A reflection About Pope Francis and His Importance to the Global Foundation
The Global Foundation mourns the passing of His Holiness, Pope Francis, who inspired and endorsed our global outreach and impact during his papacy.
Beautiful things have already been said about the life of this exceptional man who touched the lives of so many, with his humility, intelligence, warmth and grace.
There was an appropriate stillness at his funeral, where the high and mighty who came to pay homage were dwarfed by the multitudes professing their faith and gratitude.
This restlessly clever man saw the world from the outside in and, at the same time, from the ground up, from the ‘peripheries’, as he coined it.
He motivated our Foundation, as a civil society organisation with a private sector base and a wide community outreach, to add ‘faith-enabled’ to our reach and impact, as unfashionable as that was a decade ago.
Those who participated in the global roundtable meetings we convened in Rome over the past 11 years were enriched, as they were able to experience Pope Francis’ extraordinary gifts first hand, on four distinct occasions.
Our delegations were drawn from all corners of the globe and included a mix of current and former political leaders, central bank governors, heads of global institutions, leaders of other faiths, academia, community and civil society organisations and – this was the breakthrough that required the hardest work – leaders of global business, those who actually sustain the work of our Foundation.
Yes, at the beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis was sceptical about the role of business in society, given his earlier experience of crony capitalism in Argentina.
Over time we contributed to a changing view, as he and his colleagues at the Vatican came to more fully appreciate that, if we are to secure a sustainable planet for the future of humanity, then those of influence and goodwill in business and the world of global capital must be mobilised and not demonised.
It is now much more widely agreed that a sustainable future for humanity will be defined by genuine partnerships between governments and others in the public sphere, working hand in hand with an enlightened private sector, for the benefit of the common good.
What we were able to offer to Pope Francis and to the Vatican in return was an honest organising principle, of our capacity to bring together leaders with purpose, from all walks of life, who were willing to commit to our mantra of ‘cooperative globalisation’, for a joined up world that was fair, inclusive, prosperous, and transformative.
Early on, in December 2014, we arranged for Christine Lagarde, then head of the International Monetary Fund, to join us in Rome, and to meet with Pope Francis and also with Cardinal George Pell, who had been appointed by the Pope to clean up the Vatican’s finances, in what was a most unlikely, yet heroic partnership. Her ringing endorsement of the Vatican reforms was vital at the time.
Then, in a magnificent formal audience for the Global Foundation at the Vatican in January 2017, Pope Francis personally embraced and encouraged the Foundation to keep going, to do more, in the spirit of ‘co-operative globalisation’ – our theme about sustainability and inter-connectedness that continues to drive us, even during these otherwise challenging times.
In June of last year, although frail and in a wheelchair, Pope Francis warmly greeted our delegation on the steps of St Peters basilica, where he was gifted a small silver flower by the incoming chief executive of Brazil’s transforming mining company, Vale, the host of our global meeting in the Amazon this August.
In so many ways, as Pope Francis leaves us, his legacy continues to inform and motivate our work, an enduring duty of care that we at the Global Foundation take very much to heart.
The Foundation looks forward to engaging with the new leadership at the Vatican, as we continue to engage with leaders of other faiths. We express our warm thanks to the senior colleagues of Pope Francis at the Vatican, most notably Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State to His Holiness, who has been a steadfast supporter of the work of the Foundation over many years
28 April, 2025
| Steve Howard Steve Howard is Secretary General of the Global Foundation |