1
He was named Jorge Mario Bergoglio but upon his elevation to the Papacy in 2013, the then new Pope chose the name Francis which he embraced from the iconic Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis is one of the most venerated religious icons in Roman Catholic history. He founded the Franciscan orders, including the the Poor Clares and the Lay third Order. He and Saint Catherine of Siena are the Patron Saints of Italy. Francis of Assisi is also the Patron Saint of Ecology and of animals. So we can see the connection between the choice of the name Pope Francis and the charisma that Saint Francis showed in his care for the poor and our earthly environment. Throughout his Papacy from March 13th 2013 to Easter Monday April 21st 2025, Pope Francis spoke out loudly on the thematic areas of greener environment and the protection of the fundamental values and human rights of migrants and the very poorest of the poor. Pope Francis visited migrants and refugees severally and did so much to improve their standards of life by speaking out consistently to call on political and world leaders to accommodate refugees. So, Francis can rightly be called the Pope for the poor, the marginalised and refugees.
Pope Francis who died at 7.35 am on Easter Monday of 2025, would be remembered for long as the very Pope who loved and promoted the social causes of the poor and marginalised around the World. He didn’t just spoke for the poor but he practically fought to defend their interest. To him, it is unjust for very wealthy countries to shut their doors against members of the human race who are forced to migrate away from their countries due to wars, famines and all kinds of man-made afflictions. Pope Francis spoke truth to power and demanded the strictest respect and uplifting of the marginalised in the society: the homeless, the extremely poor people who have no one else to speak for them. The Pope also made a great name for himself for been an outstanding promoter of green environment. On the issue of the Rights of migrants, the late Holy Father was remarkable for his advocacy for the educational right of the refugees.
He believed that migrants, refugees, are all victims of war and that they have a right to education. Pope Francis last year January asked Catholics around the world to pray with him in January that migrants, refugees and victims of war will have a chance for an education. One fascinating fact about Pope Francis was his frequent request for Catholics to pray for him. He believed in the powers of prayers and he prayed, lived and worked for the poor.
“Let us pray for migrants, refugees and those affected by war, that their right to an education, which is necessary to build a better world, might always be respected,” was the prayer intention he chose for the start of the New Year.
Due to war, migration or poverty, he said, “some 250 million boys and girls lack education,” and yet “all children and youth have the right to go to school, regardless of their immigration status.” Respecting that right is good for migrants and good for society, the pope said.
“Education is a hope for everyone,” he said. “It can save migrants and refugees from discrimination, criminal networks and exploitation — so many minors are exploited!”
Education also promotes integration and prepares them to contribute to society, “either in their new country or in their country of origin, should they decide to return,” the pope said.
Pope Francis reminded viewers that “whoever welcomes the foreigner, welcomes Jesus Christ.” Migrant and refugee children who do not get an education face poverty and inequality, social marginalization and exploitation, the network said. Lack of an education also can have a psychological impact because it can lead to feeling inferior or hopeless.
Pope Francis spoke fervently in the defense of migrants and had a brush with the President of the most powerful country in the World which is the United States of America. The media reported that Pope Francis issued a major rebuke recently to the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations of migrants, warning that the forceful removal of people purely because of their illegal status deprives them of their inherent dignity and “will end badly.”
Francis took the remarkable step of addressing the U.S. migrant crackdown in a letter to U.S. bishops in which he appeared to take direct aim at Vice President JD Vance’s defense of the deportation program on theological grounds.
U.S. border czar Tom Homan immediately pushed back, noting that the Vatican is a city-state surrounded by walls and that Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.
History’s first Latin American pope has long made caring for migrants a priority of his pontificate, citing the biblical command to “welcome the stranger” in demanding that countries welcome, protect, promote and integrate those fleeing conflicts, poverty and climate disasters. Francis has also said governments are expected to do so to the limits of their capacity.
The Argentine Jesuit and President Donald Trump have long sparred over migration, including before Trump’s first administration when Francis in 2016 famously said anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants was “not a Christian.”
In the letter, Francis said nations have the right to defend themselves and keep their communities safe from criminals.
“That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” he wrote.
