内容摘要：What is required is a willingness to do physically demanding work.

What is required is a willingness to do physically demanding work.

After visiting Mexico in 2016, Francis said of then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump that anyone building a wall to keep migrants out “is not Christian.”While progressives were thrilled with Francis’ radical focus on Jesus’ message of mercy and inclusion, it troubled conservatives who feared he watered down Catholic teaching and threatened the very Christian identity of the West. Some even called him a heretic.

A few cardinals openly challenged him. Francis usually responded with his typical answer to conflict: silence.He made it easier for married Catholics to get an annulment, allowed priests to absolve women who had had abortions and decreed that priests could bless same-sex couples. He opened debate on issues like homosexuality and divorce, giving pastors wiggle room to discern how to accompany their flocks, rather than handing them strict rules to apply.Former FARC rebel Carlos Juan Carlos Murcia, who lost his left hand, embraces Pope Francis during a prayer meeting for reconciliation at Las Malocas Park in Villavicencio, Colombia, Sept. 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file)

Former FARC rebel Carlos Juan Carlos Murcia, who lost his left hand, embraces Pope Francis during a prayer meeting for reconciliation at Las Malocas Park in Villavicencio, Colombia, Sept. 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file)Francis lived in the Vatican hotel instead of the Apostolic Palace, wore his old orthotic shoes and not the red loafers of the papacy, and rode in compact cars. It wasn’t a gimmick.

“I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful,” he told a Jesuit journal in 2013. “I see the church as a field hospital after battle.”

If becoming the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope wasn’t enough, Francis was also the first to name himself afterMichel Badr, who came from another village to attend the reenactment, said he supports the performance “so that people would know, even if in a small way, how much Jesus had suffered ... to give us a new era and a beautiful life after him.”

Chalhoub said his concern is to avoid an overemphasis on mourning. “It’s better to turn the pain into glory and to triumph over pain with God’s power, not just to go and cry,” he said.A statue of Saint Rafqa is displayed in front of a residential building in the village of Quraye, near the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

A statue of Saint Rafqa is displayed in front of a residential building in the village of Quraye, near the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)“There’s redemption. There’s salvation,” Chalhoub said. “Of course, there’s sadness, but there’s huge hope for triumphing over all that is painful.”