Pope for Modern Times

This article, written by SCIAF's Director of Public Engagment, Ben Wilson, first appeared in The Herald.

The news that Pope Francis had died on Monday morning was met with deep grief and sadness amongst people in Scotland and around the world — and not only among people of faith. He was truly a remarkable figure, a tremendous communicator, and a towering voice for social, political and economic justice. A Pope for our time, Francis was not only a pastor but a prophetic leader, able to look long into the future of humanity — an advocate, a campaigner, and a searing critic of the inequality and injustice that defines so much of our world today.  

For those of us at SCIAF, his papacy was especially important. He was a Pope of the poor, for the poor. He believed that being a Catholic meant more than attending Mass or reciting prayers — it meant serving others. It meant standing with the excluded, and crucially, it meant challenging the structures and systems that keep people poor. “You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That’s how prayer works,” he once said. It was this fusion of faith and action that defined his time as Pontiff.  

Pope Francis quite simply refused to accept that poverty and suffering were inevitable. He believed people were called not just to feed the poor, but to ask the uncomfortable question: why do the poor have no food? He knew that charity without justice can become a bandage on a wound that never heals.  

Nowhere was his moral clarity more urgently needed than in the fight to protect our planet. Again, he was a Pope of our time. With the publication of his seminal encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015, Francis transformed global conversations about the environment. Before that moment, many still saw climate change as a distant threat, or a purely scientific or economic issue. Francis reframed it as a moral and spiritual crisis. He made it clear: The Church stands firmly with the science, the poorest are suffering first and worst, and future generations are at grave risk. His teaching made it plain that caring for the environment is not an optional part of faith — it is integral to it. That climate change is fundamentally an issue of justice, and action on the climate is what is demanded of us – in the name of the poor now, and future generations.  

He also spoke with fierce compassion about the plight of migrants and refugees. In the face of rising nationalism and hostility to those fleeing conflict, persecution and poverty, Francis consistently reminded us of our shared humanity. He called on governments to welcome the stranger, to protect those who journey across seas and deserts in search of safety. He washed the feet of refugees, decried the “globalization of indifference,” and called migration “a sign of the times” — one that demands not fear, but solidarity, compassion and hospitality.  

And he was no less bold in his critique of the global economy. In Fratelli Tutti, he lamented an economic system that “maintains the wealth of a few rather than improving the lot of the many.” He condemned what he called “an economy that kills,” where human beings are reduced to consumers and workers, valued only for their output. For Pope Francis, markets should serve people — not the other way around. He spoke out against the financialisation of everything, from housing to healthcare, and called for an economy rooted in solidarity, equity and the dignity of work.  

Through it all, Pope Francis offered a vision of a better world — one grounded in the long-term common good. A world that supports and cares for people when they need it most. A world built not on individualism and competition, but on compassion, community, and a deep sense of our interconnectedness. He believed in a civilisation of love, where the measure of society is how it treats its most vulnerable.  

Losing him now feels like bad timing. Just when the world needs to hear his messages the most.  

Around the world, we see a retreat into national self-interest, growing military budgets, and a relentless arms race. Climate change is accelerating, yet meaningful action lags. Aid budgets are being slashed, even as humanitarian need reaches historic highs. And international humanitarian law — so long a cornerstone of shared human decency — is being flagrantly disregarded, not least in Gaza.  

But even in death, Pope Francis has not been silenced. He has started something. He lit a fire. And that fire will not be extinguished.

World leaders couldn’t wait to tell the world that they were attending his funeral, and no doubt competed over who would have the best seats. The doubtless anachronistic office of the papacy still has tremendous convening power, and Pope Francis in particular has used this office to great effect in injecting political debates with great moral clarity.    

We must hope all of those world leaders attending his funeral leave with a sense of the living, breathing words of Pope Francis that remain with us on here on Earth. His call to lead with compassion, to prioritise justice over profit, to remember that politics is not meant to be a game of power, but a vocation of service. And to embrace the prophetic vision of a better world that Pope Francis had, instead of a sterile managerialism that forgets the great injustices being committed every day. 

Pope Francis may no longer be with us, but his legacy lives on in our pursuit of justice and peace. The world is a better place for having had him as Pope, and through continuing to remember him the world can be a better place still.