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.

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.”

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.

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. 

Pope Francis was a great lover of literature: He peppered his homilies, talks and even encyclicals with literary references from Dostoyevsky, Proust, Hopkins, Dante and more, and he also encouraged his flock to read broadly and often.

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.