Pope Francis, a radical who tried to be a progressive influence and force for good

Defying doctors' orders to rest after his battle with double pneumonia, a weak Pope Francis last week visited Rome's Regina Coeli prison, where he blew kisses towards inmates and spent half an hour in discussion with some of those incarcerated.

- 

Sadly, this Maundy Thursday encounter turned out to be one of the last acts of a hardworking papacy. In retrospect, its location was entirely appropriate.

Throughout his 12 years in Saint Peter's chair, Francis sought admirably to refocus the Catholic church's energies on the marginalised, while challenging the power of entrenched interests. Coming, as he put it, “from the ends of the earth”, the first non-European pontiff of modern times was an outsider pope and a radical one. Within the church, the Argentinian was a sometimes spikily direct reformer; outside it, he was a significant, high-profile ally of progressive causes.