Thousands gathered Wednesday at Holy Name Cathedral in River North to celebrate the life and legacy of Pope Francis. 

But what is that legacy? 

Among progressives and conservatives alike, Francis was renowned for his humility.

Michael Stage, DePaul junior and member of Catholic Campus Ministry, reflected on Francis’ humility and humanity. 

“People who are here to serve the kingdom of God, we should hope that they’re truly expressing that willingness to serve, and that willingness to be humble before their brothers and sisters,” Stage said. “And I think that Pope Francis just had such a good way of doing that.”

In his life and ministry, Francis opted for profound actions while maintaining an air of outward simplicity. 

For instance, when he was elected pope in 2013, he chose to reside in a modest suite at Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse, rather than the papal apartments at the Apostolic Palace. He also often wore a simple white cassock with black shoes. Francis’ predecessor Pope Benedict XVI often wore red patent leather loafers. 

Francis carries on this humility in death, insisting he be buried in a simple wooden coffin at the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, instead of St. Peter’s Basilica where nearly 90 previous popes are buried. 

“The Vatican is the home of my last service, not my eternal home,” Francis wrote in his 2025 memoir, “Hope: The Autobiography.”

Francis may have had a desire to separate himself from the pomp and circumstance that traditionally accompanies the role of Pontiff, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t make waves in his 12 years at the Vatican.

DePaul junior John Kaiser attended mass at Holy Name to memorialize Francis who he said, “brought new life into the Catholic Church, more openness, brought an advocacy for the poor that I don’t think we’ve seen in the last papacies.”

Stage, the other DePaul student, pointed to Francis’ advocacy for peace in Gaza as another shining moment of his recent work as Pope.

“He called the ministry in Gaza every night even during his spell of being ill,” Stage said. “To be in that much pain and yet to find the heart and the humility and the grace to know that people are out there suffering more than me.”

The Rev. Christopher Robinson, Vincentian priest and adjunct faculty at DePaul, said Francis made lasting change in the church. 

“He’s named women to some of the most powerful positions in the Vatican, his outreach to migrants and immigrants is extraordinary,” Robinson said. “He actually says that not caring for the environment is sinful. So he’s elevated environmental urgency”

In 2015, Francis published a papal encyclical titled “Laudato Si,” translated to “On care for our common home.” This publication was a watershed moment in Francis’ early papacy in which he criticized the global culture of consumption and urged global action to combat climate change and its effects on the most vulnerable. 

Francis also built bridges with the LGBTQ+ community. He made waves just over a year ago when he reversed a 2021 Vatican policy forbidding religious blessings for same-sex couples. Though he did not change church doctrine that bans gay marriage, many took this as a step in the right direction of tolerance.

“That was a huge step that could not be revoked easily without causing great, great scandal and division,” Robinson said. “He’s positioned the church, and he’s positioned the next pope to take some of the things he did just a little bit further. It would be very difficult to go backwards.”

While Francis is widely viewed as the most progressive pontiff in recent memory, some more liberal Catholics expressed disappointment that Francis did not go farther to explicitly change certain Church doctrine. 

Robinson said the Women’s Ordination Conference — a progressive organization aimed at granting women the right to become priests in the Catholic Church — were grateful for Francis’ openness to dialogue, but disheartened by a lack of change. 

“While we will continue to experience the gifts of Pope Francis’ openness to reform, we lament that this did not extend to an openness to the possibility of women in ordained ministry. His repeated ‘closed door’ policy on women’s ordination was painfully incongruous with his otherwise pastoral nature,” read a statement from the Women’s Ordination Conference after Francis’ death. 

Robinson said the pope’s duty to minister to many nations and many people makes blanket popularity difficult. 

“He was not the unifier that we thought he might be. That said, there are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, and he can’t make them all happy,” he said. 

Robinson added that the areas of the world where the church is growing are largely socially conservative and “not ready” for big changes like women priests and a total embrace of homosexual unions. 

“That said, with synods and all kinds of things, he has certainly elevated the voice of women to be part of the conversation,” Robinson said. “So I do think there was teeny, tiny little progress.”

Robinson said whoever succeeds Francis as the next pontiff will have big shoes to fill. Robinson is of two minds when it comes to who he thinks this next pope will be. 

“I suspect the next pope will probably be European, and probably be just a little bit more moderate than Francis, but kind of an interim Pope that’ll allow us to really figure out how to take Francis’s legacy and do something with it,” he said. 

That’s what the logical side of Robinson tells him. 

“The film ‘Conclave’ part of my mind thinks that it could be Cardinal Tagley from the Philippines. I think that would be a stunning, stunning choice, and would continue to take the church down the road that Francis put us on,” Robinson said.

Francis appointed 108 of the 135 cardinals eligible to vote for the next pope in the papal conclave, so it is likely his vision will continue to shape the future of the church as a medieval institution serving a modern world. 

It was Francis’ embrace of the future and modernity that brought Kaiser, the DePaul student, to celebrate the late pontiff last Wednesday. 

“The word that comes to mind is hopeful,” Kaiser said. “I think he had a good optimism and hope for what the future of the world and the future of the church can hold.”

Related Stories: 

• Pope Francis, first pontiff from Latin America, dead at 88
• Cardinal Blase Cupich: ‘We are a nation of immigrants and should be proud of that’
• Buddhism offers students and Chicagoans a path to reflect, practice and find peace