Legacy of Pope Francis - Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns

Landmark Encyclicals

Foremost among Francis’ achievements are his encyclicals, which boldly charted a moral vision for the Church in the 21st century. In Laudato Si’ (2015), he issued an historic appeal to care for “our common home,” confronting human-driven climate change through a spiritual and moral lens. More than a treatise on carbon emissions and climate, Laudato Si’ looks at the fundamental brokenness of our modern society and its rift with nature. The encyclical is a clarion call for all of humanity to right its relationship with God’s creation. See Maryknoll missioners’ thoughts about topics addressed in Laudato Si’.

Another of Pope Francis’ landmark encyclicals was Fratelli Tutti (2020), on fraternity and social friendship in which he offered a remedy to social fragmentation: openness to love and kindness, rejection of war and the death penalty, and a commitment to dialogue and peace. See the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns study guide unpacking Fratelli Tutti’s key lessons.

As mentioned in Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re’s homily at Pope Francis’ funeral, the first insight into Pope Francis’ vision for his pontificate was revealed in the exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (2013), in which he encouraged Catholics to embrace the “joy of the Gospel,” go to the margins, and serve “a poor Church for the poor.” Maryknoll missioners resonated deeply with this call, seeing in it a renewal of the Church’s commitment to social justice and mission.

A Pilgrim Pope

In 12 years, Pope Francis visited over 60 countries on 47 apostolic trips, living out his vision of the Church as a “field hospital,” addressing the wounded in a broken world.

His first trip as pope was to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, where he mourned African migrants lost at sea and decried a “globalization of indifference” to the suffering of migrants everywhere. This set the tone for a papacy on the move, where, from the favelas of Brazil to the refugee camps of Bangladesh, Francis sought out those on the margins.

In 2016, Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the U.S.-Mexico border in a powerful symbol of solidarity with migrants in the months following his address to a joint session of U.S. Congress. Despite security concerns, Pope Francis visited parts of Iraq once held by ISIS in 2021, opening dialogue with the Muslim world. And, in a dramatic gesture in 2019, he knelt to kiss the feet of warring leaders from South Sudan, urging them to uphold a fragile peace deal.

Record Canonizations

Pope Francis canonized more saints than any pope before him—over 900 in total. (This figure includes the 813 martyrs of Otranto, Italy, whom he canonized en masse.) In April 2014, Francis made history by canonizing two of his recent predecessors, Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, in a single ceremony. John XXIII had convened the Second Vatican Council, opening the Church to the modern world, and John Paul II carried the Church into the new millennium.

The saints for whom he oversaw canonization reflected his focus on the poor and marginalized. In 2016, he canonized Mother Teresa of Kolkata, known for works of charity to the poorest of the poor in India. He elevated Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador—murdered in 1980 for defending the oppressed—to sainthood in 2018. And in deference to the new generation of Catholics, Pope Francis approved the canonization of the first millennial saint, Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager who was known for online evangelization.

Prophetic Voice for the Marginalized

Above all, he championed the dignity of those on the margins of society.

Within the Church, after listening to the painful experiences of divorced and LGBT+ Catholics, Pope Francis famously told the press “who am I to judge?” and supported greater participation for these marginalized groups as well for women and laity.

Pope Francis also urged Catholics to “encounter” the migrant and refugee, to hear the “cry of the poor” alongside the “cry of the earth.” His social encyclicals and speeches denounced an “economy of exclusion” that treats those who are poor as disposable, and he insisted that true faith has social implications. As he wrote in Fratelli Tutti, “solidarity” is a Christian virtue and “no one can be saved alone.”

His advocacy was not mere words: Francis invited Syrian families fleeing war and the unhoused into his home. He regularly visited local shelters and prisons, and would wash the feet of inmates for Holy Thursday Mass. At the Vatican, Pope Francis pursued reforms from within the Vatican bank to “promote transparency and avoid corruption.”

Francis declared that the 2025 Jubilee Year should focus on reconciliation, including an end to the death penalty, clemency for the imprisoned, and relief from burdensome debt. Catholic groups responded by launching the “Turn Debt into Hope” campaign, which seeks to end overwhelming debt burdens on countries in the Global South, allowing them to invest in their people’s well-being.

Voice for Peace

Francis also was a steadfast voice for peace, insisting that war is a defeat for humanity. In 2017 he made headlines around the world when he condemned as a sin, as a matter of church teaching, the mere possession of nuclear weapons.

He implored leaders and ordinary people alike to choose dialogue and reconciliation over violence. After the war in Gaza broke out, Pope Francis telephoned the Christian community there every day that he was able. In his last public prayer at Saint Peter’s Easter service, he prayed, “may peace come at last to martyred Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Myanmar, to South Sudan.”

Pope Francis died midway through the 2025 Jubilee year, a year he began with a message to the faithful, calling us to be “pilgrims of hope.” That call was one he embodied through his entire pontificate. Francis’s legacy—a legacy of mercy that welcomes the stranger and forgives debts, of humility that listens and serves, and of prophetic justice that speaks truth to power—is now entrusted to us all.