Citing the Book of Exodus and Jesus Christ’s own experience, Francis affirmed the right of people to seek shelter and safety in other lands and described the deportation plan as a “major crisis” unfolding in the U.S.
Anyone schooled in Christianity “cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality,” he said.
“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” he warned.
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, responded with a letter of thanks to the pope.
“With you, we pray that the U.S. government keep its prior commitments to help those in desperate need,” Broglio wrote. “Boldly I ask for your continued prayers so that we may find the courage as a nation to build a more humane system of immigration, one that protects our communities while safeguarding the dignity of all.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt took a different position from the Pope’s positive outlook about welcoming migrants and said that more than 8,000 people had been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trump took office Jan. 20. Some have been deported, others are being held in federal prisons and still others are being held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
Advertisement
Vice President who was the last most important visitor to Pope Francis just 24 hours before the Pope died, Mr. Vance, a Catholic convert, had also defended the administration’s America-first crackdown by citing a concept from medieval Catholic theology known in Latin as “ordo amoris.” He has said the concept delineates a hierarchy of care — to family first, followed by neighbor, community, fellow citizens and lastly those elsewhere.
In his letter, Francis appeared to correct Vance’s understanding of the concept.
“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” he wrote. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
David Gibson, director of the center for religion and culture at Fordham University, said in a social media post that Francis’ letter “takes aim at every single absurd theological claim by JD Vance and his allies in conservative Catholicism (and the Catholic electorate).”
Vance’s reference to the ordo amoris had won support from many on the Catholic right in the U.S., including the Catholic League, which said he was right about the hierarchy of Christian love.
Writing in Crisis Magazine, editor Eric Sammons said Vance was merely drawing on the wisdom of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and the broader teaching of the Church to insist on loving things in an order.
“For Augustine, every love, even the love of neighbor, must be ordered beneath the love of God,” he wrote. “This hierarchy extends to our human relationships where love for family, community, and nation should precede our love for the world at large, not in intensity but in priority of duty and responsibility.”
Homan, a Catholic, said Francis should fix the Catholic Church and leave U.S. border protection to his department.
“He wants to attack us for securing our border. He’s got a wall around the Vatican, does he not?” Homan told reporters in a video from The Hill posted on X. “So he’s got a wall around that protects his people and himself, but we can’t have a wall around the United States.”
The Vatican, a walled-in, 44-hectare (108-acre) city state inside Rome, recently increased sanctions for anyone who illegally enters the territory. The December law calls for a prison term of up to four years and a fine of up to 25,000 euros ($25,873) for anyone who enters with “violence, threat or deception,” such as by evading security checkpoints.
The U.S. bishops conference had already put out an unusually critical statement after Trump’s initial executive orders. It said those “focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us.”
It was a strong rebuke from the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, which considers abortion to be the “preeminent priority” for Catholic voters and had cheered the 2022 Supreme Court decision to end constitutional protections for abortion that was made possible by Trump-appointed justices. Trump won 54% of Catholic voters in the 2024 election, a wider margin than the 50% in the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden, a Catholic.
Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration committee, said the pope’s letter provided much needed encouragement as the church deals “with these very threatening circumstances towards immigrants, towards our immigrant brothers and sisters, and also towards those who assist them in any way.”
Significantly, Pope Francis was a very strong voice consistently speaking for the protection of the environment from pollutants and toxic chemicals.
On World Earth Day 2024, Pope Francis reminded everyone of our duty to protect the planet and safeguard peace.
As the world marked Earth Day on Monday, April 22, Pope Francis reiterated his urgent plea for bold action for our common home and for world peace.
The International Day was established in 1970 to raise awareness about the critical environmental challenges facing our planet, and to mobilize efforts to address them.
The observance provides an opportunity for individuals, communities, organizations, and governments to come together and engage in activities to repair and heal ecosystems, combat climate change, and preserve biodiversity so as to preserve the planet for future generations.
In a post on his X social media platform (formerly known as Twitter), Pope Francis noted that his generation has bequeathed many monetary riches to later generations, but has done little to protect the planet.
He also commented on the link between current environmental problems and the many conflicts raging throughout the world.
