Pope Francis’ legacy is to be cherished, carried forward

Apr 23, 2025

By Benedict Rogers
Pope Francis will be missed and mourned by billions around the world. And he will be particularly missed in Asia.

He was a pope for the marginalised and the oppressed, and for those in the far-flung corners and frontlines of the world.

He was a pope who opened the doors of the Church and made it truly universal.

During his pontificate, Pope Francis visited Asia multiple times, making apostolic visits to South Korea, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and most recently, last autumn, Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Singapore, besides Papua New Guinea in Oceania.

He created more cardinals across Asia than any of his predecessors.

During his 12-year pontificate, he appointed cardinals in South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Tonga, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia, Singapore, Mongolia, India, Timor-Leste and Japan.

For these reasons, I loved him.

I became a Catholic just 11 days after his election, and so my life in the Church has been interwoven with his pontificate since its beginning.

I recall sitting in my office in London, less than a fortnight before I was due to be received into the Church by Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Bo in St Mary’s Cathedral, Yangon, watching the announcement: “Habemus Papam” — and the presentation of Pope Francis to the world.

I remember the excitement I felt as I entered the Church, which had chosen its first ever Jesuit pope, its first ever Latin American pope, and its first non-European pope since Syrian-born Gregory III, who died in 741.

Also, the first pope to choose the name of that great saint, St Francis of Assisi.

Over his 12-year pontificate, I had the privilege of meeting Pope Francis three times at private audiences in the Vatican. I also attended several general audiences in St Peter’s Square. Every time I encountered Pope Francis, I felt inspired, renewed, and reinvigorated. His smile, his compassion, his love, and the Spirit within him were infectious.

I was able to present him with some of my books — From Burma to Rome: A Journey into the Catholic Church, Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads and a book I co-authored on the persecution of Christians, The Very Stones Cry Out: The Persecuted Church — Pain, Passion and Praise.

I attended the consistory where he made my friend and Yangon’s archbishop, Charles Bo, Myanmar’s first-ever Cardinal, and I was able to be in Yangon when he became the first-ever pope to visit Myanmar.

My life as a human rights activist began in Timor-Leste, and so I was thrilled to watch Pope Francis’ visit to this young, newborn nation last year. For many years, I worked on religious freedom and inter-religious dialogue in Indonesia, and so I was excited to see his visit to that great archipelago and his appointment of my friend Ignatius Suharyo as Indonesia’s new Cardinal.

Pope Francis was a champion of inter-religious dialogue, which he pursued on all his visits to Asia and around the world. He was also a persistent defender of human rights, particularly in Myanmar — consistently speaking out and praying for Myanmar, particularly against the genocide of the Muslim-majority Rohingya, declaring while meeting Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh that “the presence of God today is also called Rohingya.”

That passionate defence of human rights and human dignity made his refusal to speak out on two countries close to my heart all the more perplexing — and heart-breaking.

The first was when he visited Seoul in 2014, and apparently declined, despite repeated requests, to meet North Korean refugees. For a time, he entertained the idea of visiting North Korea — an idea on which I advised caution.

He did receive a dear friend of mine, a remarkable North Korean escapee, Timothy Cho, at an audience in the Vatican, but otherwise did not do as much as he could have done to shine the light of Christ into the darkness of Pyongyang.

The second disappointment was his apparent rapprochement with — no, actual kowtowing towards — Beijing. The 2018 signing of the secret Vatican-China deal on the appointment of bishops, which has been renewed every two years ever since, is one of the greatest disappointments of his papacy.

I don’t doubt Pope Francis’ intentions towards Beijing. I don’t think he was inspired by leftist ideology or some bizarre love of Communism. No, I think he was motivated by a romantic, naïve inspiration from his fellow Jesuit Matteo Ricci in the sixteenth century to seek influence with the Chinese leadership and better access to the millions of Chinese Catholics.

The difference is, while Ricci was able to penetrate the imperial court, no amount of kowtowing by the Vatican will gain entry into Zhongnanhai today. Xi Jinping may act like a modern-day Chinese emperor, but access to his circle is far harder to obtain than in Ricci’s day.

The pain that Pope Francis’ deal with Beijing has wrought has been enormous. Beijing bought the silence of the pope and the right to influence the appointment of Catholic bishops in the country through the government-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA).

In reality, China has not abided by the terms of the compromise, and has unilaterally appointed bishops loyal to the Communist Party and persecuted bishops who refuse to belong to the CCPA.

A pope who spoke, Sunday by Sunday, powerfully and inspiringly, in his Angelus prayers from the window over St Peter’s Square about the world’s injustices and conflicts was silent about one very large corner of the world: China.

Sunday by Sunday, Pope Francis spoke movingly and rightly about Myanmar, Yemen, Sudan and Gaza. But never about Hong Kong. Never about Tibet. Almost never about the Uyghurs.

Sunday by Sunday, he spoke about refugees and displaced people, and prisoners of conscience around the world. But never about Hong Kong’s most prominent lay Catholic political prisoner, Jimmy Lai.

He never defended one of the Church’s bravest, oldest and most senior Asian cardinals, Hong Kong’s Bishop Emeritus Joseph Zen. Indeed, in 2020, he refused Cardinal Zen an audience when the cardinal flew to Rome to request one, and they only met once on the sidelines of Pope Benedict XVI’s funeral.

I love Pope Francis, and I mourn him. I am glad he spoke so often and so passionately for Myanmar, the Rohingya, and Aung San Suu Kyi. And I am glad to have entered the Church he has led for the past 12 years.

But the question on my mind is this: Why did the pope, who spoke for the marginalised and persecuted, stay silent about some of the world’s most repressed?

Whoever succeeds Pope Francis will need to address these questions, unpack the answers, and review the Vatican’s deeply compromised deal with Beijing.

In the inbox of the next pope, a review, renegotiation and recalibration of Sino-Vatican relations must be a priority.

Pope Francis’ legacy is to be cherished. It can be summed up in the titles of some of his books — Life and Hope. He began his pontificate with a Jubilee of Mercy, and he ended it with a Jubilee of Hope. Those are bookends of which to be proud.

There is a legacy of the China policy that needs review and revision, but that should not detract from a pontificate that exuded love, especially for the poorest and most oppressed.

I thank God for him. I pray he rests in peace. And I pray for a new pope who will build on Francis’ legacy of mercy and hope — and have the courage to stand up for religious freedom and human dignity in China too.--ucanews.com