The target of many critics, Jorge Bergoglio, who died in the Passover, at the age of 88, left his mark on his time. Through its clear personality and positions, notes Le Point, according to Rador Radio Romania.
In the context of the multitude of news channels and social networks, in an era shaken by multiple disturbances and as head of a fractured church, undermined by the systemic crisis of sexual abuse, no pope has ever been under as much pressure as Francisc. Argentine Jorge Bergoglio died on Monday, April 21, 2025, at the age of 88.
1. Francis I, the first Jesuit Pope and Non-European
The relations between papacy and Jesuit were often stormy. The order, founded in 1540 by the Ignaţiu de Loyola, always located on the edge of the Vatican power. Jesuits, an elite order, have always been concerned about their independence and peculiarity. So much so that in Rome, their general curly is on the edge of St. Peter's market, but with an amazing view over the basilica.
We can better appreciate the historical event represented by the choice of Jorge Bergoglio, former provincial of the Jesuits in Argentina, on March 13, 2013. Especially since the society of Jesus had been removed from the Vatican power by John Paul II-who preferred the opposite movement Dei. An Jesuit Pope! And which we pontifically patronize the name of Francis, a tribute to Saint Francis of Assisi, the father of the Franciscans. As his friend once told us, Dominican brother Timothy Radcliffe, with his ironic humor, “Francis is an Jesuit dressed as a Dominican and is called Franciscan.” The three Catholic religious orders are found in one person. Thing not before.
And this pope is also the first non-European pontiff, since he was born in Argentina on December 17, 1936. Let us remember that until the Polish John Paul II and the German Benedict XVI, all the popes of the contemporary era were Italians.
2. Francis, Pope with the simplest lifestyle in history
The time when the Pope was traveling for his public appearances in a Gestoria (throne worn on his shoulders) is not so distant, because John Paul I was the last to use, in public audience, on September 27, 1978, the day before his death (after a month of reign). John Paul II abolished this habit and even invented the term “globe-trotter”, making 104 pastoral visits abroad-more than any other pontiff.
Pope Francis goes on in innovation, breaking it with the church fast and with the gold. The rites – even if some are relaxed – and the great holidays that are the secret of the Catholic Church are kept, but Jorge Bergoglio considerably relaxes the protocol and the way of life. Francis declares pump hunt!
It was installed in the residence of Sainte-Marthe, open to the pilgrims, in an apartment and had lunch in the common room, in sight of all the visitors who passed. The Argentine does not want to be “built” behind the walls of the pontifical fortress covered by centuries of history. He prefers direct power, based on a “task force” of eight cardinals (C8), bypassing the courier members, whom he stumbles at regular intervals, reproaching them in closed circuit, which he calls “clericalism”, denouncing their way of life and “the world” (SIC) “Mamut”. He calls himself to his interlocutors, who are shocked: “Bua day, I'm Francis!”
In relations with the heads of state and government who march at the Vatican, it imposes the informal address (tutuirea), in Latin style, and inexorably ends its conversations with a humble “pray for me”. It is not unusual to see him driving with a small fiat and even shopping in the shops in the city. Like Pius XII, who used television since 1949, Francis quickly imposed on social networks, creating a reactive digital platform for the Vatican communication, Vatican News. As a proof of his success, the Pope will be one of the first targets of a viral Ia, which was presented in a great white fluff.
3. A pope who defuses or the consciousness of the world
Mandela is no longer, the Dalai Lama does not speak, the Nobel laureates have lost their aura … In the absence of a global icon, Pope Francis is the last peaceful voice on the international stage. Many mourn their positions, criticize their line of diplomatic neutrality, which leads, especially in certain conflicts (Russia-Ukraine, Hamas-Israel), to the same level of aggressors and aggressors.
Francisc's action is in accordance with the doctrine established by Benedict XV during the First World War and which Pope Paul VI's statements at the UN stands in 1965 summarized it perfectly: “Never war, never again war! Peace, peace, must guide the destiny of the people and the whole humanity!” A repeated formula almost word by word by Francis on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, facing a world that passes through what he calls “a third war on pieces.”
The white cleric does not deviate from this objective: peace. What is equivalent to indulgence often misunderstood towards dictators who bleed the world and which he accepts to receive (the Vatican never makes invitations), such as Erdogan or Putin. In front of the “brute” of the world, the Holy Father in white is a pavement to protect the most vulnerable, those threatened by the radical immigration policies of Donald Trump or his compatriot Javier Milei, whose policies with the poverty.
His actions are not, in fact, without hidden reasons, to advance the positions of the Church in certain countries in which it is forbidden, hence its proximity to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, Pro
This action of “defamation” in the world encourages people to denounce leaders who prefer to “build walls rather than bridges”-such as Trump-and reach everyone, especially in Islam, by meeting Cairo with the rector of the Al-Azhar University, the most respected Sunni authority in the world.
4. The first world leader to emphasize migrants and ecological catastrophe
“I am a son of immigrants,” recalls Jorge Bergoglio, whose ancestors left Italy for Argentina and could, in fact, be fired if a cruise ship if, through a miracle, he would not miss his departure. His personal story resonates, of course, fully in the unwavering support he showed over his migrants. From the beginning, he made this one of the major causes of his power, a marker. His first trip is La Lampedusa, the Italian island where children, women and men are piling up at the gate of Europe. In November 2014, in a significant speech in the Strasbourg European Parliament, he tried to highlight the threat that the Mediterranean be transformed into a “big cemetery”-a repeated shock phrase in Marseille in 2023.
Francis is one of the first leaders, if not the first, which alerted the world about the problem of migration, a major challenge of the beginning of the 21st century. As it draws attention to the global ecological catastrophe, through its praise encyclical and, from 2015, which will become a breviar for a generation, and looks at the problem-this is the innovation-in a global dimension that it designates through “whole ecology”, linking both the blows to nature and the attacks on the “Kleenex”.
Struggles that they associate with a denunciation of the excesses of economic ultraliberalism, which it criticizes in its encyclical of 2020 Fratelli Tutti. The little ones, first of all! Francis receives the migrants to the Vatican and, in each Good Friday, washes the prisoners' feet. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he continued to visit the poor parishes in the suburbs. Whenever he has the opportunity, the Pope puts the most vulnerable in the spotlight.
5. Jorge Bergoglio, Pope of the People and “Periphets”
Therefore, it is not surprising that Francis, in December 2024, preferred to attend a conference in AJACCIO except in the Reopening Ceremony of Notre-Dame in Paris. This choice made a lot of ink flow. But it hardly surprises those who know him. There is nothing more Bergoglian than that! Instead of appearing in a company of political and economic leaders-including Trump and Musk, new people of a world struggle-the Pope chose to celebrate popular godliness, intrinsically linked to his family and Argentine culture and which he considers a major vector of faith for (re) heart conquest.
Francis, who has reserved his travels for the small countries, the ones he calls the “outskirts”, will be encouraged, for the year 2025 (an event that takes place every 25 years), to be “a pilgrim of hope”. What he, Jorge Bergoglio, was, in the middle of the storms of a new world, for over ten years.
