God’s Diplomat
How Pope Francis Reshaped Global Diplomacy from the Margins
On a rainy Roman evening in March 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio emerged on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and made an unexpected request: “I want to ask you a favor… I ask that you pray to the Lord to bless me.” It was a disarming moment; a new pope asking for prayers rather than giving them. But it was also a signal: this papacy would not follow the script.
With Pope Francis’s death on April 21, at age eighty-eight, the Vatican loses not just a spiritual leader but one of the most unlikely diplomats of the modern era. In an age of transactional politics and eroding institutions, Francis practiced a diplomacy rooted in moral imagination, spiritual credibility, and a preference for the world’s peripheries over its power centers. He was a man in white who spoke softly, but the world listened.
Diplomacy from the Edges
Francis understood that in a global order dominated by state interests, religious soft power still mattered—if wielded with subtlety. One of his earliest and most visible diplomatic successes came in 2014, when he helped broker the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba. After decades of Cold War enmity, it wasn’t sanctions or summits that thawed relations; it was letters, quietly exchanged, and a Vatican room where adversaries sat face to face.
His approach was neither neutral nor naïve. Francis believed that moral authority, unencumbered by national interest, could succeed where traditional diplomacy stalled. He offered not solutions, but space—an opening in which hardened positions could soften, if only slightly. It was diplomacy by dislocation: removing the process from familiar battlegrounds and relocating it, symbolically and literally, to the sacred.
Pilgrim of Peace
If John Paul II was the globe-trotting pope, Francis was the papal first responder—traveling not to exalt the Church’s influence, but to bear witness in places where others had turned away. In 2021, he traveled to Iraq—becoming the first pope to do so—walking through the ruins of Mosul and leading an interfaith service near the birthplace of Abraham. It was a diplomatic act by presence alone, acknowledging the wounds of war without apportioning blame.
He repeated this pattern in Myanmar and Bangladesh, where he met with Rohingya refugees and used the word “Rohingya” publicly only when standing with them, breaking with his hosts’ preferences. In South Sudan, in a desperate gesture for peace, he knelt to kiss the feet of warring leaders.
None of these visits yielded immediate breakthroughs. That wasn’t the point. Francis’s diplomacy was less about deals and more about conscience. He reframed crises as moral imperatives and located the sacred in the political.
The Vatican as Global Intermediary
Under Francis, the Vatican became not just a religious headquarters, but a nimble diplomatic actor—an old institution repurposed for modern peacemaking. He elevated the role of the Secretariat of State and relied on quiet channels, leveraging centuries of ecclesiastical relationships. He spoke to Vladimir Putin before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though his efforts there remained clouded by cautious Vatican neutrality.
In Colombia, the Church facilitated aspects of the peace process with FARC rebels. In the Central African Republic, he celebrated Mass amid armed conflict, giving credibility to efforts at national reconciliation. His consistent theme: peace is not the absence of war but the presence of dignity.
He also applied this philosophy to climate diplomacy. With Laudato Si’, his landmark encyclical on the environment, Francis gave spiritual legitimacy to the global climate movement, influencing the Paris Agreement and reframing ecological degradation as both a scientific and a moral crisis.
A Diplomatic Ethic of Mercy
Francis’s diplomacy had less to do with strategy than with anthropology. His core belief was that every person—no matter how compromised, outcast, or adversarial—was worthy of dignity. His words to journalists on a return flight from Brazil in 2013—“Who am I to judge?”—in response to a question about gay priests, became shorthand for a papacy that prized mercy over moralism.
That same ethic extended to the international stage. He received refugees at the Vatican, brought Muslim families back with him to Rome from Lesbos, and criticized the European Union for its failure to protect migrants. His critique of capitalism’s “globalization of indifference” positioned him as a champion of the South and a discomforting voice in the North.
A Legacy Without Borders
Critics, particularly in the United States, found his approach insufficiently confrontational. Why not denounce authoritarian regimes more explicitly? Why not excommunicate corrupt leaders or sever ties with repressive governments? But Francis’s strength lay in avoiding the binary moralism of modern geopolitics. He preferred encounter to condemnation, dialogue to distance.
As cardinals prepare to elect his successor, Francis leaves behind a College of Cardinals more geographically diverse than any before—a sign that his global perspective will echo beyond his lifetime. He has redefined what it means for the Vatican to engage with the world: not as a fortress, but as a field hospital; not with power, but with presence.
His final resting place, per his wishes, will be in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore—not in the splendor of St. Peter’s. His tomb will read simply: Franciscus. A fitting end for a pope who believed that diplomacy, like holiness, begins with humility.