Shortly after being elected pope in 2013, Francis engaged our hearts and imaginations with the image of the church as a field hospital. In a 2013 interview with America, Francis described his vision for the church: “The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle.” He developed this rich ecclesiology throughout his papacy—in his teaching, his pastoral witness and his commitment to synodality.
In his early apostolic exhortation on the proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world, “Evangelii Gaudium,” Francis centered the poor and elevated joy in the mission of the church, which he described as a mother with an open heart. 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.
In “Evangelii Gaudium,” Francis began with the Gospel and the church’s unchanging task of sharing the good news with all of humanity. Francis invited us to consider joy as an essential characteristic of Christian discipleship. To be clear, this joy is not naïve about human suffering or contingent on fleeting experiences but rooted in a transformative encounter with Christ. Importantly, Francis stressed that all the baptized are called to participate in the church’s evangelical mission. Also significant is the way Francis distinguished this call to prophetic witness from proselytizing. The central focus of this ecclesiology is not growing the church but facilitating a liberating encounter with God.
Reflecting his formation within the church of Latin America, Francis embraced the preferential option for the poor as an essential quality of the church’s self-understanding and mission. He summarized this in his desire for a “church which is poor and for the poor.” Echoing liberation theology, he asserted an epistemological privilege of the poor in their experience of God’s presence in their suffering and thirst for justice. Francis recognized that the poor “have so much to teach” the non-poor, and he wanted the poor to evangelize the church.
A field hospital church is not only one where the poor are at the center but one that denounces poverty as a structural sin. Francis rejected complacency toward “an economy that kills” and warned that a church that fails to labor for social conditions that allow the poor to live with dignity risks losing credibility. The theologian Stan Chu Ilo has described Francis’ way of being church as an “illuminative ecclesiology.” Rooted in the theology of the Second Vatican Council, illuminative ecclesiology emphasizes the church’s prophetic witness to God’s healing mercy—not for its own sake but for the sake of the world.
The image of a field hospital presents the church as dynamic, outward-extending and responsive to the needs of the world. This movement toward the margins was central to Francis’ ecclesiology. He described a church that not only welcomes humanity but meets them where they are, responding in mercy to their deepest wounds. “It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds,” Pope Francis said in the 2013 interview. “Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... And you have to start from the ground up.” Following Christ’s example, Francis wanted the church to move toward the margins. “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security” (“E.G.,” No. 49).
When the church turns its focus inward, becoming self-referential, it risks “spiritual sickness” and “theological narcissism,” Francis warned his fellow cardinals in the conclave that elected him. This was not the first time Francis would admonish church leaders to step outside their comfort zones. Pastors, he said, should “smell like the sheep,” meaning that priests and bishops should be close to the people they lead. A field hospital church is the opposite of closed-off and self-referential. It is porous, mobile, ready to meet people where they are, starting with those who are suffering the most.
Francis modelled a field hospital church, perhaps even more in his deeds than in his words. Francis will be remembered for his rejection of much of the pomp and luxury of the papal office, living in a simple apartment and celebrating his birthday with unhoused neighbors. He exemplified pastoral humility and solidarity with those on the margins every year on Holy Thursday when he washed the feet of incarcerated people. He elevated the poor as protagonists each year with the World Meeting of Popular Movements, inviting the world to see leaders of popular movements as “social poets” and “collective Samaritans.”
Francis will also be remembered for his deep commitment to synodality as an essential characteristic of the church. Although the church has practiced some form of synodality since the Council of Jerusalem, few Catholics were invited to participate in it. Even with Pope Paul VI’s launching of the permanent Synod of Bishops after Vatican II, the experience of synodality did not permeate the church to the same degree as it did during the papacy of Pope Francis.
Speaking to the 2015 Synod on the Family, Pope Francis differentiated this ecclesial event from a parliament and described the synod as a “protected space in which the Church experiences the action of the Holy Spirit.” In preparation for the synod, Catholics around the world participated in a survey on the family. His post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” illustrated the genuine process of listening to the faithful about their experiences, concerns and hopes related to family life. By incorporating the voices of the faithful into the synodal process, Francis demonstrated his ecclesiology and set a tone for subsequent synods.
In the 2018 Synod on Young People, the faith and vocational discernment, Francis centered the experience of youth, whose voices are often marginalized in the church. In doing so, he revealed two ecclesiological priorities: to encounter and attend to those on the margins, and to resist ecclesial stagnation. Ongoing discernment is needed to prevent the church from becoming a “museum” that ceases to speak to the dreams of young people, he wrote in “Christus Vivit.” Furthering his commitment to centering those on the margins, Francis convened the Synod on the Pan-Amazonian Region in 2019. The post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Querida Amazonia” made space for the cry of the poor and cry of the earth.
For all the profound impact that Francis had on the church, he did not advocate for significant doctrinal changes—sometimes to the disappointment of Catholics who object to the church’s teachings on gender and sexuality. However, by prioritizing mercy and modeling pastoral humility as marks of a field hospital church, he built bridges within and beyond the Catholic community. Notably, Francis also did not try to silence voices or shy away from controversial topics. Central to his vision of synodality, Francis has continually called for inclusive participation in discerning the movements of the Holy Spirit.
Synodality has been so central to Francis’ ecclesiology that he called a Synod on Synodality in 2021, focusing on communion, participation and mission. From the onset of this ecclesial journey, the pope made clear his desire to include all the faithful, particularly those who risk being excluded, in the process of listening and discernment. His approach to the global synod exemplified the way of being church that manifests the ecclesial vision of a field hospital.
In his opening address to the Synod on Synodality, Francis named his desires for the synod and identified the risks that could hinder the realization of his hopes for the church. The real possibility that the synod offered was that Catholics might embrace synodality as an essential characteristic of the church rather than an episodic event—and through the process become a “church of closeness,” a “listening church.” For this to happen, the church must avoid a formalism that could prevent members from entering deeply into the experience of discernment. Related risks that Francis named were intellectualism and complacency, each of which would hinder the synod from responding to the movements of the Holy Spirit.
Despite these risks, Francis modelled an unwavering belief in the church as the people of God, and accordingly shaped a process that would give lay people a seat at the table. The preparatory document for the first stage of synodal listening reflected Francis’ special concern for those voices that risk exclusion. It named women, young people, the poor and L.G.B.T. Catholics among those on the ecclesial or social margins whose voices are essential for inclusive discernment. In short, Francis saw synodality as the way the church journeys together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The underlying ecclesiology is rooted in the Catholic tradition and reflective of the theology of Vatican II. This ecclesiology regards the baptized as full participants in the church’s mission and as bearers of the sensus fidelium—sense of the faithful.
While this theology is not new, Francis’ approach to synodality brought a fresh and potentially transformative reality to the church. The synodal documents affirmed the dignity of lay people by using the language of protagonism. They called the entire church, especially those who have been disempowered, to co-responsibility for mission. Finally, Francis initiated an important change to the long-held practice of synodality when he removed the distinction between voting members and observers among the general assembly of the Synod on Synodality, meaning lay persons could vote for the first time.
That gathering is among the most significant aspects of Pope Francis’ legacy. Yet we must remember that Francis actively resisted making the synod about himself. The synod was inspired by Francis’ deep love for the church—a poor church of the poor, a field hospital after battle. So Francis’ ecclesiological legacy will continue through the church when it embraces those on the margins, listens deeply and allows itself to become a church of closeness.
