Announced as the “popular pope”, Pope Francis has become popular beyond the vast Catholic community he led to defend the disadvantaged and dispossessed throughout his 12-year papacy.
The late pontiff was known to plead for the most vulnerable and daring positions of society on issues such as climate change, the greed of businesses and the War of Israel-Hamas.
His reign as head of the Catholic Church was defined by the desire to bring the Church closer to the people, to underline the priests as servants and to build “a poor church for the poor”.
It was a mission that he described only a few days after his election in 2013 and tried to integrate, even during his funeral, simplifying and rationalizing traditional Vatican rites and rituals during his mandate.
Euronews brings you some of the symbolic moments of the pontificate which reflect its humility, its informality and its mission to reform the papacy.
1. Curved controversy by washing the female feet
In 2013, Pope Francis broke out with tradition by washing the feet of 12 detainees at the Casal del Marmo youth detention center on the outskirts of Rome.
The traditional rite represents the last act of humility of Jesus towards his disciples. But it is the pontiff's decision to include two young women, as well as the Muslims, in the ritual which sparked the anger of the traditionalists in the Roman Catholic Church.
At the time, the Vatican spokesperson Federico Lombardi said that the decision had taken place in a situation “in which the exclusion of girls would have been inappropriate in the light of the simple objective of communicating a message of love to all”.
2. Kissing the feet of South Sudanese leaders
In 2019, Pope Francis kissed the feet of South Sudanese leaders during an historical spiritual retirement to the Vatican – an unprecedented gesture aimed at urging leaders to maintain peace in the middle of the country's unlearly civil war.
“I was almost trembling because this thing did not happen before, except when Jesus kneel to wash the feet of his disciples,” said South Sudanese president Salva Kirr in an interview after the moment.
In tribute after the death of the pontiff, Kirr said that the moment was a “turning point for us, peace partners”.
Pope Francis visited South Sudan in 2023, where he pleaded for the implementation of the 2018 peace agreement and called for the laying of weapons as well as the leaders take responsibility for corruption.
3. Located a tailor -made Lamborghini
In 2017, the Italian manufacturer Lamborghini gifted Pope Francis his high -end sports car Huracán RWD in the white and yellow colors of the Vatican flag.
Pope Francis blessed the car and, rather than keeping the vehicle, signed it and asked that it be sold at auction. The car sold for around € 809,375.
The donations were distributed to the pontifical foundation “Aid to the church in need” (Aiuto Alla Chiesa Che Soffre) to the reconstruction of the Plaine des nine in Iraq, the Papa John XXIII community and the “Pope Francis Maison Project” (Progetto Casa Papa Francesco).
ADVERTISEMENTThroughout his pontificate, Pope Francis opted for humble cars, often avoiding the Potemobile – which he called a “sardine -can” – and his glass with the ball test.
Rather, he selected an outdoor version of the vehicle, saying sadly in 2015: “It is true that everything could happen, but let's face it, at my age, I don't have much to lose.”
4. Named the first woman to lead a major Vatican office
In January, Pope Francis announced that sister Simona Brambilla would serve as a prefect of the Dicastery for the institutes of consecrated life and the societies of apostolic life, an office of the Vatican which supervises religious orders for men and women.
The unprecedented step reflects the pontiff's objective to give women more important leadership roles in the Catholic Church.
ADVERTISEMENTIn 2021, he also authorized women to serve as readers and acolytes, roles that had been exclusively reserved for men. Pope Francis, however, did not stop allowing women to be ordered as a priests – a very controversial subject in the church.
5. brought 12 refugees to his plane in Rome
One spring day in 2016, Pope Francis visited the Greek island of Lesbos, one of the epicenters of the European refugee crisis at the time.
The pontiff spent about five hours on the island and, leaving, he took with him two families of Syrian refugees from Damascus and Deir Ez-Zor.
“The Vatican will assume the responsibility of bringing and maintaining them),” read a statement from the Holy See press office.
ADVERTISEMENTThe rescue of the 12 refugees in the small center of the island was a “drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same again,” said Pope Francis.
The symbolic act was considered a reprimand to the European Union, which had implemented a policy to return migrants and refugees to Türkiye.
The gesture was one of its broader efforts during its papacy to highlight the fate of refugees and asylum seekers.
In July 2013, his first papal trip outside the Vatican was on the Italian island remote from Lampedusa, following several migrants dying in the fatal passage between the African coast and Malta.
ADVERTISEMENT“He wanted to start a global dialogue to let the world leaders know that even an undocumented migrant is not something to fear,” said one of the people that Pope Francis brought Lesbos, Hasan Zaheda, during the recent hospitalization of the late pontiff earlier this year.
