“One more trip,” he says. “And then I’ll stop.”

He’s a fisherman by trade, born and raised in the coastal city of Manta — a place once known for tuna and tranquility. But these days, the fish are harder to find. The trips are longer. And the money, he says, just isn’t there anymore.

“As a fisherman, in a month you can make $300,” he says. “But with the drug, the white one… that’s the money, brother!”

One trip, running cocaine by sea to Mexico, pays $60,000, he says. Half up front. Half when you make it back alive. “I think that if I get one more trip, I would go, to try my luck,” he says, adding he wants to buy his mother a house. “And then I’ll stop.”

He agrees to take us out — not on a drug run, but to show us how it’s done. The routes, the tactics, the escape paths. He asks that we not use his name or show his face.

If this was his one last trip, he says he would have dozens of black sacks of cocaine — worth an estimated $500,000 in Ecuador but as much as $5 million on US streets, he says — hidden beneath the false floors of “pregnant” speedboats he and three others power across the Pacific. “We leave from here to get to one point over there in Mexico, where there’s a boat waiting for us. We don’t enter a port,” he explains.

Once the drop is made, they head back to Ecuador, this time with a cargo of fish as a cover story. “If I come back with nothing,” he says, “the people will quickly realize one is involved in something that’s not good.”

The fisherman says he isn’t proud of what he does. And he knows the risks: rough waters, failing engines, criminal rivalries, and coast guard patrols. “If we are stopped, we lose everything… we don’t know if they stop us to rob us or kill us.”

Still, he goes, moving with a youthful energy in his voice and a face weathered by decades at sea. They carry just enough to last: food, water, energy bars — “six sacks of supplies,” he says.

Now in his late 50s, he says fear doesn’t stop him. “Fear, only towards God,” he says. “I know it’s a crime. I know it goes against God… but I have to support my mother.”

She runs a small evangelical church and pleads with him not to go. “‘Don’t be involved in that,’ she tells me. But I tell her, ‘Mom, you can’t clean anymore… I’m the one who needs to care for you,’” he says.

When we meet him, the sun is dipping behind the Pacific. The dock is alive with fishing boats weaving between larger vessels anchored offshore. The water glows in the orange light and the air is thick with the sharp smell of gasoline.

As we pull away, another boat full of police officers drifts past. The fisherman smiles and waves, confidently.

The officers wave back.

Patrolling a paradise under siege

Several hundred miles from the Ecuadorian mainland, the waters off the Galápagos Islands glisten with postcard beauty. But this stretch of the Pacific has become a critical corridor in the cocaine trade — and a battleground in Ecuador’s fight against it.

“The area where drugs are smuggled is about 200 miles off the shore… right by the limits of the Galápagos exclusive economic zone with the high seas,” he says.

It’s only March, and already his crew has seized six tons of cocaine. “Last year, we caught 15 tons,” he adds — noting this year’s pace, if sustained, could nearly double last year’s haul.

The captain says their first responsibility is saving lives at sea — shipwrecks, distress calls, rescue operations. But close behind is the fight against organized crime.

“What’s happening is the boats (the drug runners) are using are not massive, so they need to refuel. Some of these refueling stations are in Galápagos, and they then continue onto Central America,” he explains. “That’s why our navy is looking for the fuel… because it’s one of the ways the narco-traffickers move drugs.”

What officials call the “gas stations at sea” look like fishing boats — nets tossed off the sides, poles out for show — but they’re part of a vast narco-logistics network. Quietly stationed near the Galápagos Islands, each contains up to 40 large canisters of fuel to supply the high-speed boats running cocaine north toward Mexico and the United States.

The strategy is simple: stay just outside Ecuador’s territorial waters, avoid major patrol routes, and supply the drug runners as they go. If they’re not intercepted, the vessels link up mid-ocean — often under cover of night — and continue their journey, undetected.

It’s a supply chain built for stealth — and for speed. And it’s helping fuel a wave of cartel-driven violence that’s turned Ecuador’s coastal cities into some of the deadliest in Latin America.

