Pope Francis Left As He Came: Humbly.
VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - SEPTEMBER 13: Pope Francis greets faithful during his weekly general ... More audience at St. Peter's Square on September 13, 2023 in Vatican City, Vatican. (Photo by)
On March 13, 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio came downstairs from his modest suite at Casa Santa Marta, Room 207, in Rome. He paid the bill for particulars, say observers, using his personal credit card while carrying his own satchel. That may not seem unusual – after all. we all pay on the way out – but the man had just been elected Pope, the 266th in the Church's history.
Signaling a stark departure from tradition that, over the centuries, had ranged from formal to pompous, Pope Francis began teaching us, from day one, what the most genuine leadership looks like.
Humble. Truly, honestly, genuinely humble. Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was, in the vernacular, the real deal.
In his 12 years as pope, he never broke from this sterling example he had just set, choosing as his residence the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse, shunning the lavish setting and appointments of the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace. That was for his predecessors, not for him.
Pope Francis' humility was a thing of beauty. At 5'9' tall, he was certainly not an imposing figure. What was imposing, though, was his Jesuit-educated intellect. Other than that, he dressed simply and modestly, almost always in white, as opposed to the glamour and dramatic colors sported by popes before him. Even his wave was measured and respectful, not the sweeping gesture of a leader with a hyperbolic self-image.
I am not a historian, a theologian, or a Catholic, but I am a leadership advisor and was, for 15 years, an adjunct professor of two graduate leadership courses. I'm also old enough to have seen other examples of outstanding leadership. They were few and far between – John Kennedy, Kofi Annan, Pope John Paul II – but they exemplified a rare type of effective leadership that naturally inspires others – it doesn't matter whom – to follow. With that as my backdrop, I see Pope Francis' death as leaving a gigantic leadership void that reaches every inch of this globe. He was, simply, the only true global leader of his time in the Vatican. We might, at this time, have had powerful leaders, but not one has nearly the complete global influence that was so deftly wielded and gently exuded by Pope Francis.
Only a leader so firmly comfortable in a deeply rooted set of beliefs could answer a question about gays and gay marriage with 'Who am I to judge?' With those five words, he taught us fairness, inclusion, acceptance, and humility. Leaders do that.
Over the last two years, Pope Francis' health declined and his body faltered, but his resolve and his influence expanded and strengthened. When you are a true leader – the real deal – that happens.
And true to his very being, Pope Francis was buried in a plain wooden box, not in the Vatican alongside many of those who came before him, but at Rome's Basilica of Saint Mary Major, three miles from the Vatican.
On his gravestone, it says humbly … Franciscus.
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