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POPE FRANCIS’S LEGACY OF LOVE AND PEACE  
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Kathy Kelly
April 24, 2025
Eurasia Review
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_ As the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics,
Pope Francis unified people of different generations. He encouraged
genuine love for humans—”Todo, todo, todo.” He spoke out against
war, militarism, and the ravages of climate change. _

Pope Francis in Hungary., Photo Credit: Vatican News // Eurasia
Review

 

In 2022, Pope Francis created
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will expressing his desire that just one word be inscribed on the
stone marking his burial place:_ Franciscus_.

Franciscus, Latin for Francis, is the name Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose
when, twelve years ago
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cardinals elected
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to become the Bishop of Rome. He sought union with Saint Francis,
known as one who lived on the margins, who discarded his worldly
clothes, and who kissed the lepers. Pope Francis longed for
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church that is poor and is for the poor.” He recognized, as Bishop
Robert McElroy once expressed it
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“too much money is in the hands of too few, while the vast majority
struggle to get by.”

As the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics
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Pope Francis unified people of different generations. He encouraged
genuine love for humans—”Todo, todo, todo.” Or, as the Reverend
Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal physician, the late beloved
Chicagoan Dr. Quentin Young would often say
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“Everybody in, nobody out.”

Pope Francis exhorted people to set aside the futility of war and to
always care for those who bear the worst brunt of war, particularly
the children. His were the words of a man whose heart aches for
children who are being punished to death, sacrificed by powerful
people whose lust for greed and power overcomes their capacity for
compassion.

“Yesterday, children were bombed,” Pope Francis said
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Christmas message last December. “Children. This is cruelty, this is
not war.” He added, touching the cross he wore around his neck, “I
want to say this, because it touches my heart.”

Pope Francis was speaking about the children of Gaza
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who have been orphaned, maimed, sickened, starved, forcibly displaced,
traumatized, and buried under fire and rubble. In excerpts
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the book _Hope Never Disappoints. Pilgrims Towards a Better
World_, published in November 2024, he was blunt about Israel’s
accountability, writing
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happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide. It should be
investigated to determine whether it meets the definition formulated
by jurists and international bodies.”

On Easter, the day before his death, Pope Francis expressed
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a written message: “I appeal to the warring parties: Call a
ceasefire, release the hostages, and come to the aid of a starving
people that aspire to a future of peace!”

During the current war, beginning in 2023, Pope Francis developed a
strong relationship with parishioners of the Church of the Holy Family
in Gaza. By holding virtual gatherings
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of people sheltering in the church,  he was able to stay in daily
touch with the realities they faced under Israel’s siege and
bombardment. On days when he learned that the bombing was particularly
heavy, Pope Francis would call to check in on them as many as five
times a day. 

Pope Francis carried his antiwar message to the seats of power in
places around the world. In September 2015, exasperated by the
superpowers’ desire to control others through militarism, he posed
a simple question
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the U.S. Congress: “Why,” he asked, “would anyone give weapons
to people who use them for war? . . . The answer is money, and the
money is drenched in blood.”

Pope Francis emphasized the stewardship so vitally needed for future
generations to have a habitable planet, sounding an alarm about the
need to address climate change. “The world in which we live is
collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” he stated
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a magisterial document released in October 2023. “Despite all
attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over, or relativise the issue, the
signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident.”

The Pontiff likewise denounced
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use of atomic energy for the purposes of war, and declared possession
of nuclear weapons to be immoral, asking: “How can we speak of peace
even as we build terrifying new weapons of war?”

In accordance with his wishes, Pope Francis will be buried
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a basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary, a place he went to pray
before and after each of his forty-seven “apostolic missions.” The
Basilica of Saint Mary Major is located
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one of Rome’s poorer neighborhoods, a church in a neighborhood with
refugees. Francis has entrusted himself to the protection of Mary, the
mother of Jesus.

I’d like to think that those words, “Todo, todo, todo,” will
break down the barriers creating illusory divisions between us,
leading us toward true egalitarianism, embracing Earth and one
another, grateful always for the chance to “choose life, so that you
and your descendants can live
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Beloved Franciscus, “Oremus.” Let us pray.

_[KATHY KELLY ([email protected]) co-coordinates Voices for Creative
Nonviolence. Kelly is an American peace activist, pacifist and author,
as well as one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness.
She has been arrested more than sixty times at home and abroad, and
written of her experiences, including among targets of U.S. military]_

* Pope Francis
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* war
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* peace
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* war and peace
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* Militarism
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* Gaza
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* Palestinians
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* Immigration
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* poverty
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* Climate Change
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* hunger
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