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Pope Francis will be remembered for his human approach to migration & simple style, writes Shelagh Fogarty
21 April 2025, 14:24 | Updated: 21 April 2025, 16:05
If I had to choose just two words central to the papacy of Francis, they would be ‘migration’ and ‘synodality’. If I were allowed a third, I’d say ‘folksy’.
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One of his first trips after becoming Pope in 2013 was to the island of Lampedusa off the Italian coast.
It was then and is still one of the hot spots of global migration. He placed flowers in the water for all those who had died attempting to reach Europe. His focus on the humanity of every individual refugee never wavered.
Just a week ago, he fired a shot across the bows of US bishops, some of whom appeared to be showing explicit political support for President Trump.
He wrote ‘any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality’ was wrong. It was a scolding for sure.
The true shape of Christian love is the ethos of the Good Samaritan. Keeping it simple, as ever.
I think his language on migration is really interesting and is a massive challenge to the politicians of this world.
I sometimes heard him speak about it and thought it was beautiful, loving, maybe politically naive, but I think there's always space for a bit of beautiful and a bit of loving when it comes to human beings.
So I think that will be one of his abiding legacies - he really took the question of human migration and often the pain behind it and the poverty behind it very seriously.
Synodality, meanwhile, is anything but simple. He held a synod on synodality for goodness sake!
He clearly believed it was the basis for Catholic unity. At its driest, synodality denotes the life and mission of the Church, the People of God journeying together and gathering in assembly, led by the Holy Spirit. More simply, it’s the painstaking work to understand one another and move forward. Heaven knows the entire world needs more of that.
As the first Pope from Latin America, he described himself on the evening of his election as a man from the periphery, the edge of the world.
Don’t forget he followed Benedict and John Paul the Second who, while not Italian, were steeped in the theological and dogmatic development of the church.
As Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio and as Bishop and priest before that, Francis was no high intellectual like them. He was a parish priest to his bones and had been a capable administrator too.
Pope Benedict, who could well be remembered as the church’s finest theologian of modern times, resigned in part because he realised a more muscular people-facing leadership was needed, especially in tackling historic and active sexual abuse cases. Bergoglio was chosen. Pastoral yes, but with the ability to be a bruiser, ruthless even.
On this issue, he hasn’t been ruthless enough for some, myself included.
Too many known abusers have still avoided proper accountability. Not long ago he gave a rather defensive speech, placing church abuse in the wider context of abuse everywhere. It was a mistake. Sexual abuse by a priest is unique in nature. It was his job to see that.
The folksy part of him paid his own hotel bill, booked his own flight to Rome for the conclave that elected him, put him close enough to his ‘sheep’ to ‘smell like them’, a phrase he famously used to say priests even popes should be in amongst their people not grand, and set apart from them. It probably informed his stance on Latin Mass, whose fans regard his position as akin to spiritual philistinism.
Personally, I think there's something very moving about Pope Francis dying on Easter Monday. Having seen him yesterday on television, when he was making the greeting, I think it was very clear he was struggling a lot.
This is a man who would always find a kind of impish smile when he was in front of people. Who knows behind the scenes whether he was always so smiling.
But there was something very heavy about him yesterday, I thought. Not just his voice, but his appearance. He couldn't even muster a smile. His whole face was down. And I thought, this man is really struggling. It was clear death was very close at that point.
Although it wasn't surprising, it still is always a shock to hear news of somebody's death, and when they're a very significant figure like that, it's a massive moment.
In the Catholic Church when a Pope dies, it's as much about what he has achieved as it is about what comes next for the global church.
I covered Pope John Paul's funeral from the Vatican. At that time, when Benedict became the next Pope, there was a sense that the Church wanted some kind of continuum.
Not quite a placeholder, but a continuum. And then, when Benedict resigned, for which I think he should be eternally praised for doing so, the Church needed what I would call 'a bruiser'.
Pope Francis had been - and then Cardinal Bergoglio - in a very big, difficult archdiocese of Buenos Aires in Argentina - an administrator. He was an administrator who could clear up messes. Now, did he clear up all the messes needed to be cleared up in the Catholic Church? Absolutely not.
But compared to the gentle theologian intellect of Benedict, compared to the so called 'rock star' Pope John Paul, Francis was a man who was going to really get stuck into the weeds of the Church and whoever he needed to tell off, argue with, beat up a bit metaphorically, he would do so.
He was an administrator and could be a bruiser when he needed to be.
The Catholic Church would say that from day one, it is meant to be a church that challenges the world, that challenges the ways of the world.
I think whoever is chosen next will absolutely continue in that tradition.
How they express that and their own personality matters enormously as well.
I remember one of the first things Pope Francis said was in his papacy, not on the night of his election, but in the early weeks, was that a shepherd should smell like his flock.
Some people recoiled at that description. But I thought what he was saying was, I should be with you, close to you, and I'm going to get stuck into the issues of your lives.
I actually think he has, in many ways, not totally and not completely successfully, that was the hallmark of his papacy in many ways, that he was very physically close to people when he was out and about.
Pope Francis began his papacy with his first words from the balcony saying a simple ‘Buona Sera’.
He just said 'hello' and it was almost like an indication of this informality of his papacy that he brought.
He ended it yesterday with an equally simple and beautiful ‘Buona Pasqua’ - the Italian for Happy Easter.
At a general audience this month, Pope Francis prepared a reflection on the rich man seeking meaning as told in Mark’s gospel.
He concluded: ‘Jesus sees our fragility as well as our desire to be loved just as we are’ - simple words which we remember today.
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