Pope Francis of the Peripherals, by Alex Rodriguez

A 'brave man' and 'close to the last'. Thus the Jesuits define Pope Francis and qualify his pontificate as 'revolutionary'. Tudelano Cristóbal Jiménez and Colombian Javier Castillo applaud his legacy

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio did not wait to be elected Pope to place the peripheries at the center of his speech. What peripheries? Geographicals – poor countries, remote regions, disadvantaged neighborhoods... – and existentials – isolated people, in a situation of fragility or remote from the Church. He did so in the general congregations, which gather all cardinals before the conclave, whether they are electors or not, and in which each an…