Pete Davis writes:

Twelve years ago, I was 23 and civically disappointed, bitterly coming to terms with the false promises of modern American politics and technology. None of the shiny paths forward that had been sold to our generation felt like they were heading anywhere good.

Then, out of nowhere, a surprise!

A world leader emerged who would illuminate a new path — one that led past our day’s deadened binaries toward a credible, living counterculture.

Nothing about Francis was as you would have expected. The young firebrand was 76 years old. The Bishop of Rome was a Jesuit from Latin America. He took as his name the patron saint of the poor and of ecology — and he worked to live up to his namesake from the get-go.

His vision for the church was neither progressive nor traditional — it was not primarily about ideology or even theology at all. (“We do not serve ideas, we serve people,” he would admonish ideologues.) Rather, his vision was about the structure of the church: Closeness, proximity was the goal. The work was to remove anything that stood in the way of the church being close to the people….

Francis’ papacy would rejuvenate that great Catholic word: Mercy. It was at the center of Francis’ vision for the church. What did it mean? Francis’ fellow Jesuit James F. Keenan has a lovely definition: Mercy is “a willingness to enter into the chaos of another.” It’s what God does for us (by accompanying us in our messy lives) and it’s what the church needs to do to fulfill its mission—by going out to the peripheries; by working in the streets; by being among, not above, the people.