‘Our fishermen are mules not traffickers’

Many of those who take these trips never return.

In a modest home near the port, more than two dozen women crowd into Solanda Bermello’s living room — mothers, wives, and sisters of men who were arrested abroad or simply never came home. Some hold photographs. Others clutch letters, hoping someone might deliver them to husbands or sons locked up overseas.

Bermello founded the Association of Mothers and Wives of Fishermen Detained in Other Countries nine years ago — after her own son was caught running drugs and imprisoned. Today, she says the group includes 380 members and they’ve documented more than 2,000 cases in Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the United States since January 2024.

“We’ve sent letters to all those countries,” she says, pleading for repatriation of their loved ones.

Many don’t know where their relatives are being held or even if they’re still alive.

“Our fishermen are not drug traffickers,” Bermello says. “They are drug trafficking mules. Unfortunately, they are offered an amount of money that is so large for them… but at times they do not collect any of that money because they end up in prison and leave their families adrift and their children fatherless.”

She says economic desperation, not ambition, is what drives them. “They are not drug traffickers,” she repeats. “Unfortunately, they do it because of the economic situation in the country — we don’t have money, we don’t have work, we don’t have a way to subsist.”

Even those trying to fish legally, she says, aren’t safe. “Our fishermen are robbed by pirates. Not even making an honest living is possible.”

She supports the idea of a US security presence returning to a nearby military base, vacated in 2009 after Ecuador banned foreign troops on its soil. “The US used to help us,” she says. “We need that again.”

Newly re-elected president seeks help

The streets of Ecuador’s coastal cities are soaked in blood. In just the first few months of 2025, more than 2,500 homicides have been recorded according to national police statistics — on pace to make this the deadliest year in the country’s history. InSight Crime, an organization that tracks and investigates crime in the Americas, now ranks Ecuador as having the highest homicide rate in Latin America.

The surge in violence is fueled by a complex web of transnational crime: drug trafficking routes, turf wars, and brutal alliances between local gangs and foreign cartels. Ecuador’s location between Peru and Colombia, top producers of cocaine, and its efficient transport and export network has made it attractive to traffickers.

It’s a crisis unfolding beyond its borders but with real consequences for the US — from the cocaine flooding into American cities to the migration pressures reshaping its southern border.

“There are plans,” he said. “We had conversations, we had a plan, we had options… and now we just need another meeting, post-election, to consolidate it.”

But Noboa insists this won’t mean American boots patrolling Ecuadorian streets. “The control of the operations will be in the hands of our military and our police,” he said. US forces, he explained, would play a support role — focused on monitoring illegal operations and reinforcing Ecuador’s ability to stop them before they reach open waters.

Noboa, who was born and educated in the United States, has pushed to revive Ecuador’s cooperation with Washington across multiple fronts, including security, trade, and migration. He says he wants to fix conditions at home to keep Ecuadorians from fleeing north, while also stepping up efforts to intercept drug flows bound for the US.

He’s even expressed willingness to reform Ecuador’s constitution — potentially allowing for the formal return of a US military presence, like the one that existed from 1999 to 2009 at the now-defunct Manta Air Base.

“That would help to keep peace,” Noboa said. “Like we had in the past.”

As he heads into his second term, the young president is staking his political future on security. He has invited both US President Donald Trump and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele — another right-wing populist who cracked down on gangs — to his inauguration in May. And he insists another meeting with US officials is just around the corner.

For Ecuador, the war is already underway — at sea, on land, in homes and streets. And for the fisherman who once cast lines for tuna, it’s a war that pays. His next drug run, he says, might be his last. But the system that pulled him in shows no signs of stopping.

The death of Pope Francis has triggered a period of mourning in the Vatican and signals the start of a millennia-old process of picking a new pontiff.

It is a procedure steeped in tradition, but one which has been subtly updated for the modern world.

Cardinals from around the world must gather for the conclave in which Francis’ successor is selected. It typically takes between two and three weeks for a pope to be chosen, though it can stretch slightly beyond that if cardinals struggle to agree on a candidate.

