Poor Man's Pope

With the passing away of Pope Francis on 21 April at the age of 88, a great chapter of the papal history has been closed. Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio to Italian migrants in Buenos Aires in 1936, he made history through his elevation as the first Latin American and member of the Jesuit order to be elected Pope in the church's existence for over 2000 years.

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After assuming office, the Argentinean pontiff soon attracted global attention as a moderniser, with an outward-looking approach that propelled him to speak out boldly on humanitarian crises, such as migration, war and climate change. While the church was riddled with allegations of corruption and varied forms of malpractices the world over, he sought to reform it by taking head-on the elitist mentalities among the clergy. He exhorted them to display a compassionate approach to divorced and gay Catholics insisting that the church welcome everyone. This was not an easy task, given the fact that there were ultra-conservative elements within the papal establishment that found his new approach abhorrent. But, he could not care less and went on taking a series of measures to clean up financial corruption in the Vatican and fight against the scourge of clerical sexual abuse, introducing laws to hold bishops accountable for cover-ups. Francis also sought an enlarged role for women working in the Vatican and authorised priests to offer bl