“Our generation has bequeathed many riches, but we have failed to protect the planet and we are not safeguarding peace. We are called to become artisans and caretakers of our common home, the Earth which is “falling into ruin.” #EarthDay
The Pope’s post echoed his words in the 2015 Encyclical Laudato si’ on Care for Our Common Home and its call for individuals, communities and governments to care for nature.
2024 Earth Day for a plastic-free world
Each year, Earth Day has a specific theme to draw global attention on pressing environmental issues. Under the banner “Planet vs. Plastics,” this 54th edition is focused on plastic pollution and on the urgent need to reduce its use and production.
Beyond its environmental implications, the proliferation of plastics poses a significant threat to human health, akin to the challenges posed by climate change.
Historically, experts alluded to the statistical evidence that about 400 million metric tons of plastic are produced annually.
They say, humans produce over 400 million metric tons of plastic annually, which is roughly the weight of all human beings on the planet.
But regrettably, only 9 per cent gets recycled, and about 22 per cent of plastic waste worldwide is either not collected, improperly disposed of, or ends up as litter.
As plastics degrade into microplastics, they release toxic chemicals into ecosystems, contaminating oceans (where over 1 million metric tons end up every year), food and water sources, and endangering all forms of life.
Pope Francis also spoke for World peace and opposed the proliferation of wars all over the World. In the Pope’s World Day of Peace message: ‘We are all in debt to God’.
In his message for the 58th World Day of Peace marked on 1 January, Pope Francis reflects on the central theme of the upcoming Jubilee of Hope and reiterates his pressing appeal for debt forgiveness, reminding us that we are all “debtors” to God and one another.
Hope has been a constant theme in all of Pope Francis’ World Day of Peace messages. This is all the more true in his message for the 58th World Day of Peace, which was marked on 1 January 2025, as the Church begins the Jubilee of Hope amid an unprecedented combination of challenges facing the world today.
“Forgive us our trespasses”
This year’s message is entitled “Forgive Us Our Debts: Grant Us Your Peace” underscoring the deep meaning of the Jubilee tradition that reminds us that we are all “in debt” to God, who in His infinite mercy and love forgives our sins and calls upon us to forgive those who trespass against us.
Recalling that in the Jewish tradition, the Jubilee was a special year of universal remission of sins and debts liberating the oppressed, the Pope notes that in our day too, this special year of grace “is an event that inspires us to seek to establish the liberating justice of God in our world,” marred by injustices and “systemic” challenges that Saint John Paul II termed “structures of sin.”
On the theme of systemic injustices and “interconnected” challenges, the Pope cites the inhuman treatment inflicted on migrants, environmental degradation, “the confusion wilfully created by disinformation, the refusal to engage in any form of dialogue, and the immense resources spent on the industry of war.”
“Each of us must feel in some way responsible for the devastation to which the earth, our common home, has been subjected, beginning with those actions that, albeit only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that presently plague our human family,” he writes.
“Each of us must feel in some way responsible for the devastation to which the earth, our common home, has been subjected, beginning with those actions that, albeit only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that presently plague our human family.”
These “interconnected” challenges, Pope Francis argues, demand not “sporadic acts of philanthropy” but “cultural and structural changes” to “break the bonds of injustice and to proclaim God’s justice.”
In the words of the Holy Father Pope Francis, the resources of the earth are God’s gift to all humanity.
Referencing Saint Basil of Caesarea, the Pope reminds us that everything we claim as our own is, in fact, a gift from God and that therefore the resources of the earth are intended for the benefit of all humanity, “not just a privileged few.”
By losing sight of our relationship with God, he says, human interactions become tainted by the logic of exploitation and oppression, “where might makes right.”
This mirrors the dynamics of elites in Jesus’ time, who thrived on the suffering of the poor and finds resonance in today’s globalized world, which perpetuates injustices as showcased by the debt crisis trapping poorer nations in the Global South in a vicious circle of dependency and inequality. Pope Francis pleaded for debts cancellation and insisted that foreign debt is a means of control by richer nations.
