Pope Francis receives a gift in 2022 from a refugee linked to the Centro Astalli (Jesuit Refugee Service Italy). Photo credit: Stefania Casellato/Jesuit Media/General Curia Communications Office
Canadian Jesuits International (CJI) joins the world in mourning the loss of Pope Francis, the beloved champion of the poor and oppressed. The Pope died on Easter Monday at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. He was 88.
As the international solidarity agency of the Jesuits of Canada supporting the poor and marginalized in the Global South, CJI honours the Pope’s work in highlighting the plight of the poor, the climate crisis and the urgent need for social justice.
CJI Executive Director Jenny Cafiso presents Pope Francis with a copy of the CJI newsletter during the 50th anniversary of the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat in 2019. Photo: Servizio Fotografico Vaticano
“Pope Francis challenged all of us Christians to serve rather than judge, to recognize the humanity of every person, to reject every form of exclusion and to work for a just world so that migrants, the poor and all those who are marginalized can live fully. He also called on us to respect our common home,” said CJI Executive Director Jenny Cafiso. “His leadership has inspired me to live fully the teachings of the Gospel.”
In his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis denounced inequality, “an economy of exclusion,” and a financial system “which rules rather than serves.”
“Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills,” said Pope Francis, who became the first Jesuit-Latin American pontiff in 2013.
The Pope called on political leaders and finance titans to shape economic policies that uphold “the dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good.”
Faith and love for the poor are inseparable, the Pope also said. “We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them.”
He asked every Christian and community to be “an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully a part of society.”
In the encyclical, Laudato si (Praise Be To You), also known as “On Care for Our Common Home,” the Pope laments the state of our planet and calls on everyone to protect it and “seek a sustainable and integral development.”
“The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” wrote the Pope. “Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last 200 years.”
He denounced the idea of infinite economic growth and unbridled consumerism, saying it is “based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry at every limit.”
The Pope also underscored the disproportionate effect of the climate crisis on the poor, especially those living in developing countries.
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The Jesuits of Canada and the U.S. Mourn the Death of Pope Francis