The voting process is kept secret but will take place with the eyes of the world on the Vatican and amid intense scrutiny of the Catholic Church – an institution whose reputation has been stained by the scandal of child sex abuse within its ranks, overshadowing the legacies of successive popes.

Here’s what you need to know about the coming days and weeks.

What happens during the mourning period?

The “Papal Interregnum” – the period between the death of one pope and the election of another – began when Francis passed away on Monday.

Cardinals must now decide exactly when the funeral can take place, and after that, when conclave can begin. But much of the timeline is predetermined; the pope’s death triggered the start of nine days of mourning known as the Novendiales, and the pope must be buried between the fourth and sixth day after death.

The body of the pope must also be displayed at St. Peter’s Basilica for mourning, and a mass will take place on each day. Mourners lined up for miles to see the body of Pope John Paul II, the last serving pontiff to die, in 2005.

It is likely that unofficial events will take place in tandem in Buenos Aires, where Francis lived before becoming the Bishop of Rome. In Warsaw, more than 200,000 gathered at the site where John Paul II, then Karol Wojtyla, returned as the new pope in 1979.

Then, at the end of the period of mourning, a large funeral Mass will take place at St. Peter’s. This is historically a huge event, with dignitaries expected from around the world. John Paul II’s funeral was attended by then-President George W. Bush and his two predecessors, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

When does the election of a new pope begin?

When a pope dies, the dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals calls for a meeting of all cardinals eligible to vote – those under the age of 80. They must all travel to the Vatican to do so. There are currently 136 eligible cardinals. But it’s worth remembering that in 1996, John Paul II set the maximum number of cardinals allowed to participate at 120.

Conclave is not expected to begin earlier than 15 days, nor later than 20 days, after the pope’s death – though it could get underway sooner if all the cardinal electors arrive in Rome quickly.

Inside the Sistine Chapel, the codified home of conclave, paper ballots are passed out to each cardinal, who writes the name of their chosen candidate below the words “Eligo in Summum Pontificem” (Latin for “I elect as supreme pontiff”).

Technically, any Roman Catholic male can be elected pope. But the last pope not chosen from the College of Cardinals was Urban VI in 1379.

When they’re done, each cardinal – in order of seniority – walks to the altar to ceremoniously place his folded ballot into a chalice. The votes are then counted, and the result is read to the cardinals.

If a cardinal has received two-thirds of the vote, he becomes the new pope.

As many as four votes a day – two in the morning and two in the afternoon – can be held on the second, third and fourth days of the conclave. The fifth day is set aside to break for prayer and discussion, and then voting can continue for an additional seven rounds. After that, there’s another break and the pattern resumes.

What happens when a pope is chosen?

News cameras will have their lenses fixed on a chimney on a Vatican rooftop for days – because that’s where the first confirmation of a new pope will be seen.

Ballots are burned after the votes, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. If a pope hasn’t been elected, the ballots will be burned along with a chemical that makes the smoke black.

If white smoke billows from the chimney, however, it means “sede vacante” (in Latin “with the chair vacant”) is over and a new pontiff has been chosen.

Traditionally, about 30 to 60 minutes after the white smoke, the new pope will appear on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

His papal name will be announced, and the new pope will then speak briefly and say a prayer. His formal coronation will take place days after his election. The last two popes have been inaugurated in St. Peter’s Square.

Why does it matter who becomes pope?

The election of a pope is a deeply consequential decision for the Catholic Church, whose followers number some 1.3 billion around the world, according to the Vatican.

The record and beliefs of the next man to take the mantle will be scrutinized for clues as to the church’s next move.

Francis’ election was seen as something of a surprise; the first non-European leader in centuries, whose approach to many social issues was less strict than that of his predecessors.

Though he did not radically alter Catholic practices, Francis surprised global observers with comments on homosexuality and the death penalty that were far more accepting than Benedict XVI. Whether the cardinals choose to continue down that path, or revert towards a hardline interpreter of biblical teachings, will be one question that hangs over the election.

