The death of Pope Francis silences a powerful — and increasingly solitary — voice for peace, equality, and disenfranchised people in the face of a growing threat from authoritarianism and climate change.

The pope strived to be a compassionate force for good, and a unifier at a time when many world leaders — including President Donald Trump — are stoking hate and division.

Indeed, everything about Francis, 88, was the opposite of Trump’s worldview. He demonstrated the traits of a true leader through his focus on justice, empathy, and inclusivity.

Francis explained his leadership style this way in 2018: “Bosses cannot always do what they want. They have to convince.” To do that, the pope lived by Jesus’ teaching of the Golden Rule to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

He disdained displays of wealth and material possessions while visiting slums, caring for the sick, and welcoming those often demonized as “the other.”

The pope lived in a simple two-room apartment and shared communal meals rather than the traditional trappings of the papal palace. Just days ago, on Holy Thursday, Francis visited a prison and washed the feet of a dozen inmates to reenact Christ’s gesture of humble service when he washed the feet of his apostles before his crucifixion.

Francis believed in science, urging people to get vaccinated during the pandemic, and warned about the existential threat from climate change. He said the “Earth is sick,” and called for “social, economic, and political” actions to protect the planet.

During his first trip to the United States in 2015, he drove in a compact car rather than a gas-guzzling motorcade of SUVs, and occasionally rode public transportation. More recently, the Popemobile went electric.

Francis, the first Jesuit and first pope from Latin America, was at his best speaking up for the powerless and the poor, especially migrants in search of freedom from dictators and a better life. In a letter to U.S. bishops, he criticized Trump’s deportation of migrants.

The pope’s final Easter epistle contained several powerful messages for world leaders, namely Trump. He called on leaders “to reject dangerous and destabilizing actions” and urged peace in Ukraine and Gaza.

The pope said there can be no peace “without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and respect for the views of others.” He appealed to “those in positions of political responsibility” not to “yield to the logic of fear,” which “leads to isolation.”

Francis also denounced the “contempt” aimed at “the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants” and called on everyone “to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves.”

It was a stark contrast from Trump, who skipped church (again) on Easter, and instead went on an unhinged rant of 20 social media posts railing against “radical left lunatics,” China, critics of his harmful tariffs, and a federal judge who blocked his inhumane deportations of Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran prison.

Throughout his papacy, Francis tried to be more inclusive and welcoming of others with differing views. He opened the church to women and LGBTQ people. When asked about gay people in the church, he famously said, “Who am I to judge?”

The pope declared the Catholic Church open to everyone and allowed priests to bless same-sex marriages, but did not move as quickly or as far as many would have liked. Nor did he change the church’s doctrine, which calls homosexuality “intrinsically disordered.”

Francis had a mixed record when it came to confronting the priest sexual abuse scandal and cover-up that has roiled the Catholic Church from Philadelphia to Rome.

He declared an “all-out” battle against abuse, and updated the church’s criminal code to include sexual abuse by priests, but offered few specifics. In 2019, he defrocked former U.S. cardinal Theodore McCarrick after he was found guilty by a Vatican court of sexually abusing a teenager in the 1970s.

In the end, many abuse survivors said he did not do enough to expose the decades-long cover-up, root out problem priests, or implement systemic change.

But Francis faced a church that remains slow to change and is divided between reformers and hard-line conservatives — especially in the United States.

That will be the challenge for the next pope. Will he try to take the church backward, or continue on Francis’ path of compassion, equity, and justice?

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