This work of mercy

By James E. Wermers

In the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis offered a prayer that named with clarity what so much of the world forgets: “You are the visible face of the invisible Father, of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy.” That line lingers — not just as a theological claim, but as a challenge to how we live, how we lead, how we love. In his years as pope, Pope Francis tried to make that vision visible. He refused the trappings of power in favor of its quieter strength. He called the Church to the margins — not as a gesture, but as a posture. And in a time when so many institutions reached for control, he reached instead for mercy.

Pope Francis has died, and the Church now enters a moment of transition. His papacy was not perfect — no human project is — but it was unmistakably oriented toward the Gospel’s most radical demands. He led with tenderness in a time of suspicion. He spoke of accompaniment rather than judgment. He reminded us that doctrine untethered from mercy becomes abstraction, and that the credibility of the Church depends less on its proclamations than on its presence. These choices were not neutral. In an era defined by exclusion, by border walls and nationalist rhetoric, by the temptation to consolidate power under the guise of strength, Pope Francis chose another way. He did not shout down authoritarianism, but he stood in contrast to it. And in doing so, he invited the rest of us to do the same.

Already, attention is turning to what comes next. That instinct is understandable — transitions invite speculation. But if we rush too quickly toward the future, we risk missing the invitation of this moment. The most faithful response to Pope Francis’s papacy is not to hope for another just like him, but to carry forward what he made possible. Mercy is not the possession of a single pontiff. It is a discipline of presence, of attention, of refusing to abandon the vulnerable when it would be easier to look away. The work ahead is not to ask who the next pope will be. It is to ask who we are becoming.

Pope Francis never claimed that mercy was easy. He spoke often of the need to move toward others despite discomfort, to risk proximity. “Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the joy of evangelization,” he wrote in Evangelii Gaudium, but that joy, he insisted, was never triumphal. It was found in “the smell of the sheep,” in the labor of being with people as they are, not as we wish them to be. That is the kind of Church he envisioned: one that errs on the side of welcome, that walks into brokenness instead of circling around it.

The vision Pope Francis offered was never abstract. It stood in contrast to the world that was — and is — taking shape around us. A world increasingly defined by isolation and suspicion. A world that rewards cruelty when it’s cloaked in moral certainty. Against that backdrop, Pope Francis insisted that another way was possible. He pointed to a Church that does not cling to status or self-protection, but moves outward —“a field hospital after battle,” as he once described it. In that image, we find the challenge and the promise: to be people who treat wounds, not categorize them.

This call to mercy was not limited to words. Pope Francis lived it in gestures — some symbolic, some quietly personal. He washed the feet of prisoners and migrants. He opened the doors of the Vatican to the homeless. He visited Lampedusa, the slums of Rio, war-torn Mosul. These were not detours. They were the road itself. “A little bit of mercy,” he once said, “makes the world less cold and more just.” It was never just about pity. It was about proximity.

That sense of shared responsibility extended to his vision of synodality — walking together, listening across difference, allowing the Spirit to speak through the whole People of God. This was not a procedural adjustment. It was a theological claim: that mercy is not something dispensed from on high, but discerned in community. “In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples,” Pope Francis wrote. In a time when power is often hoarded and defended, he entrusted it. That trust, that shared discernment, is part of the legacy we are now called to carry.

Mercy doesn’t always look like agreement or resolution. Sometimes it’s handing a meal to someone you’ve been taught to avoid. Sometimes it’s showing up for a parish listening session when you’re sure no one there sees the Church the way you do. And sometimes it’s just staying in the conversation — when someone says something that makes your chest tighten, when it would be easier to walk away. That’s the one I struggle with most. I want to be right. I want to win. But Pope Francis reminded us again and again that Jesus didn’t wait for Zacchaeus to repent before going to his house. He simply went. That kind of mercy doesn’t excuse injustice. It just refuses to give up on the person. And it is in those small, stubborn acts of presence that a Church of the wounded begins to take shape.

At St. Mary’s Basilica in Phoenix, where I serve as a catechist and livestream director, I’ve seen how these small acts matter. Whether it’s walking with someone new to the Church or sitting quietly with a parishioner facing loss, mercy often shows itself in presence, not pronouncement. Pope Francis helped us see that. He reminded us that the Church isn’t called to win arguments, but to remain with the wounded.

That witness isn’t limited to individual acts. St. Mary’s Basilica has long been a home for institutional mercy too — from the founding of St. Mary’s Food Bank, which became the first of its kind in the world, to the ongoing work of our St. Vincent de Paul conference, one of the largest and most active in global Catholic charity. These efforts aren’t new, but Pope Francis helped us see them differently — not as service projects, but as signs of what the Church is at its best: a place where mercy takes on structure, permanence, and daily life.

We do not need to wait for another pope like him. What we can do — what Pope Francis showed us — is walk: not with triumph, but with tenderness. To walk toward the wounded and the overlooked. To walk together even when it’s difficult, even when we disagree. That is the path he traced — not a march of certainty, but a movement of mercy. May we walk in mercy, as he walked before us — toward the God who forgives first, and loves still.

James E. Wermers is a clinical associate professor in the humanities at Arizona State University and a lifelong Catholic, husband, and father. He serves as an active parishioner, catechist, and livestream director at St. Mary’s Basilica in Phoenix, Arizona.