Pope Francis, the first Jesuit and first Latin American to lead the Catholic Church, died Monday. He was 88.
During his 11-year pontificate, he recorded several other firsts. He was the first pope to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, the first to call for civil union laws and approve ecclesiastical blessings for same-sex couples, and the first to visit Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Mongolia, and Myanmar.
But while the Western media portrayed him as a revolutionary, bringing the Catholic Church hurtling into the 21st century, in practice Pope Francis often took a more evolutionary approach to change.
While critics persistently accused him of seeking to alter Catholic teaching, he seemed to aim above all at changing the Church’s culture, urging Catholics to embody what he believed were the three hallmarks of God’s presence: closeness, compassion, and tenderness. He sought also to counter what he saw as the…
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