The consuming abuse scandal is another. In 2013, a group representing survivors of sexual abuse by priests named a “Dirty Dozen” list of cardinals it said would be the worst candidates for pope based on their handling of child sex abuse claims or their public comments about the cases.

All but one have aged out of eligibility or died, but undoubtedly the track record of the next pontiff when it comes to responding to and dealing with allegations of abuse will be pored over.

Pope Francis, the first Latin-American pontiff, renowned for his outspoken advocacy for the poor and insistence on a more welcoming Catholic Church, has died at the age of 88.

Francis was a pope of firsts – the first pontiff from the global south, the first Jesuit to be chosen as leader of the Catholic Church and the first to call himself Francis. Before taking up office, he had never lived or worked in Rome. A disruptor and outsider to the church’s establishment, his reforms faced strong resistance from powerful minorities within Catholicism and political forces without.

Francis spent his final days in service of the church, participating as much as he could in the celebration of Easter, the high point of the Christian calendar. He was unable to lead the main Holy Week services but appeared in a wheelchair on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to wish worshippers a happy Easter Sunday.

To most believers, he will be remembered as a pastorally sensitive leader who sought to re-connect the church with the essentials of the Christian faith. Francis sought to follow his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century Italian friar renowned for poverty, peace, and care of creation.

He made defense of the planet, the plight of migrants and building peace through dialogue the pillars of his papacy and sought to live out his vision of a humbler church, opting to reside not in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace but in its guesthouse, Casa Santa Marta.

On the night of his election on March 13, 2013, Pope Francis set the tone for his pontificate.

“Let us pray for the whole world, that there may be a great spirit of fraternity,” he said from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

He stayed true to those words, encouraging all people, no matter their religion or race, to remember their common humanity. Francis was a bridge builder, seeking to work with all faiths and denominations.

He inherited a Vatican in crisis. Benedict XVI had taken the shock decision to resign after being unable to implement reforms of the church’s central government, the Roman Curia. Abuse scandals had rocked the church, while regulators had identified serious failures with the Vatican Bank.

Francis moved swiftly to overhaul the bank and the management of Vatican finances. His papacy saw the first cardinal prosecuted and convicted for financial crimes in a Vatican court. He issued a new constitution for the Roman Curia and embarked on a mission to reform the church’s internal culture from an overly hierarchical model to one of inclusivity.

He alarmed Vatican officials by speaking off-the-cuff at audiences, holding freewheeling press conferences at the back of his papal plane and using straightforward, sometimes salty, language.

His persistent critiques of church “elites” and those who held onto “backward” ideologies meant he developed some powerful enemies, particularly among conservative US groups. While some cardinals had voted for “Jorge Bergoglio,” the Argentine with a reputation as a tough, austere Jesuit, they had not expected that the unpredictable “Pope Francis” would emerge to set the church on a path of profound renewal.

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods,” Francis said soon after his election. Although he spoke out against abortion, he focused on other subjects, changing Catholic teaching to insist that the death penalty is “inadmissible” and possession of nuclear weapons immoral. He criticized global inequalities, stating, “such an economy kills,” and called on rich countries to do more to tackle the climate crisis.

Francis was also willing to admit his mistakes, and these included his handling of the clerical sexual abuse scandals, the biggest crisis to hit the Catholic Church in 500 years. He spoke out on abuse, met with victims and issued a string of church laws designed to tackle it. But there were times when he was slow to act. Victims’ groups will be looking to his successor to ensure the church follows through with the changes he began.

Early life

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires to parents of Italian descent.

The oldest of five children, the pope often mentioned fond memories of a close-knit family and of how his Italian grandmother shaped his faith. His paternal grandparents narrowly escaped a deadly shipwreck when they migrated from Italy to Argentina, an experience that no doubt influenced his advocacy for those making perilous journeys across the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe.

When he was 16, Bergoglio had a profound experience during confession which convinced him to train for the priesthood. He entered the seminary but three years later started training to become a Jesuit, the religious order renowned for its missionary work. A gifted leader in 1973, at the young age of 36, he was appointed head of the Jesuit order in Argentina, a position he would hold until 1979.

