Christopher Hale writes:

But Francis didn’t just lead the Catholic Church. He invited the world to follow a different kind of leadership, one built on humility, not hubris.

Now, as the world grieves, the urgent question is not how we will remember Pope Francis, but how we will live because of him.

From the first hours of his papacy, Pope Francis signaled a change. He declined the luxurious Apostolic Palace in favor of a modest guesthouse. He swapped the papal limousine for a Ford Focus. He paid his own hotel bill the night he became pope. And when he visited Washington, D.C., he skipped a power lunch with lawmakers to share a meal with the homeless.

These were not gestures of political theater. They were acts of conscience.

Francis believed that credibility doesn’t come from prestige—it comes from proximity to suffering. He called priests to carry “the smell of the sheep.” He lived what he preached.

He didn’t seek to be a celebrity pope. In a cynical age starving for integrity, the authenticity of his life spoke louder than any sermon.

Early in his papacy, Francis was asked about gay priests. His response—”Who am I to judge?”—reverberated across the globe. It marked a dramatic shift in tone and posture. He wasn’t rewriting doctrine, but he was rewriting the conversation: less fear, more welcome. Less condemnation, more encounter.

Over and over again, Francis extended this logic of mercy. He insisted the Church should be a “field hospital,” where wounds are tended before rules are recited. He declared that “the Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine for the weak.”

And when asked who belongs in the Church, he answered in Spanish, simply: “Todos, todos, todos”—everyone, everyone, everyone….

I’m a political operative, but let me clear: the defining struggle of our age is not political—it is spiritual.

It’s a contest between two models of leadership: one built on ego, and one built on empathy. One that clings to status, and one that stoops to serve. Pope Francis embodied the latter. Now it’s up to us to choose which one we carry forward.