The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone!
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"The Church is not a museum, but a hospital."
"The worship of the golden calf has returned."
"Who am I to give a ticket to hell?"
"War is madness."
"To be a Christian is to be a revolutionary."
First Latin American and Jesuit pope (2013-), who has steered the Catholic Church toward pastoral inclusion on LGBTQ pastoral care, divorced Catholics, and climate. Closely associated with Pope John XXIII (the Vatican II reformer pope) and Cardinal Walter Kasper (his theological ally on pastoral reform). For an intellectual contrast, see Cardinal Raymond Burke, American traditionalist cardinal, former head of the Vatican Apostolic Signatura — Burke is the public face of Catholic traditionalism that views Francis's pastoral approach as doctrinally dangerous — he has formally challenged Amoris Laetitia and other Francis reforms.
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Christ's redemption covers every human being without exception—not just Catholics or Christians, but all of humanity, including atheists. Religious membership doesn't determine who receives God's grace. Using a call-and-response structure, Francis pushes to the most extreme test case imaginable and still answers yes. It reframes salvation as something given freely to all rather than earned or restricted by religious affiliation, belief, or institutional belonging.
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he chose the name Francis after Francis of Assisi, signaling radical humility and outreach. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires he rode public buses and ministered to slum communities. He maintained a famous correspondence with atheist journalist Eugenio Scalfari. His Jesuit training grounds faith in meeting people where they are. This statement reflects his career-long insistence that pastoral mercy overrides doctrinal gatekeeping.
Francis became pope in 2013 as Western Christianity faced its sharpest decline in generations—the religiously unaffiliated were the fastest-growing demographic in the US and Europe. Church attendance was falling, sex abuse scandals had eroded institutional trust, and atheism was becoming publicly normalized. Explicitly naming atheists as redeemed repositioned Catholicism from a gatekeeping institution to a universally oriented one at precisely the moment its cultural authority was most contested.
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