CTA Metro NY joins the human family in mourning the death of Pope Francis on April 21st, 2025. His pontificate in many ways advanced the call that we as Catholics be church to one another, as evidenced by his pastoral priorities, public statements, and theological writings.

Pope Francis envisioned a "big tent" church - a field hospital where all who are in need could be tended to with care, not an exclusive club where only the most deserving can belong. He spoke ceaselessly of the plight of migrants and the poor, a much-needed moral voice in a political era where consumerism remains supreme and xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment are on the rise. Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical Laudato Si gave birth to a major paradigm shift around humanity's duty to care for the Earth, our common home, and resulted in mass movements in parishes and dioceses worldwide to take concrete actions to counter climate change. Five years later, his encyclical Fratelli Tutti was released amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, urging the global community to recognize the lack of interdependent support and cooperation exposed by the crisis and seize the opportunity to rebuild a more just world.

Some elements of Pope Francis' leadership will be recorded in history as mixed successes. While he championed a greater role for women in the Vatican and normalized the participation of women in church life, many were disappointed by the closed-door discussions about admitting women to the diaconate at the Synod for Synodality and his explicit refusal to consider the matter of ordination to the priesthood. Pope Francis's willingness to engage in dialogue and relationship with the LGBTQ community represents a watershed cultural shift in the Church (exemplified by his famed 2013 comment "if a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?"), and yet his conceptualization of "gender ideology" and careful wording that the blessing of same-sex partners is not equivalent to marriage were very painful. He acknowledged the ongoing crisis of sexual abuse and the enduring legacy of the Church's crimes against Indigenous peoples, and yet was not always willing to take the level of reparative actions advocates argued were necessary for true reconciliation.

Perhaps one of Pope Francis's largest impacts on the Church was his appointment of 163 cardinals over the course of his papacy, 108 of whom will be eligible to vote in the upcoming conclave - the first conclave in history where nearly a majority of participants will originate from the Global South. Our prayer is that the Holy Spirit will guide the selection of a successor who will both carry forward the progressive elements of Pope Francis's legacy and exceed beyond them. Naysayers may believe it is impossible to resolve the cataclysms gripping our Church and our world, but we remember Pope Francis's Urbi et Omni blessing on Easter Sunday where he expressed special concern for the people of Gaza and exhorted us all to "renew our hope that peace is possible". We are reminded of the promise of the scriptures that "nothing will be impossible for God" (Luke 1:37), even the radical renewal of our Church - we work, watch, and wait in joyful hope.