Pope Francis died at 7:35 a.m. Rome time on April 21, 2025. I’ll never forget reading the news as I was roused from sleep that Monday morning. For the past 13 years, he had not only led the Catholic Church but redefined the papacy with his pastoral style: accessible, compassionate and humble. He embodied a model of leadership that felt more like friendship—marked by presence, listening and a quiet courage to accompany those who suffer. His papacy, in that way, wasn’t just a set of priorities; it was a posture.
On Tuesday, April 22, the day after his death, I sat down with my colleagues Colleen Dulle and Gerard “Gerry” O’Connell for a special roundtable episode of “Inside the Vatican,” the weekly podcast we produce together. Over the years, we’ve sifted through encyclicals, watched the synod unfold and parsed papal appointments at the Vatican and around the world. Last year, the three of us were in Rome for the Synod on Synodality. But this time was different. We weren’t analyzing. We were grieving—and the mics were on.
Gerry, our veteran Vatican correspondent, has known Pope Francis personally since his days as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He and his wife, Elisabetta Piqué—Vatican correspondent for La Nación and author of Pope Francis: Life and Revolution—were close friends of the future pope, who would go on to baptize their children, Juan Pablo and Carolina. They were in St. Peter’s Square the night he was elected, watching as he stepped onto the balcony for the first time. They visited their friend the pope at Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where he lived and died. Gerry would later chronicle the story of his election in The Election of Pope Francis.
Colleen, who has covered the Vatican for more than a decade—reporting especially on how Francis has opened doors for women and laypeople—and who has a forthcoming book about the papacy and her own complicated love for the church, joined us for this conversation just after Gerry returned from viewing the pope’s body—laid out in the chapel where his family had, on many occasions, celebrated Mass together.
I never met Francis in person, though I came close at World Youth Day in Lisbon last year. What stays with me isn’t a conversation or a handshake, but a moment: Francis, beaming, shouting “Todos, todos, todos!” to the millions gathered. All are welcome. His joy was unmistakable. It felt like he was offering a glimpse into his soul—one that had seen much suffering but insisted on hope anyway.
“We’ve lost a friend on Earth and we’ve gained one in heaven,” Gerry said.
What follows is not an obituary—Gerry and Colleen have already written theirs. This is a more intimate reflection: a remembrance of the gestures, words and moments that surfaced for us. They’re not the only ones that matter, but they are the ones that stay with us in the immediate aftermath of his death. (You can listen to our full conversation here.)
The world’s parish priest
From the outset, Pope Francis inverted expectations of the papacy. “On that very first night, he bowed before the people to ask them to bless him before he blessed them,” Gerry recalled. “And no pope in history has done that.”
It set the tone for a pontificate grounded in accompaniment. “He said the leader should be sometimes in front, sometimes behind, sometimes in the middle of his people,” Gerry explained, “but always with the people, not without the people.”
Francis made 47 apostolic journeys to 67 countries. “He wasn’t just going to visit the heads of state—he had to do that,” Gerry said. “He was especially among the people.”
On Easter Sunday, the day before his death, Francis appeared at the loggia of St. Peter’s to offer his final Urbi et Orbi blessing. Too weak to read the message himself, it was delivered by the master of ceremonies.
Later that day, he made one final circuit through St. Peter’s Square in his popemobile. “That’s my last image of him alive,” Gerry remembered. “He drove among the people.”
A ministry of gestures
Francis was a pope of action, whose spontaneous gestures often spoke more powerfully than his speeches. “People came to Rome to see John Paul II, to listen to Benedict XVI, but they came to Rome to touch Francis,” Colleen said, recalling an insight shared by Hendro Munstermann, a colleague and Vatican reporter from the Netherlands.
“He was a big believer in the idea that actions speak louder than words,” she continued. “Let me be among the people. Let me be close to people.”
Those weren’t just words—Francis lived them. Hugging a man with a skin disease, washing the feet of Muslim and female prisoners, kissing the feet of South Sudanese leaders as he begged them to make peace: These spontaneous gestures became some of the most powerful expressions of his faith in action. “He was open to the work of the Holy Spirit and to its promptings,” Colleen added.
As a Jesuit, I connected with that instinct deeply. Francis embodied the Ignatian conviction found in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola: “Love is shown more in deeds than in words.” It wasn’t only something he believed. It was what he expected of himself and how he led the church.
Joy as witness
Francis radiated joy. It was central to his message and to his person. His first apostolic exhortation was titled “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”).
“He told priests, don’t look like you’re going to a funeral,” I remembered, recalling phrases the pope had spoken, like “There are Christians who lead their lives seemingly like they’re living in Lent and not in Easter.”
Even in his final hours, Francis made room for surprise and reconciliation. “He met J.D. Vance,” Gerry said. “Everybody knew he had been critical of Francis. Yet there was something very moving about that picture.”
“There’s something joyful about that,” he added. “It’s a statement that differences, you can get over them.”
The church at the margins
Francis never forgot where he came from—or who was left out. “He always talked about his grandparents who could have themselves been lost at sea,” Colleen recalled. “They were scheduled to go on a ship that ended up sinking.”
And his sense of solidarity went beyond his own biography—his immigrant roots and upbringing in Argentina. “After he left the prison on Holy Thursday,” she said, “he said to reporters: ‘Every time I go through these doors at this prison, I ask myself, why is it them and not me?’”
“He was known as the bishop of the slums in Argentina,” I said. And Colleen immediately added: “And Cardinal Hummes, when Francis was elected, leaned over and whispered: ‘Don’t forget the poor.’”