During that time, the repressive military junta in the country began its “Dirty War,” making around 30,000 dissenters disappear, including Jesuits working with the poor in the Buenos Aires slums.

Bergoglio would later face allegations that he collaborated with the dictatorship, claims that haunted him right up until his election as pope. Two fellow Jesuits, Franz Jalics and Orlando Yorio, accused him of turning them in when they were kidnapped and tortured by the regime in 1976. As time passed, however, evidence emerged that Bergoglio worked consistently to help those who opposed the dictatorship. Italian journalist Nello Scavo reported that he saved more than 100 people during the Dirty War while Jalics also withdrew his claim, celebrating mass with Francis in Rome in 2013.

Tensions within the order, however, culminated in his “exile,” as in 1990 he was sent 500 miles away to Cordoba with no fixed assignment. But he later described his two-year spell in the wilderness as a transformative experience.

From Buenos Aires to the Vatican

In 1992, Bergoglio was appointed an assistant (auxiliary) bishop of Buenos Aires, and five years later became archbishop. He would regularly take the metro to visit the city’s poorest areas, lived in a simple apartment rather than the archbishop’s palace and turned his predecessor’s stately office into a storeroom for food and clothes for the poor.

He was made a cardinal in 2001 and soon became a prominent national church leader. Although he tended to avoid Rome, Bergoglio began to be noticed by his fellow cardinals and was considered as a candidate to succeed John Paul II at the 2005 conclave. However, according to one account, he withdrew his candidacy so as not to prolong the election.

By the time of the 2013 conclave, the then 76-year-old had one eye on retirement and was no longer seen as a frontrunner for the papacy.

But during the pre-conclave meetings, he delivered an electrifying speech warning that a church which turns inwards becomes sick and narcissistic. His humility, simple lifestyle, and closeness to the marginalized in society also gained him support.

When Bergoglio was chosen, the cardinal next to him, Claudio Hummes of Brazil, hugged him and said, “Don’t forget the poor.” He later said Hummes’s words inspired him to take the name Francis after St. Francis of Assisi. He rejected papal finery, opting for plain black shoes and the same silver pectoral cross and ring that he had used as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He would go on to set up dorms, shower rooms and a barbershop for the homeless at the Vatican. A new era of papal simplicity had begun.

Advocacy for migrants

After reading about migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Francis decided his first trip would be to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a gateway for many seeking refuge in Europe. He tried to book a plane ticket for himself, but the airline informed the Vatican that someone claiming to be the pope was trying to travel with them.

An official trip was arranged, during which he celebrated Mass on an altar made from recycled migrant boats and condemned global indifference to refugees. He would make advocacy for migrants a constant theme, urging every Catholic community across the world to host one family of new arrivals.

Francis practiced what he preached and, in 2016, after visiting the Greek island of Lesbos, brought back 12 Muslim refugees on his papal plane. Francis likened migrant detention centers in Libya to “concentration camps” and, in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election, described Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall as “not Christian.” The pope sent an extraordinary rebuke of Trump’s immigration deportation policies where he rebutted Vice President JD Vance’s attempt to use theology to justify the crackdown.

His interventions set him on a collision course with right-wing populist politicians, but he always insisted that his motivation was the Christian teaching to welcome “the stranger.”

Environmental and peacebuilding efforts

Francis’ interventions on the environment were intertwined with his concern for the poorest, who he saw as suffering the worst impacts of climate disasters while wealthier countries refused their fair share of the burden. He discussed the “right of the environment” at the United Nations, released two encyclicals urging action at UN climate talks, and announced plans to include “ecological sin” in official Catholic teaching.

The pope’s appeals often received a warm reception from non-Catholic politicians and policymakers. But he also ran into opposition, including from some in the US Republican Party – former presidential contenders Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum both publicly criticized his calls. And when the pope convened a bishops’ summit about the Amazon, Brazilian security services monitored preparations, viewing it as a rebuke to the policies of the then right-wing populist president, Jair Bolsonaro. Francis, however, never seemed overly perturbed.

