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Catholics across the world are mourning the death of Pope Francis, who died earlier this week at the age of 88 after weeks of battling double pneumonia.
Following his death, the Vatican announced that Francis had died due to a stroke that put him into a coma and led to him having irreversible heart failure.
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Francis was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 1936 and was elected to head the Catholic Church in 2013, making him the first pontiff from the Americas as well as the first Jesuit pope.
The Jesuits are an order of Roman Catholic priests founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in 1534 who work in fields like education, research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits will also conduct retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes and sponsor social and humanitarian work.
Sami Helewa, S.J., president of Campion College at the University of Regina, said that it was pretty significant to see Francis become pontiff.
“It happened for a good reason and he led in that way. He made history. It’s about service, really, a leader who is a servant for the entire church. And I think that’s characteristically a very Jesuit thing,” said Helewa.
Francis would travelled all over the world, including to Canada 2022, when he offered an apology for the church’s role in residential schools.
Helewa said that Francis differed from his predecessors by being someone who was always engaged with the people.
“He had a form of leadership that was engaging. In one of his writings or encyclicals, he said that shepherds should smell like sheep in the sense that shepherds who are leaders have to be engaged with the people that they are leading, serving and helping out,” he said.
“We will all miss Pope Francis. He really brought the human side to spirituality and to the Christian doctrine, especially the Catholic doctrines. That’s a huge legacy that we will always remember him for and thank God for his life as our leader during the last 12 years,” said Helewa.
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