By Robert Shine
¡Hagan lío! Make a mess! Pope Francis exhorted young people with these words just weeks after his election in 2013, words that became the refrain to a hymn the pope composed for youth: love fiercely, dream anew, take risks, dare to hope, keep going.
The world looks forward now, turning to conclave whisperers and Vaticanistas to read the tea leaves on the Roman Catholic Church’s next leader. I am not yet ready to close the Francis era, perhaps because it means a personal era closes, too. His papacy, which invited the church to mature so greatly, coincided with my growth into a mature faith. It was alongside Francis that I began professional ministry, studied theology, came out as a bisexual Catholic, advocated for church reform, covered the Synod on Synodality—and dared to really feel God’s love.
Last October, for the second time, I joined New Ways Ministry’s audience with Francis at his private residence. We brought transgender and intersex Catholics, a deacon and his wife who have a trans daughter, and a doctor who provides gender-affirming care to tell the pope their stories. For nearly 90 minutes, Francis listened attentively, periodically asking questions, grasping his pectoral cross at painful moments. Rarely have I been present for a moment so sacred.
That is, perhaps, the pope’s legacy which will last with me: Francis loved us, all of us, so very deeply. Pope Francis really meant what he said: “Todos, todos, todos! Everyone, everyone, everyone!” His exhortations to young people were serious: dreaming was not a luxury, hope was not foolish, risks were not futile. The world is in crisis, about which Pope Francis was clear-eyed, but he believed love and Gospel living could see us through it—and young people must lead.
As we mourn Pope Francis’ death, celebrate his life, and anticipate (or perhaps worry about) what comes next in the church, I asked members of Pax Christi USA’s Young Adult Caucus to offer brief vignettes on what the pope’s legacy is for them. Below are those responses, testimonies that young people have taken up the pope’s call: ¡Hacemos un lío! We are making a mess!
Gabriella Dudajek (she/her), Pax Christi New Jersey and Peace Pairs
Pope Francis gave me hope for the Catholic Church, in which I grew up, learning the “rules and regulations” of how to behave. Pope Francis showed our faith goes beyond those rules. He saw the face of God in the poor and marginalized, and he advocated for peace and justice with teachings that embraced nonviolence and human dignity. In his book, Life: My Story Through History, he details major historical events he lived through, including World War II, the fall of the Berlin Wall, coup d’etats in Argentina, and the Covid-19 pandemic. When recounting these events, his primary concern is the people and how they were impacted—when others’ hearts broke, his heart broke, too. Even as his health failed, the pope called Gaza’s Catholic church each day. He kissed the feet of South Sudanese leaders to beg for peace. He gave me hope that Catholics could live what Jesus taught: embracing all people. Now, I look to Pope Francis as I discern the next steps of my life.
Joryán Hernández (él/he/him/his), doctoral student, University of Notre Dame
In a world that glorifies violence, Pope Francis dared to proclaim: “never again war.” He bore witness to a truth early Christians knew well—Jesus’s command to love one’s enemies is a revolutionary, destabilizing act. Rooted in the Christ whose love for enemies transcended the boundaries of mere human decency, Francis invited the Roman Catholic Church to embrace its nonviolent roots. He embodied a relational approach—carried out with others and within ourselves—in transforming conflict. He practiced the creative, moral act of imagining a better world.
While others in the Catholic Church clung to remnants of just war theory, Francis insisted that modern warfare, with its brutality against the poor and the land, could no longer be called just. He saw the bodies crushed in Gaza and the refugees wandering the earth, teaching that true peace is carried not by weapons, but by the scarred hands that build bridges across hatred.
In Francis, I found the echoes of a Church refusing allegiance to empire; in his courage, the call to imagine a world reconciled not by force but compassion. Francis reminded us that healing must happen with God, each other, and the earth. In the wreckage of our violent age, he planted the seed of hope: peace by peace, not by war.
Photo by Casey Patrick/University of Notre Dame
Tiffany Hunsinger, doctoral candidate, University of Dayton
Pope Francis was my first pope, as I fully entered the Church during college, a few years into his papacy. Initially, I was confused. From a secular perspective, he was a “good” guy—compassionate, approachable, and humble. In my Catholic community at that time, however, he was dismissed as too radical. Some prayed for his early death.
It was not until I left behind that brand of conservative Catholicism that I truly understood and admired Pope Francis. His moral clarity and unwavering commitment to the Gospel consistently gave me hope. His papacy has been one of deep pastoral presence, marked not by power but by proximity. Whether he was washing refugees’ feet, visiting war zones, or pleading for violence to end in Ukraine, Gaza, and South Sudan, he remained steadfast that the Church must always be on the side of peace.
Pope Francis taught us that peacemaking is not passive; it is courageous and prophetic. He decried war even when unpopular to do so, and he refused to baptize violence with the language of justice. His leadership showed me that pastoral care and nonviolence go hand in hand. In a divided, polarized time, Pope Francis reminded us that true authority in the Church comes not from dominance but from mercy and accompaniment.
Jeanelle Wheeler (she/her), Agape Community, Rhode Island
Pope Francis is on my water bottle. Tucked between lavender birds and peace signs is his name by this quote: “The climate is a common good, belonging to and meant for all.” The only comment my sticker-filled bottle has ever received? “I love Pope Francis. I’m not Catholic, but I love him.”
I loved him, too. Growing up in the Catholic peace movement in Massachusetts, I’ve learned alongside those who take seriously Jesus’ call to love one another. But my experience is uncommon. For so many, the Catholic Church is seen as inhibiting social change, not enacting it.
Pope Francis defied this by living out a Catholicism that my all-too-rare community embraced: a deeply radical care for all creation. He insisted at the United Nations that “wars are not just” and made nightly phone calls to a Gazan church. He declared, “to be true followers of Jesus today also includes embracing His teaching about nonviolence.” A nonviolence that is not passive or weak, but instead requires a strong, active commitment to dismantle systems of oppression and create cultures of peace, justice, and mercy.
Remembering Pope Francis’ legacy goes beyond recognizing his name on a water bottle sticker. Now more than ever, we must recognize a widespread thirst for justice and call upon our leaders to courageously follow the way of nonviolence. In the radical words of Pope Francis: “Start a revolution! Shake things up!” After all, that’s what Jesus did.
Michael Angel Martin, State Coordinator, Pax Christi Florida
When I first saw images of Pope Francis introducing himself in St. Peter’s Square, he reminded me of gentle elders I knew with a knack for putting children at ease. At the time, I was hostile to the Church. But over the next few years, I observed this new pope who declared, “The name of God is mercy.”
Though a son of immigrants from Nicaragua and Cuba, I was unaware of the Catholicism sometimes alive in those countries, with their base communities and liberation theologies. Yet, here was a pope envisioning a poor church for the poor. Most importantly, he was a pope of gestures, showing that “ideas are greater than realities.”
During those same years, God broke through to me. I often look at pictures of Francis encountering people as a kind of lectio: embracing the disfigured man, caressing an elderly woman’s face, smiling big at babies. These images call me to the “revolution of tenderness” every time. I could say more about how Pope Francis awakened my dedication to peace and justice. Instead, I ask for his intercession: that I may have his Christlike courage—the courage of gestures—to speak when words fall short.
Michelle Sherman (she/her), Project Director, Nonviolence and Campus Outreach, Pax Christi USA and co-founder of Pax Christi USA Young Adult Caucus
In word and action, Pope Francis modeled nonviolence as what “love in action” looks like. He embraced nonviolence as a way of life, a spirituality, an effective strategy for change, and a universal ethic. He desired to befriend and learn from those most directly affected by systems of oppression and violence, including LGBTQ+ communities, Indigenous peoples, youth, migrants, disabled people, those who are incarcerated, and so many others.
Pope Francis challenged the assumption that violence solves any problem, decrying the “third world war, fought piecemeal.” Violence fails, he told us, and violence only begets more harm. He was unceasing in promoting human dignity and care for creation, addressing multiple issues: the death penalty, war, economic injustice, racism, ecological and climate justice, violence within the church, including clericalism and sexual abuse, the false security of stockpiling arms, extractive industries and capitalism—and how all these issues are connected.
His solutions, even if not explicitly named as “nonviolence,” embodied it. Two examples, both underreported in Western media, were Francis’ 2019 meeting with the Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb to sign the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” and his visit to the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia, for an interreligious meeting. Everywhere, he implored Catholics and all people of good will towards mutual respect, dialogue, harmonious coexistence, and common work for a just and lasting peace.
¡Gracias, Papa Francisco!
Robert Shine (he/him) is a co-founder of the Pax Christi USA Young Adult Caucus and executive director of the Pax Christi International Fund for Peace.