Above all, Francis was a kind and loving man of God

Pope Francis will stand as a big figure in the history of the Catholic Church. Picture: AP

Pope Francis, the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ, has died at age 88.

The first non-European pope in a millennium, the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit to be pope, the Holy Father will stand as a big figure in the history of the Catholic Church, with its 1.4 billion followers, and of Christendom generally. He died the day after blessing the faithful at Easter.

In a sense, he died as he lived, and perhaps as he would have chosen, with his boots on, at work, in the fields of Christendom.

He was determined to keep working. He was told by his doctors to undertake two months of complete convalescence and to stay away from other people. Even the doctors had no chance of keeping Francis away from people. He even met visiting US Vice-President JD Vance and the two had an “exchange of views” on issues such as immigration and refugees.

Pope Francis was a man of God, who lived out his Jesuit vow of poverty and devoted his entire life to the love of God, the service of his Church, and advocacy for the poor and the marginalised.

He was elected, in 2013, as a ­deliberate act of change by a body often regarded as intensely conservative, the College of Cardinals. The Church wanted a new leader from the global south and, perhaps, a new pastoral approach. They also wanted a pope who would undertake financial reform of the corrupt elements of Vatican finances. To achieve that reform, Francis appointed Australian cardinal George Pell to oversee it.

Francis emerged as a political liberal and to some extent a theological progressive, whereas Pell was a conservative, and was critical of aspects of Francis’s papacy. But Francis never lost faith in Pell’s innocence through the child abuse charges that Pell later faced.

The Pope refused to strip Pell of his cardinalship until all legal proceedings were exhausted. Pell was vindicated when the High Court unanimously declared him innocent. While Pell was in prison, Francis sent him messages of support, as did retired pope Benedict.

Francis did try to recast the church institutionally, especially by greatly enhancing the opportunities for women in positions of Catholic institutional leadership. He tended to emphasise pastoral care for people rather than doctrinal strictness. He understood the power of symbolism, and he created symbolic moments of openness, commitment to poverty and modesty in trappings, and a modernising of style.

But it would be a tremendous mistake to cast Francis as a church revolutionary. After 12 years of the Francis papacy, women priests are still ruled out, Church teaching on abortion has not changed, the supernatural doctrines of Catholicism remain – very few people have talked of angels and devils more often than Francis did.

Pope Francis signs a cricket bat of Canterbury cricket team received from Cardinal George Pell at the Vatican in 2015.

In mostly doctrinal matters, Francis maintained continuity. He often made statements indicating his personal preferences might have run in a different direction from old-style orthodoxy. Sometimes he made statements which were confusing. But he didn’t attempt to change any important doctrine or teaching. While conservatives found him perplexing, dedicated liberal/progressives were even more disappointed that he didn’t make decisions favouring their view on these matters.

In the popular mind, he is most known for his political positions. He was an ardent environmentalist who saw global warming as an urgent threat. He was a passionate advocate for refugees and migrants. He constantly advocated for the poor. None of this contradicted his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI. But these men had different priorities. John Paul II’s life had been shaped by his resistance first to Nazism, then to communism. Francis experienced the horrors of the Argentine military junta.

What comes next? Francis appointed perhaps three quarters of the cardinals who will vote on his successor. From Europe and North America, he appointed no known conservatives as cardinals. But the weight of his appointments to cardinal reached out to the edges of the Church, to East Timor, to Tonga, to Mongolia, to Africa. Many of these men are unknowns in their views on Church controversies, but almost universally they are doctrinally orthodox if not conservative. And they’ve had very little occasion to meet each other, so the natural factions and groupings have not developed as much as usual.

The conclave will be enthralling. In the meantime, the Church will busy itself giving thanks for the many good things Francis did, and praying for his soul.