards dialogue marked Francis’s pontificate. In conformity with the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, Francis envisioned a Church that is not closed in on itself but open to the world, engaged in dialogue, and attentive to the signs of the times. In Evangelii Gaudium (§27), his programmatic text, Francis invited the whole Church into a “missionary option,” a radical availability to go forth, to meet the world and others where they are, and to transform “customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures” so that they may serve her evangelizing mission rather than only maintain the institution.
The encyclical Laudato Si showed his commitment to engaging with science and the contemporary world. Francis’ vision of ecological conversion combines theology, science, anthropology, sociology, and indigenous wisdom to create a better world for humanity. He often recognised the need to dialogue with other world religions, such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and various traditional religions in Africa.
Rooted in an effort to promote peace and mutual understanding, Peter’s late successor prioritised encounter over confrontation. In many Asian countries where Christianity remains a small minority, Francis encouraged the Church to become a “leaven” in society that enabled transformation and human well-being. It was a call to live the Gospel through humility, service, and solidarity rather than political power and cultural dominance.
Reform by Conversion
Although labelled as a reformer, Francis has not attempted to redefine doctrine. The effort had been to re-position the Church’s gaze from legalism to God’s mercy, from exclusion to embrace, from inward defensiveness to outward witness. Francis reminds the Church that reform often does not start with Church structures and doctrinal articulation but with a change of heart, an authentic conversion to the mission of Jesus Christ. This is sustained not through authority or control but with discernment, not with power, but with service. Francis continually saw the Church on a mission, characterised by her ability to listen to the world, wounded, in fear, and yet animated by Christ’s hope.
He was a reformer with the heart of a Shepherd who envisioned a Church devoid of various malaises that affect the contemporary world. The warning against the “15 diseases of the Vatican Curia” in 2015 was Francis’ way of noting the Church’s need for humility, transparency, and accountability. It was more than an institutional diagnosis; it was a spiritual examination of conscience for the Church’s leadership. The real battle, he suggested, is not out there but within: clericalism, careerism, and spiritual worldliness must give way to humility, transparency, and co-responsibility. In his letter to the priests of the Diocese of Rome on 4 August 2019, he condemned clericalism and called it a “disease that causes us to lose the memory of the baptism we have received.” Under Francis’ pontificate, the Church made enormous strides in responding and being accountable for the abuse crisis and financial irregularities within the Church.
The reformation that Francis brought to the fore was a commitment to synodality. During his homily at the opening mass of the Synod on Synodality on 9 October 2021 he noted: “Celebrating a Synod means walking on the same road, together. Let us look at Jesus. He encounters the rich man on the road; he listens to his questions, and helps him discern what he must do to inherit eternal life. This is what the Lord does with each of us: he listens to us and helps us to recognize what is good and what must be changed in our lives. Today too, Jesus calls the Church to listen, to heal, and to walk forward together.” From the Synod of the Family that gave the beautiful exhortation Amoris Laetitia to the Synod on the Amazon and the Synod on Synodality, Francis promoted open conversation in the Spirit, a culture of listening, and a more profound theological reflection grounded on the daily realities of the People of God.
Ignatian at the Core
Francis’ spirituality was deeply Ignatian. Rooted in the spiritual discipline of discernment, he allowed his heart to be attentive to “finding God in all things.” Threats, control, and denunciations did not mark his pontificate, but it was about listening. It was to discern in common, as a People of God, in the contextual realities of today’s world. Hence, Francis’ decisions emerged from a unique mix of prayer, dialogue, and an acute sensitivity to the signs of our times. The deep devotion to Mary, the humble servant whose “yes” opened the world to salvation, another Ignatian characteristic, inspired his attitude of care, presence, and humble service. At the height of COVID-19, Francis dared to visit Iraq in 2021. Despite physical limitations, it was an act of daring solidarity and an attempt to promote world peace. Francis fashioned a pastoral and courageous leadership style that recognised the need to meet people in their suffering, an Ignatian vision to engage with the world as it is.
Pope Franics and Africa
What can the African Church learn from Pope Francis’s papacy? While Pope John Paul II offered the image of the Church as a family, particularly in Ecclesia in Africa, where he emphasized communion, solidarity, and mutual care, Pope Francis has expanded and deepened this vision. His teachings build upon the legacy of Africae Munus (2011), which focused on the Church’s role in fostering peace, justice, and reconciliation across the continent.
Pope Francis continues to develop the model of the Church as a family, rooted in encounter, mutual recognition, and a deep commitment to human dignity. During his visit to Bangui, Central African Republic, in 2015, he proclaimed, “true peace is possible only through a culture of encounter and reconciliation.” This message finds particular resonance in the African understanding of the extended family, where grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and children engage one another daily. These frequent encounters are fertile ground for reconciliation and peacebuilding. This vision aligns with the African philosophy of Ubuntu, as described by Michael Battle in Ubuntu: I in You and You in Me (2009), where he writes, “a person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others.” Pope Francis’s emphasis on fraternity and interconnectedness reflects this deeply communal ethos.
In Fratelli Tutti (2020), he calls for universal fraternity and social friendship, insisting: “No one can face life in isolation… We need a community that supports and helps us.” This mirrors Ubuntu’s ethic of mutual responsibility and shared identity. His concern for the poor, the excluded, and the vulnerable also echoes the African value of honouring the dignity of every person as part of the wider community. In Laudato Si’ (2015), his call for ecological conversion and care for our common home resonates with Africa’s traditional reverence for the earth and its interconnectedness with all life. His appeal for intercultural and interreligious dialogue also parallels the African emphasis on reconciliation and unity through understanding.
All of these elements, fraternity, ecological awareness, care for the poor, and the pursuit of peace, are held together in Pope Francis’s broader vision of a synodal Church. Synodality expands the image of the Church as a family by calling it to be more fully a community of listening, co-responsibility, and inclusivity, with mercy and love at its centre. It challenges the Church to walk together, recognizing the voice and contribution of each member, especially the most vulnerable. In this way, Pope Francis offers not just a model of leadership, but a vision of the Church that deeply resonates with African communal life and spiritual values.
Conclusion
Pope Francis has left the Church not with a rigid roadmap, but with a compass, one that points toward mercy, encounter, humility, and shared journeying. His papacy has not only reawakened the global Church to the Gospel’s radical demands but has also empowered local churches, like those in Africa, Asia and Latin America, to rediscover their prophetic voice within the universal Body of Christ. Francis offered a vision rooted in deep communion: a Church that listens before it speaks, accompanies rather than commands, and embraces the wounded as Christ himself.
By calling the Church to be synodal, to walk together, to listen deeply, and to discern in the Spirit, Pope Francis has planted seeds that will bear fruit long beyond his pontificate. His legacy invites the Church to lead in modelling what a synodal, inclusive, and merciful community can look like. As students, ministers, and members of the Church, we are challenged to carry forward this vision, not merely in theory, but in lived witness, among the people we are called to serve. May we continue walking with the Shepherd from the South, letting his quiet revolution of the Gospel echo through our lives and ministries.
The 2025 Ecclesiology Class at Hekima University College