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.

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.

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.

My wife and I lost a friend on earth, Gerard O’Connell writes, but we now have a friend in heaven.

I know adults tell children not to take candy from strangers. But I decided to amend the rule: Never take candy from strangers unless that “stranger” is the pope!

A person’s heroes often point to their values. In Pope Francis’ case, the people he singled out for their heroic virtues reveal a great deal about his papal priorities.

Although overtly campaigning to be pope is discouraged and would be counterproductive, the cardinals do a lot of politicking in private prior to the conclave.

Pope Francis’ final moments were peaceful, and he managed to give one last farewell to his nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, before slipping into a coma early April 21, Vatican News reported.

All of Pope Francis' gestures, meetings and desires for encounter were themselves a form of “teaching.” And L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics and their families have told me repeatedly what a difference this change in approach has meant. 

In Africa, a person of Pope Francis’ moral caliber and spiritual substance holds the coveted designation of “ancestor,” whose role includes everlasting solicitude for the community he or she leaves behind.