In the Hindu family where I was raised in India, the gods coexisted rather than competed. The Quran rested on our bookcase as if it belonged there, Jesus hung in my grandmother’s chamber, and Ganpati grinned from the altar. Before we were anything else, we were human. I was taught that religion initially.

In our household, faith was light, both literally and figuratively. Diwali firecrackers, Christmas candles, and glowing diyas during blackouts. The thought that religion may separate us? I had never heard of that. Before it wasn’t, it was foreign.

I was captivated by the Catholic Church’s splendour as a child. The organ’s roar, the lengthy shadows created by stained-glass light, and the crimson and gold garments. I was captivated by the images. The performance. The custom. It was lovely, but not because I was Catholic. And beauty was precious to a homosexual youngster who was hungry for colour and drama.

What I didn’t know then–what I couldn’t know–is that behind the robes and incense was an institution that would one day call me an abomination.

I relocated to New York. I matured. And I had a new perspective on religion up close. For me, churches were battlefields. I seen pulpits used for division rather than lifting. This was also true of the Catholic Church, with its weaponised texts and hallowed silence.

I saw the fate of others just like myself. We were sinful in our love. There was an issue with our presence. Our happiness was a danger.

Nevertheless, I still wanted to believe in spite of everything. I wanted to think religion may be superior. It might be more compassionate. so it may once again be lovely.
Pope Francis followed.
It was not intended for him to be revolutionary. He was meant to serve as a stand-in. A subtle option. a pope who makes concessions.

Rather, he became radical—not because he disapproved of religion, but because he accepted it.
Francis had no intention of destroying the Church. Reminding it of its essence was his goal.

And he just used five words to do it.
“Who am I to judge?”
He made the statement on a trip returning from Brazil in 2013, a few months after he was elected pope. He was questioned about homosexual clergy by a reporter. And he said it clearly rather than changing course, hedging, or concealing it behind theology.
Who am I to pass judgement?
Five words. whispered. However, they rocked the Church. They opened a window that had been tightly sealed.

For the first time, a high-ranking official recognised us as individuals, not as misdeeds or symbols.
Francis wasn’t flawless. He never altered the Church’s stance on abortion, clergy celibacy, or same-sex marriage. The catechism was not revised by him.

However, he altered the tone. The temperature. The tenor.

Despite his bishops’ objections, he blessed same-sex couples. He advocated for kindness rather than doctrine. Tenderness was more important to him than triumphalism.

He said in 2024: “If I bless a businessman who may take advantage of people, nobody gets scandalised, but if I give them to a homosexual, they get scandalised.” This is hypocritical.

Hypocrisy. The pope’s statement was directed at those who denounced it, not the LGBT community.
He was not advocating for sin. He was defending honesty.
He saw that without compassion, morality is nothing more than robe-clad vanity.

Francis did not take the throne as his leader. He took the lead from behind.

He gave Muslim migrants’ feet a kiss. He journeyed to Iraq and Congo, countries no pope had dared to go. He visited with rabbis, gurus, and imams to listen rather than to argue. During the epidemic, he prayed by himself in a soggy St. Peter’s Square as everyone else watched and sobbed.

He opted for presence in a church that was founded on authority.
He picked bridges in a border-obsessed society.
He was “a deep believer and a traditionalist with a difference… a passionate advocate of interfaith dialogue,” according to Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
“The best tribute we can pay to him is to be warm-hearted people,” the Dalai Lama said.

Barack Obama described him as “the rare leader who made us want to be better… who reminded us that we are all bound by obligations to God and one another.”

They were grieving for a moral force as well as a man.
However, he was not embraced by everyone.
I recall asking my partner’s father, a New Jersey Catholic, what he thought of the Pope’s remarks on homosexuals. He gave a shrug.
That’s just the view of one priest,” he remarked.
Just one priest.

Confronting what a revolutionary stood for was more difficult than reducing him to a rogue. When his empathy conflicted with American Catholics’ comfort, they could ignore him.

And that’s the thing with Francis: he made it impossible to look away. It was difficult to seem as if love could be controlled because of him.

He reminded us that religion may be a window rather than a barricade.
“The ability to heal wounds and warm the hearts of the faithful is what the Church needs most today,” he stated. It requires proximity.

He intended nearness to humans. to hurt. To be happy. to make a distinction.

“I would like all of us to hope anew,” he said in his farewell speech to the world, “and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves… for all of us are children of God.”

Too frequently, religion in general—not just Christianity—has forgotten this. It has exchanged hierarchy for humility. empathy for authority. Policy poetry.
Francis, however, recalled. He recalled the heart.

He condemned materialism and ecological change as spiritual betrayals rather than political transgressions.

“The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” he stated in his encyclical Laudato Si’, published in 2015. He elevated climate change to a moral concern in addition to an environmental one.
Instead of the other way around, he advocated for an economy that benefits people.

He really apologised for the Church’s involvement in colonisation and residential schools, and he kissed the hands of Indigenous elders.
Without compassion, holiness is only theatre, he told the world.

And he was a comfort to someone like me, who despised the dogma of religion but enjoyed its drama. A bridge. A sigh of relief.

The Church was not saved by him. However, he preserved my faith that religion might once again be wonderful.

Now he is gone. The Sistine Chapel waits as well.
Smoke will rise. Names will be muttered. The odds were computed. Change versus continuity. Luis Antonio Tagle, Pietro Parolin, or an unexpected individual.
However, the next in line will inherit more than just a throne.

Their task will be to demonstrate that the Church is still important, not to keep it alive.
Because Francis made people feel seen, something that no doctrine could achieve.

And it is somewhat of a miracle in a world that is begging for attention.

Despite being referred to as “His Holiness,” he never pretended to know everything.

He questioned authority. He asked about boundaries. He doubted that God could be owned by anybody.
By doing thus, he made the divine approachable.

He spoke five words to us.
He showed us a little grace.
And he gave me a cause to believe once again. I was a youngster who was once enamoured by the glitter of religion, but now I am a man who has been damaged by its restrictions.

Not in medical facilities. However, it is possible.
DISCLAIMER: Suvir Saran works as a chef, author, educator, and hospitality consultant. His opinions are reflected in this article.