Nine days after his election, Francis told diplomats gathered in the Vatican that he wanted to be a builder of bridges across religions and create “authentic fraternity” throughout humanity.

He focused on the relationship with the Muslim world, seeking to repair ties that had become strained during the Benedict XVI pontificate. He worked closely with Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb, a leading Sunni authority, signing a landmark declaration with him on “Human Fraternity” during a trip to the United Arab Emirates, the first visit by a pontiff to the Arabian Peninsula. He made a daring trip to Iraq amid the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, meeting Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of the world’s Shia Muslims.

During a trip to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, Francis signed another interfaith declaration when he met the Grand Imam of the country at the Istiqlal Mosque, Jakarta, which is linked to the Catholic cathedral opposite by a “tunnel of friendship.” The trip was the first stop in a marathon tour of southeast Asia and the Pacific, which saw him highlight interfaith co-operation and the growing importance of the region for global Catholicism.

Francis’ belief in dialogue bore some fruit in 2015 when he acted as a mediator between Cuba and the US, helping in the re-establishment of diplomatic relations.

But amid an eruption in global conflicts, the pope was something of a voice crying out in the wilderness.

He repeatedly urged a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, and met with families of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, as well as those caught up in the Israeli assault in Gaza. “This is not war. This is terrorism,” he said. Francis insisted peace would only come through a two-state solution. As conflict raged across the Middle East, the pope insisted that war is always a “defeat” and that a use of force in self-defense that is not proportionate is “immoral.”

However, his attempts to create space for dialogue also saw him criticized following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as he generally avoided naming President Vladimir Putin, and Russia, as the aggressor.

The pope remained in contact with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meeting him in the Vatican in May 2023 and in October 2024, and more than once broke down in tears publicly as he talked about the suffering of people in Ukraine.

But he also sparked anger in Kyiv after saying Ukraine should have the “courage of the white flag” and negotiate to end the war with Russia.

Reforms and resistance

Early on, Francis insisted he wanted a church that was “bruised, hurting and dirty” because it was out on the streets, rather than one that had become “unhealthy from being confined” and “clinging to its own security.” The manifesto for his papacy, found in the document “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), warned against the church remaining bound up in outdated structures and customs or using rules to turn believers into “harsh judges.”

The pope’s signature reform was in his desire for a more credible church that was able to listen and understand the culture in which it operated. He began an ambitious, multi-year renewal process which sought to involve all the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, and where topics including the role of women, celibacy for priests, church teaching on sex and the use of power were addressed. The backdrop was the clerical sexual abuse crisis, which exposed crimes against minors and the misuse of power and cover-ups.

Francis also wanted to find ways to include Catholics who had divorced and remarried and so were prohibited from receiving communion. He later said they were permitted to receive the sacrament on a case-by-case basis. He also ushered in restrictions to the celebration of the traditional Latin mass, which he argued was being used to undermine church unity.

But these moves sparked criticism among some Catholics who accused the pope of undermining doctrine and tradition. Much of the resistance came from a vocal minority in the US, and across the English-speaking world. But he was never swayed. “I pray that there will not be schisms,” he said in 2019. “But I am not afraid.”

The most dangerous period for Francis began on a 2018 visit to Ireland, the ground zero of the clerical sexual abuse crisis. Mid-way through, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal ambassador to the US, released a dossier claiming Francis had for years failed to deal with allegations of sexual misconduct against then Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington D.C., whom the pope had recently removed from public ministry and ordered to face a church trial. Viganò took the unheard-of step of calling for Francis to resign. The pope responded with silence, refusing to be drawn on the subject by journalists. Several American bishops, however, issued statements supporting Viganò.

The pope commissioned a Vatican investigation into the McCarrick case and Viganò’s claims. Its findings cleared Francis in 2020 but found that members of the church hierarchy – including former popes – were warned about McCarrick’s sexual impropriety. Viganò, who became associated with conspiracy theories involving the coronavirus and what he called the “great reset,” was excommunicated by the Vatican for schism after he rejected the authority of the pope and key Catholic teachings.

