When the late Pope Francis first stepped on to the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica following his election 12 years ago, he remarked that he had been called almost from the “end of the world”. He was the first non-European pontiff since Gregory III, elected in AD731, who was of Syrian origin. And he was the first pope in history to come from Latin America.
This is not merely a biographical detail. His papacy was transformative in shaping a Catholic Church that was not focused solely on Europe. He shifted its attention from the old continent to the world’s peripheries, aspiring to create a truly global church.
