Pope Francis has left this earthly life. Reflecting on what he has achieved in his 12 years as pope, it is not a stretch to say that God must have sent him here to make a splash—or, more accurately, a wave, which will continue to grow and shape our world.
As we join the world in mourning, we also take this moment to recognize the astonishing achievements of a leader who not only dramatically impacted the Catholic Church, but also influenced—for the better—the trajectory of the entire human family.
Catholic Extension Society has a special, personal relationship with the pope. Shortly after Catholic Extension Society was founded in 1905, it was made a papal society by Pope Pius X.
Since then, we have been charged with strengthening faith in an expanding country and providing resources to communities in the poorest regions of America. For 120 years it has been our duty, under the direction of the Holy See, to build up vibrant and transformative Catholic faith communities.
When Pope Francis was elected, we were thrilled that our “new boss” was so closely aligned with our mission: to care for and be present among the poor; to shine the light of Christ in the peripheries of society; to welcome all into the House of God.
“In these last 12 years, Pope Francis has moved our Church in a direction of love and mercy,” said our president, Father Jack Wall, pictured below greeting the pope in 2023.
“His dynamic vision has strengthened Catholic Extension Society’s mission to build up transformative faith communities among the poorest in our country. Most importantly, his ability to inspire believers and people of goodwill across the globe will echo for generations. It was the privilege of a lifetime to uphold Pope Francis’ vision here in the United States and to personally interact with him numerous times over the years.”
For the last 12 years we have been blessed to be guided by Pope Francis’ vision of a Church that acts like a “field hospital” and tends to people’s wounds. We witnessed, in awe, how he extended the Church’s love to all of humanity—not just Catholics. At the same time, he reformed the Church by truly letting in more “fresh air” and letting go of more stagnant ways of thinking and practices that have held the Church’s institutions back from accomplishing its mission here on earth.
We have been privileged to uphold Pope Francis’ vision and personally interact with him many times over the years.
The following key moments highlight how Catholic Extension Society supported and was involved in this global leader’s quest to draw the world closer to God’s love.
A viral moment of joy
In anticipation of Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States in 2015, Catholic Extension Society launched our “Flat Francis” social media campaign to show the Holy Father what the Catholic Church looked like in this country. We asked our followers and friends to download a cartoon cutout of the pope and post photos with him that represented their experience of the American Church.
Ultimately, we collected over 5,000 photos, representing people from all 50 states.
We created this mosaic of Pope Francis using the photos.
Shortly before Pope Francis left for his U.S. tour, Catholic Extension Society’s board of governors came to Rome. This included Father Wall and our chancellor, Cardinal Blase Cupich, as well.
The group was able to meet Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square, and Father Wall presented the Holy Father with his cartoon likeness.
“I have to admit that when we first started this social media campaign, I was a little nervous that some people might misconstrue our lighthearted approach as irreverent, but when the pope saw it, he threw his head back and broke into a huge belly laugh,” said Father Wall.
The moment “went viral” and photos and videos of the Holy Father’s laughter were captured and shared across many publications and news outlets, including Time and People magazines and CNN. We were, of course, elated to be part of such a moment, in which the world could clearly see that the pope was not some stern, cold figurehead. He was human, down-to-earth, even self-effacing.
The Holy Father was truly living out his own apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel.”
Focusing on the poor, forgotten and vulnerable at the U.S. border
Pope Francis had big dreams. His desire for a more compassionate and united world was on full display from the very beginning of his papacy. His first apostolic journey was not to a shrine but to a tiny island between Africa and Italy called Lampedusa. It was in those waters that over 360 migrants drowned as they were fleeing danger and famine in their own countries in North Africa.
“We are a society,” he preached, “which has forgotten how to weep. … The globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep! In the Gospel we have heard the crying, the wailing, the great lamentation. … Let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty of our world, of our own hearts, and of all those who in anonymity make social and economic decisions which open the door to tragic situations like this. Has anyone wept? Today has anyone wept in our world?”
Two and a half years later, Pope Francis once again paid special attention to migrants when he visited the U.S.-Mexico border in 2016.
