The relationship between a Catholic and the pope can be a curious one. For many of us, the pope can seem a distant figure, a global symbol whose influence we acknowledge but whose humanity we rarely consider. Pope Francis has done a lot to change that image; at least, I know he has done so for me.
Growing up in Guyana in the 1970s and moving to Belize in 1980, my own journey with the papacy was one of gradual awakening: I moved from indifference to engagement, from distance to connection. My first papal memory is of John Paul II. For most of my formative years and well into adulthood, he was simply “the pope.” He was the only one I knew of and, like many children raised in the Catholic tradition, I understood his importance in abstract terms. I knew he was the head of the Catholic Church, a figure of authority whose portrait hung in parish halls and Catholic schools. But he remained an unreachable, almost mythical figure.
When Pope John Paul II visited Belize in 1983, I was 13 years old. Even this historic moment—a papal visit to our small country—did little to bridge the gap. He never ventured beyond the airport, and only government officials and a fortunate few witnessed his presence.
This distance mirrored my adolescent relationship with the church itself. I followed Catholic practices with a sense of obligation rather than passion, much as one might maintain a formal relationship with a distant father. My mother, however, was a devout Catholic, and I knew the faith was important to her, so I followed the now familiar rituals even though I had no obvious feeling of them touching my heart. The church, like John Paul II himself, seemed to speak a language that didn’t quite reach me where I lived.
By the time Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, I barely took notice. By then I was long out of college, immersed in running my new startup business. My life had become very secular. Even though I went to a Jesuit university in the United States, I continued to grow apart from the church while away from home. When I returned to Belize, my connection to the faith was largely ceremonial. I drove my mother to Sunday Mass but remained spiritually disengaged.
When, after nearly three decades with John Paul II as our pope, Benedict XVI was elected to the papacy, the transition felt almost inconsequential to me. If anything, it was upsetting: I viewed Benedict through the lens of the church’s ongoing abuse scandals, associating him with an institution that seemed hypocritical in its handling of its darkest secrets. He was, in my mind, another European leader far removed from the realities of life in Belize, another pope who couldn’t understand my world any more than I could understand his.
Looking back, I realize how unfair my assessment was. Perhaps I felt this way because Benedict’s election also coincided with what was perhaps the lowest point of my spiritual journey. I would not call it a crisis of faith so much as a crisis of relevance. The church, symbolized by a pope I paid little attention to, seemed increasingly disconnected from the challenges and questions that defined my life. Immersed in the tech industry, I remained Catholic in name and habit, but my heart had wandered elsewhere.
Everything changed in 2013 with the election of Pope Francis. For the first time, I found myself genuinely interested in the papacy. Francis came from Latin America, my side of the world. His immediate rejection of papal luxuries caught my attention: the simpler cross, the more modest residence, the less ornate vestments. Here was a pope who seemed to prioritize substance over symbols.
His Jesuit background resonated with me on a personal level. Having been educated by Jesuits, I associated the order with intellectual honesty and accessibility. Francis embodied these admirable traits from the beginning, presenting himself not as a distant monarch but as a fellow traveler on the spiritual path.
As I began to follow Francis more closely, I found a pope whose vision of Catholicism aligned with values I held dear. His outreach to other faiths reflected my own interfaith friendships. His emphasis on mercy over judgment spoke to my growing weariness with religious rigidity. I began to see the papacy as not just an office but a person. Here was a person whose words and actions I could relate to, someone whose exhortations I wanted to follow.
The publication of “Laudato Si’” in 2015 crystallized this for me. It definitively denotes a turning point in my spiritual journey. I was drawn to the encyclical because it addressed the ecological crisis with moral clarity and scientific literacy. I felt it was a papal document that spoke directly to one of the defining challenges of our time. For the first time in my life, I read a papal encyclical in its entirety. In fact, I read it multiple times, finding in it a vision of human responsibility that transcended denominational boundaries and was unconstrained by political consideration. Through Pope Francis and “Laudato Si’,” I began to reconcile with a church I had held at arm’s length for so long. 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.
Now some 10 years after the appearance of “Laudato Si’,” I have fully embraced my Catholicism. My relationship with the church is no longer blind obedience or dismissive distance but rather, thoughtful engagement. I can now proudly say that I have read many encyclicals as well as a number of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Through this closer reading, I have learned to appreciate the papacy, to see it not as pomp and circumstance but for its potential to inspire and challenge. And in that learning, I have discovered a more authentic and meaningful way to be Catholic, one that honors a rich tradition while also embracing the prophetic call to justice—a church whose mission, as “Lumen Gentium” proclaims, is to bring the light of Christ to all people.
