How Pope Francis modified the Catholic church, and what occurs subsequent – podcast | Pope Francis

Pope Francis was working till the top. On Easter Sunday, the 88-year-old head of the Catholic church provided an Easter greeting to the crowds in St Peter’s Sq. who had gathered for mass. By the following morning, after months battling pneumonia and bronchitis, he had handed away.

From the start, the primary Latin American pope wished his papacy to be totally different. Catherine Pepinster, the previous editor of the Pill, says one in all his first notable actions was to go to a jail, relatively than a church, to scrub individuals’s toes within the conventional Maundy Thursday ceremony. It was typical of a pontiff who refused most of the luxuries of his predecessors – from giving up an residence within the papal palace to solely sporting easy leather-based footwear.

Michael Safi hears how Pope Francis tried to take a distinct strategy to a number of the Catholic church’s controversies – particularly the remedy of LGBTQ+ Catholics. “Francis spoke about love regularly,” says Pepinster. But on this and different points, from feminine monks to abuse scandals, many individuals thought he didn’t go far sufficient. Now the church is getting ready to decide on his successor, with all of the ceremony and custom that entails. However, says Pepinster, it’s clear Pope Francis has modified the establishment within the eyes of most of the church’s followers. “Loads of Catholics really feel that the church is, in some ways, a extra compassionate place.”