A parishioner kneels in front of a portrait of Pope Francis at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco on April 21, 2025. Pope Francis, a progressive voice for the Roman Catholic Church who advocated for migrants and the marginalized, “was unique among popes,” Oakland Bishop Michael Barber said. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Updated 3:41 p.m. Monday
Bay Area priests are calling on the more than 1 million Catholics in the region, mourning Pope Francis, to carry on his legacy of mercy and compassion after his death early Monday.
Francis, a progressive voice for the Roman Catholic Church who spent his time in the Vatican advocating for migrants and the marginalized, died at 88 after a yearslong battle with his health. He was the first Latin American and first Jesuit priest to lead the church.
“He was unique among popes. One of a kind. He will be forever known as ‘the Pope of Mercy,’” Oakland Bishop Michael Barber said, recalling the pope’s declaration of a Holy Year of Mercy in 2016.
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Francis called on Catholics to value compassion for the marginalized and to reach out to people who might have been forgotten or felt pushed out by the church’s teachings.
Barber pointed to Francis’ final public address on Easter Sunday, just hours before his death, during which he called for mercy for migrants amid a wave of anti-immigration policy and sentiment, including from the U.S.
“How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants,” Francis said. “On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life and ideas.”
An altar for Pope Francis at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco on April 21, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
In 2016, during a visit to Mexico near the U.S. border, Francis said, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” He said at the time that the comment was not directed specifically toward President Donald Trump, who was in the midst of his first campaign, a pillar of which was building a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
“[Francis’] messages for peace, for consideration of the marginalized, those on the peripheries, immigrants, those that have no home — that will all go down in history and be remembered, and that will be carried on,” Barber said.
Those messages were certainly on the minds of the few dozen Catholics like Doreen Landry who attended a midday Mass honoring the pope in Oakland on Monday.
“You felt drawn in by his compassion, his sensitivity to the poor and the migrants to this country,” Landry, a social worker, said on her way into the Cathedral of Christ the Light. “In fact, he spoke to JD Vance allegedly about the unlawful deportation of migrants, which I am strongly against.”
Christina Fernandez, who said she grew in her relationship with her faith during Francis’ papacy, connected with, “in the political climate that we’re in, [his] speaking out against the oppression of people.”
“His humanity, his love for people,” she said through tears.
Francis was also an outspoken advocate for the environment. In his second papal letter, sent to bishops across the world in 2015, Francis called on Catholics to take urgent action to slow climate change and criticized the consumerism and economic development that have exacerbated it.
“Perhaps his most distinctive leadership will be his historic commitment to addressing the climate crisis,” Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, said Monday in a statement reflecting on Francis’ leadership. “In his ground-breaking encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis writes with beauty and clarity, with moral force and fierce urgency to call on all of us to be good stewards of God’s Creation.”
“His papacy was characterized by moral courage, a profound respect for all creation, and a deep conviction in the transformative power of love to heal and unite,” Newsom said in a statement.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, in a statement to his diocese on Monday, urged Catholics to “take inspiration from his words and example and put that inspiration into action.”
Pope Francis speaks to journalists during the papal flight direct to Rio de Janeiro on July 22, 2013. (Luca Zennaro/Pool Photo via AP)
“That is the greatest tribute we could give to him,” Cordileone said.
Barber said Francis’ 2016 proclamation of a Holy Year of Mercy “inspired an outpouring of charitable works and led to the reconciliation of thousands of Catholics with the Lord.”
“He tried to reconcile those who were estranged from God and from the church, and there was a great resolve,” Barber told KQED. “A lot of people came back to the church, a lot went to confession. There was just a whole lot of positive influence from that.”
Barber recalled traveling to Rome a few years ago, where he hoped to attend Francis’ private morning Mass, as many bishops do when they are close to the Vatican. But he was told the service was full — Francis “was inviting all the janitors in the Vatican to come to the Mass,” Barber said.
“I thought, ‘Wow, that’s great, better than me [being there]. Who’s ever thought of the janitors?’” Barber said. “And he’s done the same for street sweepers and others that he saw at the periphery, that were overlooked. I think that’s one of his greatest tributes.”