That line became a trajectory for his papacy. He visited the U.S.-Mexico border, brought refugee families back from Lesbos and, in one of his final acts, wrote a letter to the U.S. bishops condemning mass deportations and urging them to defend the dignity of migrants.
“He started from the very fundamental point of Christian belief,” Gerry said, “that we’re all children of God, whatever nationality, whatever color, whatever religion.” It was a conviction that grounded both his personal interactions and his diplomatic efforts—one that repeatedly called on global leaders to treat migrants, minorities and political opponents not as problems, but as brothers and sisters.
A common home
Francis also brought environmental justice to the heart of Catholic teaching. With “Laudato Si’,” his landmark 2015 encyclical, he reframed climate change as not just an ecological or scientific issue but as a profoundly moral one. He linked the cry of the earth with the cry of the poor, insisting that care for our common home was inseparable from care for the most vulnerable. His call resonated especially with young people, activists and faith leaders around the globe.
“Francis did shift public opinion with ‘Laudato Si’,’” Colleen said. “He reframed climate change not just as a scientific issue but as one of justice—a sin that wealthier nations participate in, which then negatively impacts people in poorer nations.”
“This was the way he connected with young people,” Gerry added. “He said: I’m an old man, but we’re talking about your future and your grandchildren.”
Reflecting on the pope’s visit to Papua New Guinea, Gerry noted how deeply Francis understood the stakes of climate change. Some of the islanders who met him there faced the threat of their homes disappearing. “He showed great patience with the climate deniers,” Gerry said, “but he wouldn’t pull back one millimeter from saying, ‘Sorry, but you are misreading science and history and the future.’”
A voice for peace
As war erupted in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza, Francis was a tireless advocate for peace and never stopped calling for an end to wanton violence around the world. Weeks before his death, from his hospital bed, he offered a final plea: “I offer my sufferings for peace in the world and for fraternity between peoples.” He reiterated this message in every written communication during those final days—and even when his voice wouldn’t let him speak the message out loud.
One message from that time has stayed with me—even haunted me since hearing it. “Perhaps one of the things that stays with me is a message that he gave from his hospital bed, where he said: the absurdity of war,” I said. “From the vantage point of his hospital bed, he sees even more the absurdity of war.”
And it wasn’t just words. Throughout his 38-day hospital stay, he remained connected to the people at the heart of today’s conflicts, calling the parish priest in Gaza again and again, staying close through prayer and accompaniment.
“His final message from the balcony on Sunday,” Gerry said, “was: stop the killing, release the hostages, provide aid to starving people. Peace in Ukraine, peace in D.R.C., in Sudan, in Myanmar.” From start to finish, Francis was a pope of peace—and, in the end, even his frailty became a witness to that mission. His willingness to carry that frailty publicly spoke louder than words: a final testimony to peace and mercy.
Francis’ ‘hidden agenda’
Though Pope Francis was one of the most visible popes in modern history, much of his ministry unfolded away from cameras and headlines.
“He had an official agenda,” Gerry explained, “but what people didn’t see is what he did in the afternoon—his private agenda. A whole new world of compassion, of love, of courage, of extraordinary reaching out that is still hidden from the world.”
That hidden world was not new. “Just as in Argentina, when he was Jesuit provincial,” Gerry recalled, “what came out much later was how many times he risked his own life to save others under the military dictatorship.”
And in one final gesture of humility: “When he was elected pope,” Gerry recalled, “he went and paid his bill the next day to the hotel. And now the day he dies, we learn that the bill for his funeral is not going to the Vatican. It’s being paid by a benefactor. This is classic Francis—from start to finish.”
A simple grave, his lasting legacy
Francis will not be buried beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, but at Santa Maria Maggiore, where he often prayed—even during his final illness. “You won’t have to stand in line at the Vatican to see him,” Colleen said. “You might have to stand in line at Santa Maria Maggiore now.”
In his typically austere style, Francis requested a simple grave marked only with the name Franciscus. “It wasn’t about him,” Colleen said. “It was about fraternity, about God’s love and mercy.” He had also simplified the papal funeral rites—another gesture that pointed beyond himself. “I think it communicates that the way to keep his memory alive is to work for those things,” she added, noting that his final resting place will not be within the Vatican, but in Rome—among the people.
“It’s fitting he’ll lie before the icon of Salus Populi Romani,” I thought, “so close to the prayers of the people and the way the people pray.”
‘Todos, todos, todos’
As our conversation ended, I realized how much remained unsaid and unreflected—his curial reforms, the appointment of women to the most senior roles at the Vatican, the shift from doctrinal enforcement to pastoral practice, his bold yet contested vision of a synodal, listening Church, and his landmark outreach to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics and victims of clergy sexual abuse.
“He started processes,” Gerry said. “It is up to the successor to continue the processes.”
But this remembrance was never meant to be exhaustive. These were simply the memories that surfaced first, not because they are the only ones that matter, but because they are the ones that remain closest to our hearts.
And though I never met him, like so many others, I felt as if I knew him—his nearness, his joy, his courage, and his quiet encouragement.
Francis didn’t offer easy answers or sweeping conclusions, which left some unsatisfied. Instead, he invited the church into a more poised reflection and discernment—shaped by mercy, dialogue and the steady courage to keep going, even when the way was unclear.
In the end, he left us with the same invitation he gave the world in Lisbon:
Todos, todos, todos.
With those words, he threw open the doors of the church—and stepped out to meet the world.
