Editor’s note: Following the death of Pope Francis on April 21, 2025, the editors of Where Peter Is received many tributes to his life and reflections on his influence from past and current contributors, as well as podcast guests and friends of the site from all over the world. We will publish a few of these reflections every day leading up to the conclave. —ML
Pope Francis Changed My Worldview
By Anthony Steinhauser
Of the three Popes during whose pontificates I have lived, Pope Francis has influenced me the most. Before Francis became the pope I was systematically engaged in religious proselytism, considering it a virtuous endeavor trying to convince people of the truth of the Catholic faith. The results were meager and even when I sometimes seemingly succeeded, the effects were ephemeral. Therefore I was quite surprised when I found a clear condemnation of proselytism in Evangelii Gaudium. It was not an entirely new teaching but I overlooked it during the previous pontificate and Francis repeated it more articulately, more frequently and more categorically than Benedict XVI. Pope Francis significantly changed my worldview, my respect for human freedom, and for the role of the Holy Spirit as the agent of human sanctification.
The other influences of Pope Francis on me were more subtle but not less important. They didn’t target my theoretical worldview but rather inconsistencies between my theoretical knowledge and my practical reasoning. Theoretically I understood very well what was Pelagianism and rigorism and why they were incorrect and untenable. Yet my practical reasoning was to a large extent influenced by both Pelagianism and rigorism. Even though I knew that for example sexual sins or violations of ascetic rules (e.g. holding fasts or attending Sunday Masses) are generally less grave sins than injustices caused to other people, I treated sexual sins and ascetic rules as highly important binary categories but I was very lenient, almost relativist, when it came to relations with other people and treating them justly and charitably. I was basically reducing morality to legalism, moreover a very selective one.
Furthermore I harshly judged other people based on these perverted priorities without much regard for their individual situations. In my practical reasoning there was almost zero space for divine grace. I practically respected divine grace only as a boost of my own efforts. Thanks to Francis’s teachings primarily in Amoris Laetitia and in Gaudete et Exsultate, I realized that my practical decision-making was warped. His teachings didn’t change me overnight because I had to rebuild my value system and get rid of many prejudices and misconceptions but I’m grateful to Pope Francis for making me more open minded and balanced compared to who I was before. Later I was also grateful to Pope Francis for example that he condemned the death penalty, that he unified the Roman Rite in Traditionis Custodes, that he explained the essence of personal prelatures in Ad Charisma Tuendum and that he encouraged evangelization of gay and lesbian people in Fiducia Supplicans.
Lastly I cannot avoid mentioning that Pope Francis radically opened my eyes as far as many theologians are concerned. Many people whom I trusted because I considered them to be obedient orthodox Catholics with a solid understanding of the Catholic ecclesiology turned out to be the exact opposite of all that thanks to Pope Francis. They publicly dissented from his official teachings, repeatedly slandered him and exhibited highly disrespectful behaviors towards him and towards those who were in authentic communion with him. That made me realize that those theologians were never obedient to the Church, they never had the Catholic faith based on actually trusting the Church, they just happened to agree with previous popes on some points. When they were called to an actual Catholic obedience by a new pope whose teachings didn’t match their ideological commitments, their masks slipped and it was very ugly. Many of them earlier imbibed me with those ideas derived from practical pelagianism and practical rigorism mentioned above. This discovery not only gave me a clear criteria about which Catholic authors are relevant and which aren’t but it also made me systematically reevaluate most of the indoctrination I received from authors who failed this test of obedience to the pope.
A Great Pope in the Modern Era
By Mark Wilson
Pope Francis was the face of the Catholic church. He was the ambassador for Christ that God was making an appeal to the world through (2 Corinthians 5:20). He was a living catechetical lesson in how to live the Christian life. He used to sneak out of the Vatican at night to feed and greet the homeless and went to visit Christ in prison and wash his feet. He didn’t back down from showing people that God so loved the world. He didn’t just do it with the actions of a humanitarian but preached the orthodoxy and importance of faith in which devotion to Christ was the central message and upheld the tradition of the historic Catholic faith.
He did it differently with his own particular style and emphasis. He wouldn’t bless gay marriages but would bless those with same sex attraction in a relationship as individuals. He warned of the dangers of hell and hoped no one would go there. He acknowledged God worked in all faiths but that Jesus Christ was the only way to God.
He used Christ as his strength when his energy was drained with lung, colon, and walking problems along with Sciatica especially in his last days being with his sheep as their shepherd, meeting with them and serving them.
