Obama: ‘Pope Francis was the rare leader who made us want to be better people’

(The Hill) — Former President Barack Obama on Monday praised the late Pope Francis for inspiring Catholics and non-Catholics alike to “want to be better people.”

“Pope Francis was the rare leader who made us want to be better people,” Obama wrote in a post on X after Francis’s death early Monday.

“In his humility and his gestures at once simple and profound – embracing the sick, ministering to the homeless, washing the feet of young prisoners – he shook us out of our complacency and reminded us that we are all bound by moral obligations to God and one another,” he continued.

“Today, Michelle and I mourn with everyone around the world – Catholic and non-Catholic alike – who drew strength and inspiration from the Pope’s example,” Obama added. “May we continue to heed his call to ‘never remain on the sidelines of this march of living hope.”

Francis was elected pope in 2013, during Obama’s second term in office. Obama met with the pope at the Vatican in March 2014. The following year, the pope visited the U.S., was welcome in a formal ceremony at the White House and met privately with Obama.

Francis died Monday at 88 at his residence in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta after battling a long series of health complications stemming from a chronic lung disease, the Vatican announced.

The pontiff had been hospitalized on Feb. 14 with bronchitis, contracted pneumonia four days later and was listed in “critical condition” by the Vatican on Feb. 22. He never fully recovered.

The pope, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina in 1936, broke barriers in the Catholic Church when he became the first leader of the Vatican City State to hail from the Americas, and the first to represent the Jesuit order, known for its commitment to social justice. He was known for his human-rights advocacy.