Catholic Extension Society helped organize part of this event. Pope Francis wanted to celebrate a Mass directly on the border, between the cities of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and El Paso in the U.S. This is one of the most common ports of entry for families fleeing poverty, persecution and violence to legally cross into the United States to seek asylum.
We worked with local Catholic leaders to ensure migrant children were at the front of the crowd gathered on the U.S. side in El Paso. These were children who were detained with their families by the U.S. government as part of the asylum-seeking process.
Pope Francis walked across a bridge constructed over the border to wave to and bless the children and crowd gathered there.
Additionally, we helped organize and took part in the “Two Nations, One Faith” event held at the Sun Bowl Stadium nearby. A massive crowd gathered to celebrate the Papal Mass alongside their brothers and sisters on the other side of the border. Father Wall offered a rousing speech.
During the Papal Mass, Pope Francis said, “The human tragedy that is forced migration is a global phenomenon today. This crisis which can be measured in numbers and statistics, we want to instead measure with names, stories, families.”
A special mission: Puerto Rico
In December 2017, following the horrific devastation of Hurricane Maria, Pope Francis sent Cardinal Cupich to Puerto Rico to make a pastoral visit on his behalf.
Catholic Extension Society, with our decades of longstanding relationships with the dioceses and parishes on the island, organized the trip, and helped the cardinal meet key leaders.
One pastor of a mission church that served a fishing village passionately described the ways in which his small Catholic mission had helped the community after the storm: feeding people, providing clothes as well as medicines, medical and mental-health services and helping clean the homes of the elderly.
He implored the cardinal, “Tell the pope that we have seen the fruits of giving of ourselves and that the Lord has blessed us with the cross, but through it all we have experienced the balm of His mercy.”
Cardinal Cupich dutifully sent the message back to the Holy Father.
Catholic Extension provided emergency funding to the island in the wake of the storm. Our efforts to rebuild the Church in Puerto Rico never stopped.
Pope Francis has taken great interest in and supported Catholic Extension Society’s historic work to rebuild 600 Catholic churches and schools that were damaged in the storm as well as a series of earthquakes.
We brought him a Puerto Rican flag, which he blessed.
We hand-delivered the flag back to Catholic leaders in Puerto Rico, including Archbishop Roberto González Nieves of San Juan, pictured in the center below.
“I thank you for your valuable contributions to the rebuilding of the Church and the broader society in Puerto Rico, following the various hurricanes and earthquakes which brought such devastation to the island in recent years,” Pope Francis told Catholic Extension Society.
On March 31, 2025, Cardinal Cupich and Father Wall joined a groundbreaking ceremony at the San Juan Cathedral. The joyous moment symbolized the kick-off to the reconstruction all across the island.
“God’s style”: Pope Francis expresses his gratitude for Catholic Extension Society
Catholic Extension Society last met with Pope Francis in April 2023, when he invited a delegation from Catholic Extension Society to a private audience at the Vatican. The delegation included Father Jack Wall, Cardinal Blase Cupich, and more than 60 women faith leaders whose ministries we support.
The pope told us that, “God’s style is never distant, detached, or indifferent. Instead, it is one of closeness, compassion, and tender love. It is my hope that your service will always reflect these qualities, showing that God draws near to our lives, that he is moved to compassion for those in difficult situations, and that His love calls us to be in relationship with Him and to see our neighbor as truly a brother or a sister.”
During that inspiring private audience, he thanked Catholic Extension Society “for efforts in providing assistance to missionary dioceses, particularly in the United States, and in caring for the needs of the poor and vulnerable.” He continued, “In striving to build up the Body of Christ, the Church, by giving a voice to those who are frequently voiceless, you bear witness to the God-given dignity of every person.”
Appointing Cardinal Cupich: Shaping the American Catholic Church
One of these appointments was Cardinal Cupich. Naming Cupich as the archbishop of Chicago in 2014 was one of Pope Francis’ most influential appointments, made early in his papacy.
When then-Archbishop Cupich met Pope Francis in person for the first time just a few months later, he presented the Holy Father with a cross that belonged to and was buried with Junípero Serra, a Franciscan and early missionary in what is now the American Southwest.
