The day before he died, Pope Francis made one final circuit through St. Peter’s Square in his popemobile. “That’s my last image of him alive,” Gerry O’Connell remembered. “He drove among the people.”

Universities need to change. But Trump is attacking the wrong problems.

Editor in chief Sam Sawyer, S.J., reflects on praying with Pope Francis’ body in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Just about two weeks before he died, Francis announced that Archbishop-elect McKnight will be the next archbishop of Kansas City, Mo., and that Bishop Lewandowski will become the next bishop of Providence, R.I.

Pope Francis’ face was forever hidden from the world when his coffin was closed at 8 o’clock on Friday evening, April 25, just as the sun was setting over Rome. 

We've collected some of our favorite analyses and remembrances of Francis’ papacy as a resource for Catholics mourning the church’s loss. 

A Reflection for Saturday in the Octave of Easter, by Julian Navarro

Pope Francis trusted the imagination and regarded it as a gift from God. Instead of being suspicious and fearful of its power, he urged artists to follow its promptings.

I discovered that Catholicism could speak meaningfully to contemporary issues, that it could challenge power rather than embody it. I began to pay attention again.

The language of our faith was Spanish. So you can imagine the fervor that erupted in our home when Papa Francisco was elected to the papacy on March 13, 2013. I was only 10 years old at the time, but I already understood why this meant so much to us. 

I never met Pope Francis, but I was one of millions who admired his work.

In this special deep-dive episode of Inside the Vatican, host Colleen Dulle guides listeners through the rituals, rules, and hidden dynamics that unfold when a pope dies.

So many mourners lined up to see Pope Francis lying in state in a simple wooden coffin inside St. Peter’s Basilica that the Vatican kept the doors open all night.

A church that dialogues is “much more interesting than a church where things fall from up high,” Jesuit Father Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Jesuits, said.

The pope’s attention to migration and climate change were well known, but the pope was also attentive to a number of other global issues and challenges like nuclear disarmament, tax justice, development, and the rise of autonomous (A.I.) weapons systems.

The canonization Mass for the first “millennial saint,” originally scheduled for this Sunday, has been delayed indefinitely.

Pope Francis centered the poor and elevated joy in the mission of the church. These characteristics help us understand what a field hospital church is about. As a field hospital, the church’s structures and actions should always be in service of its mission.

A Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter, Sunday of Divine Mercy, by Terrance Klein

On this week’s episode of “Jesuitical,” Ashley and Zac are joined by magazine’s editor in chief, Sam Sawyer, S.J., and America editor at large James Martin, S.J., to discuss “the people’s pope.”