In 2022, a small group of cardinals sent him a series of questions – known as “dubia,” or doubts – viewed as an extraordinary public challenge to his authority. The cardinal leading the charge was US prelate Raymond Burke, previously leader of the church’s supreme court. The pope eventually removed Burke’s subsidized Vatican apartment and salary.

While conservatives tried to paint Francis as a “woke pope,” some Catholic progressives felt his changes did not go far enough. He insisted the door was closed on the ordination of women as priests and held back from allowing married men to be ordained.

Sexual abuse scandals

Francis revealed a surprising blind spot on the abuse crisis. He did not talk very much about it in the early months of his pontificate. When he did, in 2014, he appeared defensive, insisting that “no one else has done more” to root out abuse than the church.

Amid a growing scandal in Chile, he initially refused to believe that Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno had covered up for a notorious abuser and said the allegations were “slander.” He later commissioned an investigation and made a heartfelt apology, admitting to survivors that he, too, “was part of the problem.”

On a visit to Belgium, where clerical sexual abuse scandals had been the subject of two parliamentary inquiries, the pope was told in frank terms by the country’s then prime minister to take concrete action.

Despite mistakes, Francis took concerted steps on abuse, including holding a Vatican summit where survivors addressed cardinals and bishops and made recommendations. It led to the pope issuing new norms for handling abuse allegations. The pope established the Holy See’s first pontifical commission for the protection of minors, although it struggled to find its place within the church’s central government and saw both a survivor and prominent expert resign in frustration.

“There is no doubt that the child sex abuse scandals are the central stain on his legacy,” said Vatican analyst and editor of Crux, John Allen.

“Over and over again, Pope Francis said the right things, he met with victims, he expressed heartfelt sorrow, he expressed resolve to get this right, but you know most critics, many victims would say that wasn’t matched with a policy of follow-through,” Allen added.

Same-sex relationships

In 2023, the pope authorized blessings for same-sex couples, a landmark decision that sparked contrasting reactions.

While many welcomed it, bishops in Africa said they would not perform them, saying it would contradict the “cultural ethos of African communities.” The pope accepted their reasoning but responded firmly to what he described as “small ideological groups” who opposed the move. “No one is scandalized if I give a blessing to an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people: and that is a most serious sin. Whereas they are scandalized if I give it to a homosexual… This is hypocrisy!”

The pope sought to avoid judgmental attitudes on people’s personal lives, and although he did not formally change doctrine on same-sex relationships – and apologized after reportedly using a derogatory word when talking about admitting gay men to study for the priesthood – he made some significant updates to the church’s position, including showing support for the legal recognition of gay couples and condemning the criminalization of homosexuality in Africa.

His insistence that LGBTQ+ people were “children of God” and welcome in the church went some way to healing the hurt many gay Catholics felt after the harsh treatment of the past.

Pandemic pope

During the coronavirus pandemic, Francis started livestreaming his services, including his early morning Masses, to which an estimated 500,000 people tuned in each day.

Francis understood that a potent image can express more than a thousand words. Early in the pandemic, as people around the world were under lockdowns, he walked out into a deserted St. Peter’s Square. As the rain came down, he led a short service and at the end raised a gold monstrance and blessed the world. It remained one of the enduring images of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Francis did not sit still during the lockdowns. He co-authored a book, “Let Us Dream,” which offered a blueprint for a post-pandemic world and argued for a Universal Basic Income. The pope also appealed to Catholics to get vaccinated, called on richer countries to share their vaccines with developing nations and offered the Vatican’s Pfizer shots to 1,800 homeless and underprivileged people in Rome.

After his own bouts of illness, Francis, renowned for his humor and who once hosted a meeting of comedians in the Vatican, would joke that he was “still alive” when asked how he was.

As pope, he ended each meeting asking people to “pray for me.” Millions around the globe are now likely to be doing so for a leader who strove to leave the world, and the church, in a better place.