10 years of Pope Francis: What ‘the people’s pope’ is getting right, and where he’s going wrong

The head of the 1.3 billion-strong Catholic Church recently celebrated ten years of leadership, but what difference has a new approach from the ’Bishop of Rome’ really made? Tim Wyatt reports

“The church must always go forward, it must continually grow. This way it stays young. It is only thanks to the Spirit that one can receive Christ’s mission and carry it out…the Spirit is the engine of evangelisation.” These words are not from Holy Trinity Brompton’s Nicky Gumbel, Bethel’s Bill Johnson, or any other charismatic megapastor or evangelist. Instead, they were spoken earlier this year inside the Vatican by Pope Francis during his weekly sermon.

The pontiff’s heart for Spirit-soaked witness is not a recent interest either. Later this month he will lead the 1.3 billion strong Catholic Church in taking part in the eighth year of Thy Kingdom Come – the annual prayer movement for evangelism between Ascension and Pentecost started by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2016. Led by his example, Catholic parishes across Britain and the world will pray for their non-Christian friends to come to know Jesus. In 2020, during Thy Kingdom Come, which fell at the height of the first Covid lockdown, the Pope urged those taking part to “give in turn the gift that we have received… and become messengers of the comfort bestowed by the Spirit. Let us radiate hope”.