Pope Francis is the current head of the Catholic Church and the sovereign of the Vatican City State. Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17, 1936, he is the first Pope from the Americas and the first from outside Europe since Gregory III, a Syrian who headed the Church in the 8th Century.

Why Pope Francis is a question of leisurely elaboration, a bit of his selective departure from the norm would follow, but in the immediate he is in Canada. Thousands of Indigenous people are expected to converge Monday on the small Alberta prairie community of Maskwacis to hear a long-awaited apology from Pope Francis for generations of abuse and cultural suppression at Catholic residential schools across Canada, the Associated Press reported.

The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the state-funded Christian schools that operated from the 19th century to the 1970s. Some 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and forced to attend in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes, Native languages and cultures and assimilate them into Canada’s Christian society, the report added.

Also Read: Pope’s Indigenous ‘apology’ tour marks rethink of Catholic mission legacy

It’s hard to say if coming from the ‘New World’ makes Pope Francis vocal about issues facing humanity in any part of the world and what can be said with certainty is that religion is just one of the issues that he talks about.

Speaking during the Sunday Angelus of June 17, 2022, Pope Francis expressed his concerns over Ukraine. “I am always close to the tormented Ukraine, which is struck by a rain of missiles every day.”

Raising his voice, yet again, since the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine that continues to wreak death, suffering, destruction and displacement, the Pope reiterated his appeal to the international community to seek a negotiated solution instead of fuelling violence, Vatican news reported.

On the same Sunday Angelus he expressed closeness to the people of Sri Lanka, assuring that he joins them in prayer. He also issued an appeal to all parties who are engaged in finding a solution to the crisis, rooted in corruption and economic mismanagement, that has deprived the people of basic needs and livelihoods and led to a popular uprising.

Also Read: Pope Francis names 3 women to office that vets bishop nominations: Report

The next day the story headline in Vatican News was ‘Pope Francis: Digital media raises serious ethical issues’. Voicing the concern of many media professionals consumed by the spread of news through social media without verification, or Fake News, Pope Francis said, although modern means of communication can be “a powerful means of fostering communion and dialogue within our human family,” they can also become “places of toxicity, hate speech, and fake news,” in a message to the lay communications network SIGNIS, which is holding its annual World Congress in Seoul in August.

“It is appropriate,” the Pope says, “that, in these days marked by new outbreaks of violence and aggression in our world, you have chosen as the theme of your World Congress ‘Peace in the Digital World.”

Pope Francis noted, “The use of digital media, especially social media, has raised a number of serious ethical issues that call for wise and discerning judgment on the part of communicators, and all those concerned with authenticity and the quality of human relationships.”

On July 13, 2022, he said that nations should work together to adapt to climate change. The Pope said the world is facing the twin challenges of “lessening climate risks by reducing emissions” and of “assisting and enabling people to adapt to progressively worsening changes to the climate”. These challenges require everyone to come up with a multi-dimensional approach to protect people and the planet, he added.

Vatican News releases stories about him in a section called Pope and there is just one in the 24 latest entries that remotely talks about religion or Catholicism. Everything is about his messages on humanitarian crises around the world or brave efforts at reconciliation. Now, that is why Pope Francis.