From the narrow streets of Buenos Aires to the grand halls of the Vatican, Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s journey was one of destiny, sacrifice and an unrelenting pursuit of justice. A man who never sought power but wielded it with humility, his rise from a Jesuit priest to the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church was nothing short of extraordinary.
His calling was not marked by grandeur but by an intimate spiritual awakening in the quiet of a confessional on the feast of Saint Matthew. That moment set him on a path that would shake the foundations of the Church and challenge the complacency of a world in moral decay. As a young priest, he walked among the poor, spoke truth to power and led with the conviction that faith was not a shield for the privileged but a refuge for the forgotten. In the slums of Buenos Aires, he washed the feet of drug addicts and listened to the confessions of gang members who wept as they recounted their sins. To them, he was not a distant religious figure but a father, a friend, a man who saw them not as lost souls but as wounded children in need of grace.
When he ascended to the papacy in 2013, the world witnessed something unprecedented.A pope who declined lavish comforts, who rode in simple cars and who spoke from the streets, the prisons and the refugee camps rather than behind gilded walls. Who refused the palatial official accomodation for Popes,he chose a simple guest house instead.He became the Pope of the People, a relentless force of compassion tearing down barriers that had endured for centuries. He challenged the Vatican’s deep-rooted bureaucracy, demanded accountability for the sins of the clergy and extended a hand to those long shunned by the institution he led. His outspoken stance on climate change, economic inequality and migration angered the elite yet endeared him to the masses. He redefined the papacy by showing that true authority lies in service.
Despite his triumphs, Francis weathered storms that tested his endurance. The battle against clerical abuse within the Church was a painful reckoning that cost him allies and made him a target of fierce opposition. Yet he stood his ground, refusing to let the shadows of the past silence victims demanding justice. He reshaped doctrine by choosing mercy over judgment even when it divided the faithful. When he embraced a severely disfigured man in St Peter’s Square and pressed his lips to his scarred forehead, the world did not merely see a pontiff,they saw a man who carried others’ wounds as his own.
Even as he reshaped the Church’s role, Francis remained grounded in moments that revealed the essence of humanity. When a Syrian refugee child clutched his robe and sobbed, pleading to know why God allowed war, the Pope offered no answers, only a long embrace and whispered prayers. When he visited Lampedusa, the Italian island where thousands of migrants had drowned seeking a better life, he stood at the water’s edge and wept. Then, before the world, he tossed a wreath into the sea, an act so simple that its echo resonated more powerfully than any speech.
But time, the tireless adversary of all men, began to take its toll. In his final years, Francis carried his mission’s burden on a body that grew frailer by the day. His health battles were many, chronic pneumonia, surgeries, hospitalizations, each met with the quiet resilience that defined his reign. Even as he fought pneumonia, as his breath grew short and his steps slowed, he remained undaunted. From his hospital bed he continued his work, refusing to yield to age’s frailty. His aides recalled how, despite high fever and exhaustion, he insisted on reading reports on Gaza and Ukraine, dictating messages of peace when rest would have seemed wiser.
And then, on Resurrection Monday, the shepherd laid down his staff.
He died as he lived, with grace, devotion and unwavering belief in love and mercy. The world now mourns a pope who did not rule from a pedestal but walked among the people. The gold of his office may tarnish and the grand halls fall silent, but the imprint he left on hearts, on lives, on history will endure.
The Vatican had always been a place of mystery, authority and divine continuity. For over six hundred years the rules were clear, popes did not resign. They reigned until their final breath, their hands holding the keys of Saint Peter until the very end. Then, in 2013, something happened that shattered centuries of tradition. Pope Benedict XVI resigned. No scandal, no coup, no war. An old man in white simply acknowledged that he lacked strength to continue.
The world stood in stunned silence. The Catholic Church had never seen its like in modern times. Whispers circulated that Benedict was frail, overwhelmed by scandals, corruption and internal strife. Some claimed he had been pressured to step down, that the brilliant scholar no longer had the stomach for battle. Others accepted his explanation of weakness. Whatever the reason, the Vatican now faced a problem it never imagined. Two popes.
In came Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the man the cardinals elected as the 266th pontiff. A Jesuit from Argentina, he broke every mold. Where Benedict was an academic steeped in doctrine, Francis was a street priest. He rejected palatial apartments, rode in an unassuming car and spoke of a Church called to serve rather than lecture. The contrast was striking, one pope in quiet seclusion in the Vatican Gardens, the other electrifying the world.
Within months the strangeness became clear in a small chapel beneath frescoed ceilings. Pope Francis and the retired Benedict knelt together in prayer. Two men in white, one stooped with age, the other freshly anointed. The cameras recorded it, but in stillness the air bristled with unasked questions. Was this a gesture of unity or a subtle contest of wills?
It did not take long for fault lines to appear. The Vatican is more than a religious headquarters, it is a complex political engine. Inside its walls factions formed. Conservatives loyal to Benedict’s vision viewed Francis as a radical willing to bend ancient traditions. Progressives hailed him as a liberator of the Church’s spirit. Yet the true tension lay in unprecedented cohabitation, a sitting pope sharing a city-state with a retired one, both clad in white, one wielding authority, the other influence.
There were moments that felt like intrigue at the highest level. In 2019 a book defending priestly celibacy appeared just as Francis considered reforms that might allow married priests. Bearing Benedict’s name, the volume fueled rumors that the retired pope opposed his successor from behind the scenes. Vatican officials scrambled to contain speculation. Had Benedict truly lent his voice or was he a figurehead for ultra-conservatives? Power struggles disguised as theological debate were nothing new but had never played out with two living popes.
For all the tension, open conflict never broke out. Francis visited Benedict often, calling him wise, a grandfather. Benedict, for his part, refused the role of puppet. Once the Vatican’s rigid enforcer, he spent his final years in respectful silence. Some said he feared that speaking out might fracture the Church irreparably.
When Benedict XVI died on December 31, 2022, Francis presided over the funeral, a reigning pope laying to rest his predecessor in a rite unseen for centuries. Yet even that service was restrained, almost austere, stripped of the pomp once customary. No extended mourning, no global pageantry. The Vatican seemed determined to close the chapter on two popes.
But Benedict had forever altered the papacy by proving that retirement did not erase influence. What if future retired popes spoke out? What if the Church, once ruled like a monarchy, became contested ground for shadow rulers?
The tale of two popes transcended a simple handover of power. It became a story of faith entwined with ideology and the fragile equilibrium preserving an ancient institution. It showed that even the oldest customs can fracture and that once broken, the world they governed will never be quite the same again.
Francis is now gone but he will not be remembered for the gold of his throne.
He will be remembered for the dust on his shoes and the smell of the sheep.
Stephanie Shaakaa
University of Agriculture, Makurdi
Benue State.
