Be a Francis, Not a Donald
A legacy of mercy over power
The death of Pope Francis marks the loss of one of our last clear moral voices in a world that crowns cruelty and calls it strength. Against the spectacle of power, Francis offered something rarer: humility, mercy and a Gospel fierce enough to unsettle empires.
He was not a perfect leader, nor did he pretend to be—he once described himself as “a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon,” shaped in part by a humbling exile imposed by his Jesuit community during his early years.
But in a time when so many in power choose self-exaltation over self-sacrifice, Francis reminded the world that true greatness is found not in how many bow before you, but in whom you are willing to kneel beside.
Pope Francis’ election in 2013 marked a seismic shift within the Catholic Church, particularly amongst American conservatives. Following the intellectual rigor and insularity of Benedict XVI and the charismatic conservatism of Pope John Paul II, many expected a pontiff who would shore up the traditional power structures established during those 34 years of papal leadership.
Instead, Francis, the bishop of the barrios, sought not to consolidate the Church’s institutional power but to dismantle its triumphalism, re-centering its mission around mercy and the accompaniment of the most vulnerable. In doing so, he unsettled those who had long tethered their faith to political authority and cultural dominance. No surprise that ultranationalist figures like Steve Bannon and his cronies made it their mission to undermine Francis, seeing his Gospel of mercy as an existential threat to their mission of cultural conquest.
But Francis’s challenge to the Church’s entanglement with political power was not born of novelty or rebellion. It was rooted in a much older call — one that had once promised to renew the Church from within.
The spirit of ‘aggiornamento’
This was not innovation for its own sake, but a return to the spirit of aggiornamento — the Vatican II call to engage with the world’s wounds, not to police its boundaries.
Francis, shaped by the call of aggiornamento, saw his papacy as a continuation of that bold project. His embrace of ecological responsibility, his defense of the poor, his call for a “field hospital” Church rather than a tribunal of the righteous.
We live in an era when powerful forces seek to weaponize Catholic identity for cultural and political conquest, but Francis chose the more difficult path: renewal without rupture, fidelity without fear.
Faith rooted in justice and creation
Francis’s papacy was marked not just by gestures of humility but by bold theological proclamations that reimagined Catholic social teaching for a world in crisis.
His landmark encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015) called for an “integral ecology” — a vision that binds justice for the poor and care for the planet into one inseparable moral obligation. Rejecting both exploitative capitalism and superficial environmentalism, Francis insisted that ecological destruction is a sin against both creation and humanity, one that disproportionately wounds the poorest and most powerless.
In Fratelli Tutti (2020), he expanded this teaching, warning against nationalism, economic domination and the “throwaway culture” that devalues human life. Again and again, Francis returned to the conviction that faith without justice is not faith at all — and that any Church indifferent to the cries of the poor, the migrant or the earth itself betrays the Gospel it claims to serve.
Through these teachings, Francis made clear that mercy is not an abstract sentiment, but a radical demand: to build a world where the dignity of every creature is recognized, defended and cherished.
An imperfect witness
Francis’s papacy was not without its failures. His efforts to address clerical sexual abuse, though more transparent and forceful than those of his predecessors, moved too slowly to meet the urgency demanded and deserved by survivors. Too many were asked to wait for justice that should never have been delayed, and the wounds of silence and inaction deepened under his watch.
His outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, while more compassionate in tone than any pope before him, still left many vulnerable to the same systemic exclusion, condemnation and spiritual harm that the Church has long inflicted. His frequent, quiet conversations with transgender people from the neighborhoods he knew best in Argentina and Italy brought with them not judgment but presence and his insistence that “God loves us as we are”.
But they did not translate into full inclusion, protection or dignity within Church teaching or practice. For LGBTQ+ people — including families with a trans kid, like mine — the Catholic Church under Francis remained a source of wounding rather than healing.
Yet even in these shortcomings, Francis revealed the heart of a shepherd who refused to turn away from the wounded. He remained, until the end, committed to a Church that moves toward mercy, not away from it — a Church that, like Christ himself, chooses solidarity with the wounded over comfort with the powerful.
Speaking truth to power
Throughout his papacy, Francis understood that fidelity to the Gospel sometimes demands confrontation. Not confrontation for the sake of political rivalry or clickbait, but for the sake of the vulnerable whose lives hang in the balance.
To autocrats, he offered the Gospel’s unsettling reminder that true leadership is measured not by domination, but by service. To populists who trafficked in fear, he offered the Beatitudes — a view of the world turned upside down, where the meek inherit the earth.
Francis did not name Donald Trump explicitly in every rebuke, but the lines were unmistakably drawn:
When Trump spoke of walls, Francis called for bridges.
When Trump stoked division and dehumanized migrants, Francis insisted that “a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, is not Christian”. No matter, I suppose, how many branded made-in-China Bibles that person might sell.
When strongmen around the world sought to baptize cruelty in the name of nationalism, Francis reaffirmed the Church’s preferential option for the poor, the refugee, the outcast.
He knew Christianity was not a shield for empire, but a cross to carry. In rejecting the golden idols of power, wealth and false security, Francis bore witness to a Gospel many, even within his own Church, found too uncomfortable to accept.
In the end, Francis’ life was a reminder that the Gospel is always a thorn in the side of empire, always a stumbling block to those who seek to rule rather than serve. He has returned to the God he served so humbly, leaving behind a question for us:
Will we follow the Christ who kneels to wash the feet of the poor or the (would-be) Caesars who demand the world kneel before them?
In a world full of Donalds, be a Francis.
