Pope Francis was known for the way he connected with people. (CNS photo distributed by USCCB with permission)
For many adults, Pope Francis’ 12 years as pontiff seemed relatively brief, but many college-age adults don’t really remember another pope in their lifetimes.
One retired Marquette University professor, on the other hand, remembers five.
Fr. Steven Avella and two current Marquette professors of theology shared their impressions of Pope Francis’ legacy. The Holy Father died April 21 and his funeral was held April 26.
Fr. Avella, a retired history professor, noted that Pope Francis gave a unique gift to the Church through his ministry, drawing on his own cultural background and modeling humility and simplicity through his choices, such as his residence.
“He continued the gift of the papacy in a particular way,” Fr. Avella said. “Every pope in my memory has a particular gift to give to the Church. John XXIII was a man of humor and depth and called Vatican II. Paul VI called the council forward and proclaimed the kindness of God throughout the world. John Paul II was a dynamic, charismatic figure who traveled among the people of God. Benedict was a scholar, with a careful balanced focus on what truly matters in Christianity. Was Francis unusual? Aside from his personality, he was the first pope from the Americas. These would affect how he would serve the Church but would also carry on the way of modern popes of proclaiming Christ to the world through how they live and modeling humility and simplicity.”
Fr. Avella believes that Pope Francis’s legacy will fare well among future generations, particularly among poor and marginalized people.
Historians cannot make full judgments until 25 to 50 years after a person’s passing, he said, but the incredible outpouring of love for the pope’s life and ministry is a sign that people respected him for his willingness to spread the Gospel to those who needed it and felt alienated by the Church or had never heard it.
“To the extent to the way his life modeled the Lord Jesus, he’s going to come out pretty well,” he says. “As time moves on, we’ll see more and more of who he is and what he’s done, the ultimate impact of his work. He leaves behind a sweet odor of incense; he makes people smile affectionately. There’s no relief that he’s gone. He’s enshrined himself in the hearts of millions, and certainly within the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. We loved and respected the way he approached his papal ministry.”
A member of the Jesuit order like Pope Francis, Fr. Ryan Duns, S.J., is chair of the Department of Theology at Marquette.
“In my encounters, people [were] often struck by Pope Francis’ warmth and the joy he exudes,” Fr. Duns said. “When I have read his works with students, they are impressed by his generosity and wisdom in approaching current events. I think Pope Francis has given us the courage to have a holy boldness that leads us from the known-and-familiar and out into the world. He has invited us to have a dialogue with the world, to love the Gospel and to be courageous witnesses to what it means to be a friend of Jesus.”
He believes that Pope Francis will be remembered for his pastoral presence and “his challenge to look for new vistas and horizons where the Lord is calling us.”
Kate Ward, an Associate Professor of Theology at Marquette, says that the first thing strikes her about Pope Francis was his remarkable leadership style. He used his gifts as a communicator to convey the simple message that “God is close to you,” she said. His simplicity, humility, humor and kindness toward common people allowed him to connect with those around him.
“His style is profound, but I think his biggest legacy may be his practice of synodality in formulating teaching for the Church,” Ward said. He invited ordinary lay people to take a more active role in reflecting on where the Holy Spirit is leading the Church today, she said.
“The Church has always believed that the Holy Spirit speaks through the sense of the faithful (Lumen Gentium 12), and Pope Francis’ practice of synodality is a beautiful way to make this belief visible and invite lay people to greater responsibility for the Church,” she said.
Some of her students got first-hand experience with this. They studied the theology of synodality and the role of the laity in the Church, hosted their own synodal listening sessions with fellow students and worked together to write a synod report submitted to the Vatican.
“It was a wonderful experience for them to take their rightful place as shapers of the Church of today, and they received letters back from the Secretary General of the Synod, Cardinal Grech, and from individual synod auditors assuring them that their report was prayerfully read and received,” Ward said.
“In earlier times, we could have done a process like this, but the students would have just been pretending to contribute to the Church’s reflection on her own self-understanding. In the Synod on Synodality, they really were contributing, knowing that they would be heard, and it was an incredible experience for them,” she said.
