What the late Pope Francis can teach us about the power of empathy

At a time of polarisation, othering and disinformation, Pope Francis made empathy his most powerful tool

This morning, attention will be focused on Rome, the eternal city, as world leaders gather to say farewell to Pope Francis. His funeral is expected to avoid some of the more ornate papal traditions and titles, reflecting in death how he behaved in life on St Peter’s throne.

Already Francis has rejected the three coffins of elm, lead and cypress in which popes have traditionally been interred, preferring instead a simple single coffin. It has also been reported that the funeral will avoid referring to the late Pope as the supreme monarch of the Vatican City state, but rather as the simpler, Bishop of Rome. This title was preferred by Francis, stressing the importance he attached to his pastoral responsibilities.

Read more here: In Pictures: Heads of State attend the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome as thousands gather

This is already part of his legacy. The late pontiff’s humility and empathy made him an effective global leader. Whereas some popes in the past may have embraced hard power (Julian II, who commissioned Michelangelo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel where next week’s conclave will take place, was famously known as the warrior pope), the modern Church’s power is very much of the soft variety.

Its continued relevance and the ability to win hearts and minds are reflected in today’s gathering, providing a further rebuke to Stalin’s dismissive quip around the number of divisions the pope has at his command, years after the Soviet Union disappeared.

The late Pope Francis greets the crowd during a surprise appearance in St Peter's Square earlier this month (Picture: Tiziana Fabi) | AFP via Getty Images

First non-European pope since 741

From the start, Francis understood the nature and power of the role into which he had been voted into by his fellow cardinals, and he got to work after taking a bus with those cardinals to settle his hotel bill. He had already made history by becoming the first non-European pope since Gregory III in 741 and the first in 600 years to assume the throne while his predecessor was alive.

However, it was in his choice of name that we got a clue this pope was to fully embrace the power of humility and empathy. It now seems surprising that, since St Francis of Assisi’s canonisation two years after his death, in 1228, no previous pope had chosen Francis. The saint is revered by Catholics for his care for the most vulnerable, including animals, and, crucially for his papal namesake, his concern for the poor.

He connected the challenges of climate change with those of the poor, understanding it is they who often suffer the most from extreme weather. At a time when climate denial is on the rise, he challenged that by tying in human action with the damage it has been doing to our shared planet – “the sister who now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her”.

I wonder if this morning in St Peter’s Square, President Trump will remember the gift that Pope Francis gave him in 2017 – a collection of his writings on the environment including his encyclical “care for our common home” on climate change.

A champion of refugees

It was Francis’s championing of refugees that was perhaps most powerful. Too often in our political discourse, those seeking refuge from war, environmental crises and human rights abuses are used as a political football. The debate about the small boats in the English Channel, the hounding of Gary Lineker for expressing his views on refugees. and disgraceful references to migrants and refugees during the Brexit debates are reflective of divisive politics worldwide.

When I was first elected in 2015 and making my initial speeches, in which I wanted to raise the plight of refugees, it was to Pope Francis that I turned for leadership. He understood the lack of empathy in debating and discussing the refugee crisis was poisoning our political discourse and providing challenges for the most desperate and to our own societies.

The Pope provided powerful leadership on this issue with his work with, support of and visits to refugees, including those on southern Italian islands, not least Lampedusa. He also prayed for the forgotten souls lost in the Mediterranean and elsewhere.

The Cross of Lampedusa – made from the wreck of a boat where refugees lost their lives – provides a penitential symbol of the ‘globalisation of indifference’ to refugees and is a powerful addition to the British Museum in London. It is also a symbol I will always associate with the late Holy Father.

His concern for Gaza

It was a mark of the man that, in his dying days, he even took to calling the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza, speaking out for the innocent victims of that latest conflict in the Holy Land just hours before his death.

None of this is to say that the Pope, like the Church he led, was perfect, which he would have been the first to admit. Too many people feel the Church is not for them and although there was some progress during Francis’s reign, there is still huge work to be done on the child abuse scandal and its victims who have been badly let down.

Today and over the coming days, the Church can reflect on how it can be better. It is an institution that thinks in terms of millennia and it is most certainly not a democracy. It does not need to respond, for good or ill, to public attitudes in the same way as those of us in elected office must. It has also been written that dead popes are more powerful than living ones, meaning swift changes can take time to come about.

Over the next few days, the Irish-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell will assume a position of power within the Vatican as the cardinals take on the awesome responsibility of electing a successor. However, for today, with world leaders gathered in Rome, we can remember a simple, imperfect man who, at a time of polarisation, othering and disinformation, made empathy his most powerful tool in a world that severely lacks that simple quality.

Stephen Gethins is the MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry