7 Pope Francis phrases that help to explain his life and his papacy

The recently deceased pontiff was known for his comments that broke with the protocol followed by his predecessors.

“I didn’t want to be a pope.”

This is how Pope Francis replied in June 2013, shortly after his election to the Conclave, during an audience with students from the Jesuit schools of Rome.

The question was asked by a child who wanted to know what led him to become Peter’s successor.

One of the distinctive characteristics of the Argentine pontificate were his statements, many of them revolutionary to the structure of the Catholic Church, which sometimes marked a break with its predecessors.

However, many analysts have also stressed that, despite their progressive ideas, not all that Francis has expressed in his words could be put into practice to forge a new reality in Catholicism.

Take a look at some of your most important quotes from your 12 -year pontificate.

1. “If a person is gay, he looks for the Lord and has a good will, who am I to judge him?”

This is perhaps one of the sentences that most of the reactions generated during your pontificate.

The phrase was pronounced by Pope Francis on the flight that led him from Rio de Janeiro to Rome, after a trip to Brazil to the World Youth Day in July 2013.

“If a person is gay, he looks for the Lord and has a good will, who am I to judge him? The catechism of the Catholic Church explains and says that such people should not be marginalized and should be integrated into society,” said Francisco to the journalists who accompanied him.

The phrase, which was echoed by communication vehicles all over the world, was not the only one in which he referred to the theme of homosexuality.

In 2016, for example, he said that the Church should ask for forgiveness from homosexuals to have “marginalized” them.

But while perhaps one of his greatest bequests is to have authorized the blessing of the same couple of sexes in December 2023, he was also emphatic in underlining that this blessing should not be confused with the sacrament of marriage and insist on the fact that homosexuality is “a sin”.

2. “How I would like a poor Church … and for the poor.”

When Cardinal Bergoglio was elected Pope, he meant from the beginning to send a clear message to the world that wanted a more austere church to serve the most needy.

Therefore, he chose his name as a Pontiff in honor of Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order and a man who defended poverty and austerity as ways of life.

At his first press conference after his elections in March 2013, he underlined this message.

“Francisco was a poor man. As I would like the Church to be poor … and for the poor,” he said in the 6th Auditorium of the Vatican Paolo.

In this sense, it also clarified that this was the message that all the shepherds of the Church had to reply.

“It hurts to see a priest or nun with a last car model. They have to satisfy their poverty vote,” he said in another press conference in July 2013.

3. “Some people believe that to be good Catholics we have to reproduce as rabbits, but no.”

In January 2015, Francisco himself published the story of a woman in a parish of Rome who was reproached for being pregnant with her eighth son after having seven children for cesarean cut.

The priest said that this was to try God, that the woman could die in that pregnancy and leave seven orphaned children, who replied that “trusted God”.

Asked by the journalists on the position of the Church on the subject, the Pope has adopted a different approach from the traditional headquarters of the facults and multiplied “attributed to Catholicism.

“God gives you the means, be responsible. Some people believe and sorry for the word, that to be good Catholics we must be like rabbits. No! Responsible paternity,” he replied.

He even ventured to give numbers.

“I think the number of three per family is what the technicians say it is important to keep the population,” he added.

However, it has maintained the position of the Church against contraceptive methods, with some specific exceptions, such as the use of condoms to prevent the spread of diseases such as Zika.

However, it has supported natural methods to prevent pregnancy, such as abstinence.

4. “Minor abuse is a disease”

The scandal surrounding the coverage of the abuse of children in the Catholic Church marked the pontificate of Francesco as much as that of his predecessors, John Paul 2 and Benedetto 16.

In the case of the Argentine Pope, he promoted a series of reforms, not only to prevent them from taking again, but also to make repairs to the victims.

In February 2017, an interview with La Civilta Cattolica was published, in which Francisco addressed several topics, including the treatment of pedophilia cases within the Church.

“The abuse of minors is a disease. And we have to strive more to select candidates who want to be priests,” he said.

The question even led him to issue public apologies.

“Unfortunately, there are a considerable number of victims. I would like to express my sadness and pain for the trauma they suffered,” he said during a papal audience in October 2021.

“This is also my shame, our shame, my shame, the failure of the Church for so long to put them at the center of their concerns,” he added.

Among its concrete measures there is the abolition in 2019 of the so called “pontifical secret” in the event of violence or sexual abuse committed by the clerics, allowing the Catholic Church to share “procedural complaints, testimonies and documents” with the civil authorities that have investigated.

5. “Instead of social justice, pepper spray.”

Francisco, who never traveled to Argentina during his papacy, has always clarified that he was aware of what was happening in his country of origin.

With the current president, Javier Milei, there have been several tense moments.

One of these was when Milei, in the middle of his presidential campaign, called the “envoy of the devil on earth”.

Shortly thereafter, Milei apologized to the Pope and Francisco received the Argentine president in his Vatican office.

Another moment occurred during the repression of a mobilization by the Argentine government in September 2024.

The event was led by pensioners who claimed an increase in their pensions, which were affected by the country’s economic crisis.

One of the accidents that attracted the Pope’s attention was when a policeman launched pepper spray into a girl who was with his mother in the protest.

“The workers, the people who claim their rights on the streets. And the police rejected them with the most expensive thing, that of high quality pepper spray,” said the pontiff in a public speech.

“The government remained firm and, instead of spending on social justice, spent with pepper spray,” he added.

Although Milei’s government declared that “did not share” by Francisco’s criticism, at the time he observed that relations with the Pope “were fantastic”.

6. “Those who think of building walls and not building bridges is not a Christian.”

When Donald Trump started his first presidential campaign, he promised to build a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico to prevent migrants from crossing the country from the South.

This showed many world leaders. Francisco was among them.

Commenting on the proposal, he appealed to the religious side of the President of the United States, who is a declared Christian.

“Those who think of building walls, any walls, not building bridges, is not a Christian. This is not in the Gospels,” said the Pope in 2016.

Now, in the face of the new term and the radicalization of immigration policies, Francis has appealed to Trump and his government.

“We should not give in to the narratives that discriminate and cause unnecessary suffering among our immigrant brothers and sisters,” said the Pope in a message to the bishops and priests who meet his pastoral mission in the United States.

The response of the White House was also categorical.

“I want to focus on the Catholic Church and leave the supervision of the border with us,” said Tom Homan, the tone of Tom Homan’s immigration to journalists.

7. “Yesterday, the children were bombarded. This is not a war. It is cruelty.”

The war in Gaza, who left more than 60,000 since he began with the raid of Hamas in the south of Israel in October 2023, also attracted the attention of Pope Francis.

On several occasions, the Pope has requested a negotiated solution for all conflicts all over the world and has asked in particular to the Israeli government and the Palestinian authority to be heard and speak to reach a peaceful agreement.

However, the death of children, especially in the Gaza strip, caused several requests for attention from the Pope.

“Yesterday, the children were bombarded. This is not a war. It is cruelty,” said Francisco on December 21, 2024, in response to the Israeli bombings that caused the death of 25 children to Gaza.

“I want to say because I touch my heart,” he added.

Francisco was also one of the world leaders who asked for an investigation to find out if Israel committed acts of genocide during this conflict.

Source: Terra

Rose

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