Fargo's Catholic bishop says immigration was a 'hallmark' of Pope Francis

Pope Francis had ‘love for humanity,’ says Fargo bishop, pontiff’s first US appointee

FARGO — Bishop John Folda couldn't say no when Pope Francis chose him as the head of the Fargo Diocese, making Folda the Catholic pontiff's first appointment in the U.S. "It was quite remarkable," Folda told The Forum on Monday, April 21. "I've always just felt a closeness to him, not only because of that, but certainly that was part of it. That was quite an experience to have that honor." Folda and other Catholic leaders in North Dakota and Min…

From Rio to Lampedusa, to Iraq and Mexico... During his twelve years of pontificate, concerned about the poorest and migrants, Bergoglio chose to visit countries at the margins and focused his speeches on the misery of the world.

Fargo's Catholic bishop says immigration was a 'hallmark' of Pope Francis

FARGO (KVRR) – Diocese of Fargo Bishop John Folda says the plight of immigrants is among the most prominent issues Pope Francis will be remembered for. Pope Francis died Monday following a lengthy battle with health issues. He was 88. “”There’s no question that he has certainly given a lot of attention to the plight of immigrants and the homeless and the poor, in general” Folda said. “I think really, he’s drawn the attention of the world to peop…

Francis was, more than any other Pontiff, the Pope of the world's suburbs: from Lampedusa to Juba, in South Sudan, Bergoglio has always privileged the corners of the planet forgotten by the world. And so he turned the spotlight on realities that risk being perpetually in the background. It is with this logic that he was in Ajaccio and not in Paris, in Malta and not in Madrid, in Tirana and not in Berlin. Twice to Lesbos, the Greek island of migr…

John Paul II was nicknamed not without reasons like the traveling Pope. It is because, in his long pastoral mission of 26 years, he visited more than 120 countries and traveled a distance...

Francisco (Buenos Aires, 1936 - The Vatican, 2025) passed into history as the first pope "from the periphery", as he liked to say. In fact, the concept of "the peripheries" in all spheres of life was a constant, one of the great keys, of the papacy of Jorge Bergoglio: to put the poor, the immigrants, the weak, the suffering, in the center. However, his pontificate has also been marked by flirtation with wokism, with winks to the LGBT lobby and w…