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. Following the Election of Pope Leo XIV on May 8, we still have many submissions that have not yet been posted, so we will continue to publish these reflections intermittently as time permits. —ML
Pope Francis Preached a Transformative Gospel
by Julian Waldner
Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, passed away on Easter Monday, April 21. The life and writing of Pope Francis has influenced my own faith and spirituality in ways that are a bit hard to describe. My admiration for the life and witness of Francis remains, even with my disagreements with some of his moves, such as this and this, some of his statements, and some of the scandals, particularly around sexual abuse. Nonetheless, I gained a lot from Francis and I will try my best in what follows to describe what that was.
The first reference to him on my blog is from December 2019. I think it was around that time that I became interested in Francis. I read the biographies by Austin Ivereigh, the encyclicals Laudato Si’ and Evangelii Gaudium, and followed some of the controversy between Francis and his traditionalist critics by means of Where Peter Is.
I think what might have interested me about Francis was vaguely hearing some of the critiques of him by traditionalist critics and wanting to get to know the man himself. I remember reading, at some point, the famous early interview with Francis, “A Big Heart Open to God” by Antonio Spadaro. I think this was the first interview Francis gave after being elected as Pontiff. This was an interview where Francis made some comments about homosexuality that were controversial in some traditionalist circles. I remember reading them and resonating deeply with his pastoral approach of extending the mercy of God. Its here that we find a Francis version of the Ordo Amoris:
“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.
“I say this also thinking about the preaching and content of our preaching. A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that the opposite order is prevailing. The homily is the touchstone to measure the pastor’s proximity and ability to meet his people, because those who preach must recognize the heart of their community and must be able to see where the desire for God is lively and ardent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.”
At the time, as throughout his pontificate, both the liberal media and conservative critics seized on Francis’s statement in this interview that, “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods.” Both took this as a sign that Francis was calling for a liberalization of the Church’s teachings, for the liberal media this was something to celebrate, for the traditionalists, something to bemoan. However, what I and other more sympathetic readers saw in this interview was the basic posture that Francis has held throughout his pontificate. Without denying the Church’s moral teachings, Francis was ‘dogmatic’ that the Church must always, first and foremost point people to the grace and mercy of Christ. As Francis said in the same interview: “The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.” In other words, the fundamental, first, primary message of the Church is not its political stances, its ethical teachings, its history, tradition, or even theological claims, but rather the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Francis himself “never tired of repeating” the words from Benedict XVI: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”
What always struck me about Francis was his basic, almost Lutheran conviction that the annunciation of the gospel has transformative power and that it is a message that speaks to the deepest human need: “There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation.” Francis simply believed that communicating the gospel, through gesture, acts of mercy, or the spoken word, has the power to transform in a way that no amount of rules or moralizing ever can. It is this basic message that speaks into the pain, loss, struggle, and heartbreak of ordinary life like nothing else. It is therefore this basic message of the gospel (not political moralizing or public service announcements) that the Church should proclaim week in and week out.
Francis believed that the Church’s life must be re-organized around this beating heart of the gospel and the “going out” to proclaim it, embody it, and show it in acts of mercy. In the image of the Church that Francis often evoked, the Church is a ‘field hospital’ where the sick, hurting, and wounded come to find healing. The words of Francis that I never tire of repeating are found in his apostolic letter, Evangeli Gaudium. Here he puts forward his vision of the Church that “goes out” and of the pastor who “smells like the sheep:”
I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and which then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures. If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life. More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us: “Give them something to eat” (Mk 6:37).
The pontificate of Pope Francis, more than anything, was one of personal encounter. In his whole life, his public gestures and statements, Francis embodied the power of heart to heart encounter, the power of touch, presence, and being-with those who are suffering. I think of the kind of presence he embodied in his pontificate as reminiscent of Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov. Throughout the novel, Alyosha is present in the lives of the most broken, dysfunctional people, not as a figure of condemnation, but as a figure of Christ who offers mercy, and points with his posture, gestures, and words, to something better, higher, grander, and truer than the pettiness of sin. At the same time, Alyosha in every gaze, gesture, and word, embodies the conviction that “God is in every person’s life.” I think of this, more than anything, as the key to how Francis lived his life, and what inspires me about his example:
I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”
I am thankful to our Triune God for the life of Pope Francis. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
This reflection was first posted on Julian Waldner’s blog, Coffee with Kierkgaard.
Image: “Korea_Pope_Francis_Gwanghwamun_Beatifica” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by KOREA.NET – Official page of the Republic of Korea
Julian Waldner is a Hutterite from the Decker community in Manitoba. He works as a welder and in his spare time writes for his blog Coffee With Kierkegaard. Julian has an ongoing love of the work of Søren Kierkegaard, and recently, partly through the work of Where Peter Is, has been captivated by the life and message of Pope Francis. In his life and in his writing, Julian is interested in exploring how the way of Jesus calls us into lives of freedom, grace and radical friendship.
Popular Posts