Pope Francis a voice of reason in an increasingly unreasonable world

It is no exaggeration to say that on Easter Monday the world united in feeling a great loss with the passing of Pope Francis. His followers had hardly digested his appearance among the faithful a day earlier, as if to reassure them that, despite his illness and frailty, he wanted to underline that he lived for them and to alleviate the suffering of all, especially the marginalized and the weak of all faiths.

There is a consensus that Pope Francis was a force for good despite being an outsider, as the first pope to hail from the Global South and the first non-European pope for more than 1,000 years. The lists of his firsts and his breaks with tradition are long. The most symbolic was his choice to live in a modest two-room papal guest house and never move into the official residence at the Vatican.

Though the Argentine pontiff was seen as progressive and fought to influence issues such as migration and the protection of the environment, he also fought for a more modern, less rigid Roman Catholic Church. Above all, Pope Francis brought an outsider’s eye to the Vatican and the church, with a focus on justice, ecology and humanity. One hopes that the conclave will produce a like-minded successor, as the world is crying out for voices of reason amid today’s ever-increasing social, economic and political discord.

But for all his “political genius and charisma,” as described by his biographer, it did not serve him to, on the one hand, reform and modernize a church hierarchy that he viewed as remote and self-satisfied. Nor was he capable, on the other hand, of tilting the church’s energies in favor of the marginalized, while challenging the power of the entrenched interests of its traditionalists, conservatives and liberals.

Pope Francis brought an outsider’s eye to the Vatican and the church, with a focus on justice, ecology and humanity

Mohamed Chebaro

His famous words “who am I to judge?” skirted the doctrinal debates, demonstrating an inkling to promote greater tolerance and understanding in a complex culture war that focused on the questions of sexuality, faith and marriage in a church that was struggling to hold on to its relevance. He sought to raise the tone of its moral voice beyond the controversial family and moral affairs of the modern world, preferring to debate the moral need to protect the environment and to heal the world of its addiction to consumption — a key driver of climate change.

His outspoken interventions in support of migrants won him a huge following the world over, as well as enemies and condemnation by none other than the Trump administration. For Pope Francis, climate change, migration, global poverty and conflicts were interconnected. He chose to repeatedly visit migration hot spots like Lampedusa in Italy and Lesbos in Greece to shed light on the global indifference to their plight and the efforts of governments to send them back.

He also regularly spoke of his distress at conflicts around the world, especially Ukraine and Gaza in recent times. But his pleas for peace fell on deaf ears, despite his clear pattern of choice of overseas trips, as he sought to make a difference to victims of wars recent and old. He chose to visit Jerusalem, Bosnia, Egypt, Iraq and South Sudan, to mention just a few, highlighting his fearlessness and reminding the world of the need to end suffering, regardless of the faith of the victims.

His outspoken interventions in support of migrants won him a huge following the world over, as well as enemies

Mohamed Chebaro

In an era when the postwar legacy of international human rights and the rule of law is waning, the death of Pope Francis means the loss of yet another voice of reason in a world that is increasingly light on reason. His vision and mission will be missed not just by Catholics around the world but by all humans, particularly those living in increasingly inward-looking, nationalist-dominated countries. Certain states are today dragging the social and political compass increasingly to the right, aided by a weaponized tech realm and regulation-light exercises of freedom of expression.

The world has changed from one that upheld, to a large extent, a respect for universal human rights to one led by the kind of populism and polarization that last rose to prominence in the 1930s. Pope Francis’ voice of reason tried to prevent the slip toward identity politics and the weaponization of Christianity by the populist forces of the ultra-right in America, Europe and elsewhere. But it is still hoped that his messages of humility, inclusion and doing good will reverberate around the world and limit the damage of the culture wars that are threatening the planet and its people.

An ironic coincidence is that the pope’s final public engagement before his death was a meeting with the Catholic US Vice President J.D. Vance, an advocate of “America First” and US isolationism whose views on migration and the fueling of culture wars were criticized by the pope before he fell ill. It is hoped that some of the reasoning of the late pope will echo in Vance’s mind and he will work to curb his views. Populism and polarization only make the rich richer and leave the poor poorer, which is contrary to the aspirations of all the poor voters of all religions who last year voted for Donald Trump in the hope of salvation.

• Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’ experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy.