The pope who shook the foundations of the Catholic Church died on April 21, 2025, one day after his surprise appearance on Easter Sunday. Now, after a year, the world remembers the first Latin American pontiff in history as the revolutionary who made migrants visible, welcomed minorities, combated pedophilia and spoke of environmentalism, feminism and transparency in an institution characterized by its opacity and hermeticism.

First modification: 04/21/2026 - 20:09

Since assuming the leadership of the Catholic Church in 2013, Pope Francis has emerged as a reformist leader. His commitment to the visibility of migrants, minorities, ecclesiastical austerity, the rejection of war, the persecution of pedophilia and the environmental fight earned him strong criticism from some conservative Catholic sectors.

Even so, he became the first supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church to dedicate an encyclical to climate change, promoted discussions with bishops and indigenous people about the protection of the Amazon, urged oil companies to transition to green energy and asked for greater action from world leaders at climate summits.

In addition, he spoke out about clerical abuse and pedophilia, expressing his "shame" and worked for the clarification of the complaints, the reparation of victims of sexual abuse within the church and the dismissal of some cardinals.

In one of the first notable decisions as pope, Francis ordered in 2013 the creation of a permanent Pontifical Commission to prosecute child abuse within the Catholic Church, through a document that linked this task to the "evangelical message" and the obligation to repair the damage and prevent new cases.

At the request of that commission, Francis approved two years later the creation of a tribunal to try bishops accused of covering up pedophile priests.

Read alsoSexual abuse by priests: Pope Francis's thorniest challenge

The shakeup during Francis' leadership also touched the Vatican's financial foundations with the installation in 2014 of the Secretariat for the Economy and the Council for the Economy, a new system of control and coordination of the Church's accounts.

The body, made up of cardinals and seven lay experts in business management, was in charge of drawing the broad economic lines of the Holy See, a change that demonstrated Bergoglio's willingness to guarantee more transparency and auditing in a historically very opaque institution.

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On this reformist path, Francis also went down in history as the pope who appointed the most women to important positions within the Vatican. From 846 employees, the heart of Catholicism now had 1,165.

Controversial decisions in a church for "everyone"

The exhortation Amoris laetitia, written by Francis in 2016 as a result of two synods on the family, opened the door so that, in some cases, divorced and civilly remarried could access confession and communion after a process of personal and pastoral discernment.

In 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, in response to a query from Cardinal Dominik Duka, confirmed that Amoris laetitia allows this benefit "when there are limitations that mitigate responsibility and guilt", within an accompaniment that is not reduced to "giving permissions", but rather integrating people into the life of the Church.

As if those were few changes, the declaration Fiducia supplicans, approved by Francis in December 2023, allowed non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples, with the condition that they are not confused with a marriage rite nor do they approve of the union.

These decisions were aimed at demonstrating, as the then highest representative of the Vatican stated at the World Youth Day in Lisbon in 2023, that "in the church there is room for everyone."

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"For the Church, the decisive legacy of Francis is a new, or rather, a rediscovered way of conceiving itself," priest Antonio Spadaro, one of the closest collaborators of Jorge Bergoglio, the birth name of the Argentine pope, told the EFE news agency this Tuesday, April 21.

The also undersecretary of the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education considered that Francis' legacy lies in prioritizing "the method of discernment" over "ideological rigidity."

"Francis did not leave a system of norms or an institutional framework, but a spiritual tension that is still present in the ecclesial government," he told Spadaro, who attributes to the Argentine pontiff "a reading of history that has proven to be prophetic."

"When in 2014, upon returning from Korea, he spoke of a 'third world war in pieces'. He was not carried away by journalistic impressionism: he was naming a reality that would take years for the world to recognize," added Spadaro.

Francis, known for his simplicity, never moved into the pope's luxurious accommodations and lived in a Vatican hotel. His burial, on April 26, 2025, was preceded by a simple wooden coffin covered in zinc.

A bouquet of commemorative events

One year after his death, Pope Francis has been remembered in Rome with various events, such as a morning mass in the chapel of Casa Santa Marta - the residence where he lived throughout his pontificate - and another liturgy at noon in the Chair of Saint Peter's Basilica.

The most notable event in the Italian capital will be the religious celebration in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at 6:00 p.m. (local time), where Francis is buried by his own decision.

At that mass, a message from his successor, Leo XIV, who is in the final stretch of his trip to Africa, from where he remembered the Argentine, will be read.

"He promoted authentic respect for all men and women... the conviction that we are all brothers and sisters," Leo XIV told reporters aboard the papal plane as he headed from Angola to Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday.

In a subsequent publication in X, Robert Prevost highlighted that "the words and gestures" of Francis "remain engraved in our hearts."

Francisco died at the age of 88 on Easter Monday last year after suffering a stroke. He had returned to the Vatican to recover from a five-week hospitalization for bilateral pneumonia. Hours before his death, he offered a last Easter greeting to a crowd in Rome, with a popemobile tour of St. Peter's Square.

More world leaders paid tribute to Francis on Tuesday, "a figure who profoundly influenced our time and whose message remains valid," in the words of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, who shared a photo with the pontiff on social networks.

At the same time, the Argentine president, Javier Milei, visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem this Tuesday, where he prayed for Francis to commemorate the anniversary of his death.

Milei lit a candle "in memory of the first Argentine pope", maintained a minute of silence and left a message of respect for the late pontiff in the basilica's visitor book, according to a statement released by sources from the Argentine embassy.

In Argentina, the epicenter of the commemorative day will be the Basilica of Luján, the country's main Marian sanctuary, where the central mass is celebrated at 5:00 p.m. (local time), presided over by Monsignor Marcelo Colombo, archbishop of Mendoza and president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference.

Religious authorities from the Latin American region joined in the memory of Francis. The Archdiocese of Venezuela highlighted the affection that the late pope had for that country, as demonstrated by the canonization of lay doctor José Gregorio Hernández and mother Carmen Rendiles, in February and March of last year.

At the same time, the Episcopal Conference of Paraguay (CEP) also honored Francisco, the second pope to set foot on Guarani soil and who recognized in 2018 a miracle by the nun María Felicia de Jesús Sacramentado, recognized that year as the first Paraguayan blessed.

With EFE, AP and local media

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