From his first ever homily he preached…
My wish is that all of us, after these days of grace, will have the courage, yes, the courage, to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Lord’s Cross; to build the Church on the Lord’s blood which was poured out on the Cross; and to profess the one glory: Christ crucified. And in this way, the Church will go forward.
To his last…
For this reason, our Easter faith, which opens us to the encounter with the risen Lord and prepares us to welcome him into our lives. Sisters, brothers, in the wonder of the Easter faith, carrying in our hearts every expectation of peace and liberation, we can say: with You, O Lord, everything is new. With you, everything begins again.
Christ was preached and his life lived out as the visible head of Christ’s church on earth.
He was also very relatable to the common everyday man. He liked dancing the Tango, eating Pizza, watched soccer, wrote “As Frodo, the main character in Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ says: ‘The tales never end,’” in an afterword to a book, told Shyster Stallone in a visit “We grew up with your films’, then preceded to shadow box with him, and took a picture with a man dressed as Spiderman. Just like Jesus he ate and danced with the ordinary folks like you and me and yet was saintly and Christlike.
His Papacy was a continuation of the holy quality that God has gifted the church with. Being different in style but the same in commitment to the faith. The man who follows I hope will have the charm and charisma of St. JP2 who died on the eve of the octave day of Easter which was the eve of feast he declared: Divine Mercy Sunday. Pope Francis was made a Cardinal in 2001 by him and in return canonized him a saint on April 27 2014, in Saint Peter’s Square, Vatican City along with the canonization of Pope John XXIII (with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI concelebrating).
Besides these two popes he canonized this group of memorable saints which include St. Therese’s parents, Mother Teresa, the Carmelites Elizabeth of the Trinity, Mariam Baouardy, and Titus Brandsma the American Junípero Serra, the Fatima children Francisco and Jacinta Marto, Pope Paul VI, Óscar Romero , John Henry Newman, Charles de Foucauld, the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya and would have canonized the first millennial saint, who would be the only saint to have ever worn a Spiderman costume, Blessed Carlo Acutis (whom he beatified) and Blessed Pier Giorgio Fossati.
He also beatified Pope John Paul I, Stanley Rother, James Miller and Teresa Demjanovich, the family that hid Jews in WW2 (Józef and Wiktoria Ulma), Solanus Casey, Catholic Samari Dom Justo Takayama, the Founder of the Knights of Columbus Michael J. McGivney, the martyr sister Leonella Sgorbati, and the “the Gaucho priest” and the “cowboy priest” who had leprosy Jose Gabriel del Rosario Brochero.
He made Gregory of Narek and Irenaeus of Lyon* doctors of the church.
Pope Francis wrote some nice reflections on Therese of Lisieux, the sacred heart and the Joy of the Gospel.
I also hope that the next pope will have the wealth of knowledge and the scholarship of Benedict who Pope Francis got to serve alongside of in the days before he passed on to his reward on the eve of the octave day of Christmas which was the eve of the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. These two men of different approaches respected one another deeply. Pope Francis quotes all these men in some of his writings, and showed he did not break the line of succession of the faith in what he taught from the chair of Peter.
And finally, I hope that the new pope continues the humility and compassion of Francis displaying mercy and hope as a central trait in the Christian life. Pope Francis continued the trend of living long enough to survive Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum, and dying on Easter Monday in the Easter Octave.
Pope Francis served the church well and will be missed and is linked to the spiritual legacy of the great popes in the modern era.
Editor’s note: Following the death of Pope Francis on April 21, 2025, the editors of Where Peter Is received many tributes to his life and reflections on his influence from past and current contributors, as well as podcast guests and friends of the site from all over the world. We will publish a few of these reflections every day leading up to the conclave. —ML
Image:”PrayPope” (CC BY-ND 2.0) by michael_swan
Anthony Steinhauser was born in Czech Republic. He has PhD in Computer security and Masters at Law. Currently he lives in the San Francisco Bay area and works as a software engineer. Among his interests are dogmatic theology, epistemology, moral theology, and philosophy of God.
Mark Wilson is a normal working guy. He has a Masters from Franciscan University and has worked at several jobs which have given him a place to pray and visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament during his breaks, including the Carmelite gift shop at the North Shore Mall in Peabody, MA, Catholic TV, and at two nursing homes. He has also taught catechism and has volunteered for a suicide prevention hotline. Mark enjoys writing, reading, and watching movies, as well as spending time with friends – and of course with his beautiful, holy wife Kristin. When he is not spending time at work or with his spouse he blogs over at The Catholic Bard at Patheos Catholic.
Popular Posts