Pope Francis left a legacy of moral liberation
Pope Francis reminded faithful: There are no stratifications in Christian love. We owe generosity and service to all people, especially the vulnerable, marginal, and displaced, and to all of Creation.
Pope Francis was the first leader of the Catholic Church ever to choose the name of St. Francis of Assisi—a humble, altruistic, revolutionary saint. Francis had given up a life of wealth and comfort to devote himself to service of the poor and living in harmony with Nature.
When Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio took the name Francis, some observed that the name—and wider legacy of St. Francis—clashed with the opulence and historic power of the Vatican. Pope Francis put those trappings of wealth and power aside, dressed more simply, and even chose to live in humble rooms, instead of the traditional papal palace. Others observed that by choosing the name Francis, the new pope was signaling a personal confidence in the purpose and power of Christian teaching—that to serve others was the best and most resonant possible expression of the Church.
From the beginning, Pope Francis sought to foster an ecumenical conversation—including all faiths, including people of no faith—about the life of the spirit, about reciprocal generosity as a core human value. He sought to heal schisms hundreds or even thousands of years old, and he promoted the idea that what makes his own faith universal is not Catholic doctrine, but the simple impulse to be decent to others.
In 2015, Pope Francis issued an Encyclical Letter—the highest cateogry of papal teaching, an open letter to the faithful and to the wider community of humanity. The Encyclical was titled Laudato Si’, On Caring for Our Common Home. At its core, it recognized the divine grace inherent in all that Nature provides, and outlined a core moral duty to care for Creation.
In a section titled ‘Nothing in this world is indifferent to us’, Pope Francis cites several of his predecessors, grounding his vision for an ethics of integral ecology in a background of Church teaching:
Blessed Pope Paul VI warned that “Due to an ill-considered exploitation of nature, humanity runs the risk of destroying it and becoming in turn a victim of this degradation”.
Saint John Paul II warned in his first Encyclical he warned that human beings frequently seem “to see no other meaning in their natural environment than what serves for immediate use and consumption” and called for human development that accounts for “the nature of each being and of its mutual connection in an ordered system”.
He cited his predecessor Benedict XVI who called for “eliminating the structural causes of the dysfunctions of the world economy and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable of ensuring respect for the environment”.
Pope Francis explained why St. Francis was such an inspiration to him, writing in the Encyclical that touched so many Franciscan values:
I believe that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically. He is the patron saint of all who study and work in the area of ecology, and he is also much loved by non-Christians. He was particularly concerned for God’s creation and for the poor and outcast. He loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his openheartedness.
He called for “the whole human family” to join “a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet” and to “cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents”. He noted that science and evidence help us to understand both the complexity and the ethical urgency inherent in the disruption of Earth’s climate system. He traced the connection between the physical climate system and our ethical interconnection, writing:
The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life.
Laudato Si’ detailed risk to human health and wellbeing, and to planetary health, from disruption of water supplies, loss of biodiversity, rising global inequality, and the decline in human quality of life and societal breakdown, resulting from this web of interacting forces.
Pope Francis laid out the Gospel of Creation, including the mystery underlying all of Nature—a call for faith-driven respect for that which we have not, ourselves, created. He says that:
each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous. The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God.
The Encyclical called for an integral ecology, an authentic human cooperative pursuit of knowledge, justice, and sustainable shared prosperity, in harmony with Nature. It came only months before the community of nations would adopt the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. 2015 also saw global agreements on Disaster Risk Reduction and Financing for Development.
As more than 190 governments worked together to create conditions for enduring prosperity and peace, the message of care for Creation and for each other, resonated across faith traditions, throughout civil society, and in the halls of power. It was becoming possible to reasonably conceive of a future in which the quest of a few for unlimited power would no longer darken the lives of billions.
That work is unfinished. Maybe it will always be unfinished, but the tone has been set, and a new way of thinking about high office and global leadership has come into existence. Billions of people want the future to be a time of real and reciprocal improvements, of servant leaders and vibrant societies of people freely cooperating to bring better outcomes into being.
The legacy of Pope Francis will be one of humble but no-nonsense servant leadership—a defiant optimism untainted by the quest for institutional or material power. He set an example of moral liberation, where achievement is the uplifting of the vulnerable, the rescuing of the persecuted, the forthright and honorable stewardship of all that Nature offers and which we cannot create ourselves.
As with any great leader, the legacy of Pope Francis will be defined by the way others live the example he set. Regardless of the politics of the moment, transcendent legitimacy in fact requires humble servant leadership and commitment to an integral ecology—a respect for others and for the fabric of life. That future is ours to make, and that is a joyous possibility.
The following is a CNN report on the papacy and legacy of Pope Francis: