And for some more perspective on the life and legacy of Pope Francis, we turn now to Reverend Thomas Rees,

senior analyst for Religion News Service, and author of Inside the Vatican, the politics and organization of the Catholic Church.

Father Rees, welcome back to the News Hour. Thanks for joining us.

Good to be with you.

So Francis was a lot of firsts, as we just heard there,

the first Jesuit Pope, the first Latin American Pope, the first non-European Pope and more than a

millennium. How did all of those firsts translate into his worldview and how he led? What he sought to do

with his time in the papacy?

Well, I think his background really helped shape his papacy.

Coming from the global south, of course, he was very interested in issues of justice and peace.

He was really concerned about the impact of globalization on poor people around the world. He was concerned about migrants and refugees that had to flee from war zones and poverty in the global South. And he was

very concerned about how they were treated when they came north. So these are the kinds of things that

had an impact on him that came

from his personal background of coming from the Global South itself.

He was seen by many as a progressive to some degree, but it's fair to say that even

many liberals were disappointed, that he didn't break from previous stances of the church

on things like abortion and birth control

or women joining the clergy. In a call on today, though, you called him revolutionary in every other

way. How so? Well, I think that's true. He didn't change any doctrine, but he certainly changed the

culture of the church. He hated clericalism. He told bishops and priests not to act like princes,

but to get down with their people and listen to them and care for them. He also was very happy

with having debate and discussion in the church. That may have come from his Jesuit background. Because in the previous

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