2025-04-22
33 分钟This is The Guardian. Today,
Hal Pope Francis changed the church and the institution he leaves behind.
This weekend, on Easter Sunday,
thousands of people gathered in St Peter's Square in Vatican City to mark the Catholic Church's most important holy day.
They didn't think Pope Francis would appear.
The 88-year-old had spent most of the past few months in hospital with bronchitis and double pneumonia.
But this was a pope who, from the beginning, wanted to upend expectations.
And there he was, ailing wheelchair-bound, speaking just briefly to wish the crowd a happy Easter.
The next morning, at 7.35am, Pope Francis passed away.
Bringing to an end a 12-year drive to reform a church that,
in Francis' view, had strayed too far from the people it existed to serve.
He wanted to fling open its doors to the poor,
to begin to atone for decades of child sexual abuse, to challenge a tide of populist politics.
One of his last meetings, fittingly, was with the US Vice President JD Vance,
whose migration policies the Pope said damaged the dignity of men and women.
So, where did Francis succeed?
Where did he fail?
And where did he never really push at all?
And with his death, a bigger question.
From The Guardian, I'm Michael Safi, today in Focus.