Catholic Extension Society had coordinated with a museum in the Extension diocese of Monterey, California, to send the cross with Cardinal Cupich to the Vatican for the pope’s blessing.
Pope Francis was touched by the gesture, and he kissed the cross.
Pope Francis canonized Saint Junípero Serra just a few weeks later during a Mass in Washington, D.C.
A year after his first meeting with Cupich, the Holy Father elevated him to the College of Cardinals.
Catholic Extension had a close relationship with the future cardinal long before he became the archbishop of Chicago and automatically assumed the role of our chancellor as well. He had served as the bishop Rapid City, one of our 87 Extension dioceses, for 12 years. He also joined our board and served as the chairman of our Mission Committee, tasked with listening to the hopes, dreams and needs of faith communities served by Catholic Extension Society.
During the consistory, the ceremony in which Cupich was created a cardinal, Pope Francis’ homily affirmed the importance of the work of Catholic Extension Society:
“If something should rightly disturb us, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them,” he said.
Our part in the Synod: Voices from the margins
Pope Francis’ fearlessness to do what is right and just was present in his willingness to always engage in open dialogue, even about contentious theological issues like women deacons or Communion for divorced Catholics. His openness earned him some high-ranking detractors from within the Church, but the pope always pressed on unabated by his loudest critics who wanted to squelch open dialogue in favor of hardline doctrines. The pope was fond of saying, “The Lord does not point a finger, but opens wide his arms.”
Catholic Extension Society was eager to engage in this dialogue, and share the voices of Catholic leaders, especially women religious and lay women, who historically had little to no say in the higher offices of the Church.
During our 2023 visit, seven of the women who we brought to the Holy Father’s private audience with us spoke at a Vatican press conference to discuss pressing topics in the Church.
One of Pope Francis’ signature achievements was convening the entire Church in a worldwide listening process known as “synodality.” More than a one-off meeting, its purpose was to create a permanent practice of listening and dialogue within the Church—ensuring that the Church never becomes detached from her people.
This exercise in mutual listening began in local dioceses all over the world where all the faithful were invited to offer their thoughts and opinions on the future direction of the Church. Regional reports were assembled and then discussed by synodal assemblies convened in Rome.
The pope explained that “Every baptized person is called to actively participate in the life and in the mission of the church, starting from the specifics of one’s own vocation. …We need Christian communities in which space is enlarged, where everyone can feel at home, where pastoral structures and means foster not the creation of small groups, but the joy of being and feeling co-responsible.”
For the first time, membership of the synodal assembly was open not only to bishops and cardinals, but also to priests, religious men and women and lay people.
We were glad to see several representatives from Extension dioceses—individuals serving on the peripheries—selected to participate in the synod. This includes a newly ordained priest, Father Ivan Montelongo, from El Paso, Texas, whose seminarian education we supported, as well as a young Latino lay leader, Wyatt Olivas, who furthered his faith at a University of Wyoming Newman Center that we supported.
Additionally, Father Friend, pastor of three rural churches in Arkansas, brought the hopes and messages of his parishioners to the synod in 2024. His ministry is supported by Catholic Extension Society. He brought a photo of one of his congregations pictured in front of their house of worship: a tire shop that was converted into a church, a project completed with support from Catholic Extension Society.
“He tapped the picture very lovingly and he looked up at me and he said, ‘Continua a trabajar con los imigrantes.’ Continue to work with the immigrants. Time stood still when he responded to me. It was a cool message for our diocese,” Father Friend said.
Catholic Extension Society vows to continue Pope Francis’ legacy
From upholding the human dignity of migrants to investing in the future of the Puerto Rican Church, and from internal reform of the Catholic Church to a future shaped by a synodal process, Pope Francis will be remembered as a pope for the ages, a pope for all people, and a humble, deeply spiritual leader for the Catholic Church and the world, seen and called by God to be mediators of God’s divine mercy.
Catholic Extension Society has been honored to join in solidarity with Pope Francis’s vision to build up the missionary spirit of the Catholic Church, and we vow to continue his legacy.