Indeed, the Pope observes, “Foreign debt has become a means of control whereby certain governments and private financial institutions of the richer countries unscrupulously and indiscriminately exploit the human and natural resources of poorer countries, simply to satisfy the demands of their own markets.”
In addition, “different peoples, already burdened by international debt, find themselves also forced to bear the burden of the ‘ecological debt’ incurred by the more developed countries.”
In the spirit of this Jubilee Year, Pope Francis therefore reiterated his plea for the international community to work towards forgiving foreign debt in recognition of the ecological debt existing between the North and the South of this world. “This is an appeal for solidarity, but above all for justice,” he emphasizes.
“The cultural and structural change needed will come about when we finally recognize that we are all sons and daughters of the one Father, that we are all in his debt but also that we need one another, in a spirit of shared and diversified responsibility,” he writes.
“The cultural and structural change needed will come about when we finally recognize that we are all sons and daughters of the one Father, that we are all in his debt but also that we need one another, in a spirit of shared and diversified responsibility.”
As a pathway of hope during the Jubilee Year, Pope Francis offers three proposals, keeping in mind that “we are debtors whose debts have been forgiven.”
Plea for debt forgiveness:
First, he renews the appeal launched by Saint John Paul II on the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 to consider substantial reductions or the outright cancellation of international debts of countries “that are in no condition to repay the amount they owe,” also in light of the ecological debt the more prosperous countries owe them.
This, he says, should be done in a “new financial framework,” leading to the creation of a global financial charter “based on solidarity and harmony between peoples.”
Appeal for abolition of death penalty
The Pope then asks for “a firm commitment to respect the dignity of human life from conception to natural death” and calls for the abolition of the death penalty and promoting a culture of life that values every individual.
Following in the footsteps of Saint Paul VI and Benedict XVI, Pope Francis reiterates his appeal to divert “at least a fixed percentage of the money” earmarked for armaments towards a global fund to eradicate hunger and foster sustainable development in poorer nations, helping them combat climate change.
“Hope overflows in generosity; it is free of calculation, makes no hidden demands, is unconcerned with gain, but aims at one thing alone: to raise up those who have fallen, to heal hearts that are broken and to set us free from every kind of bondage.,” he writes.
“Generosity raises up those who have fallen, heals hearts that are broken and sets us free from every kind of bondage.”
Disarming hearts:
The overarching goal of these proposals is the attainment of true and lasting peace in the world, which is not merely the absence of war but a profound transformation of hearts and societies.
True peace, the Pope says, is granted by God to hearts that are “disarmed” of selfishness, hostility, and anxiety for the future, replacing them with generosity, forgiveness, and hope for a better world: “May we seek the true peace that is granted to God by hearts disarmed.”
“May we seek the true peace that is granted by God to hearts disarmed.”
Simple acts of kindness and solidarity, he notes, can pave the way for this new world, fostering a deeper sense of fraternity and shared humanity.
Concluding his message, Pope Francis offers the following prayer for peace:
Forgive us our trespasses, Lord,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
In this cycle of forgiveness, grant us your peace,
the peace that you alone can give
to those who let themselves be disarmed in heart,
to those who choose in hope to forgive the debts of their brothers and sisters,
to those who are unafraid to confess their debt to you,
and to those who do not close their ears to the cry of the poor.
As a traditional Roman Catholic faithful, I did sometimes kicked against some liberal thoughts of Pope Francis but in all his teachings, he emphasised that God loves us all equally and that even sinners are not to be hated but prayed for to repent. The beautiful and humane way the Pope handled the outburst that greeted his welcoming tendency towards those in same gender relationship, showed that Pope Francis was actually misunderstood because he defended the universal doctrine of the Church which emphasises the sanctity of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The Pope’s encyclical on accommodating same sex partners was only stating the obvious that the Church is a nig home for both sinners and the righteous.
The demise of Pope Francis today at the age of 88 is no doubt a very massive loss to Roman Catholics and all members of the human race that work for social justice, human rights and World peace. We look forward to welcoming another effervescent and vibrant but traditionalist Pope in another two weeks or less. We pray for the continuous repose of Pope Francis.
Emmanuel Onwubiko Writes From Abuja.
Comments are closed