Hilltopvoices Communications Group Ltd joins the universal Church and all people of goodwill in paying homage to the life and legacy of His Holiness Pope Francis, who returned to his Maker on Easter Monday, 2025, aged 88. His departure has left a sacred silence in our world, yet his voice calling for a more forgiving, more compassionate Church echoes still in our hearts.
Pope Francis taught us that the Church must not be a fortress for the perfect, but a sanctuary for the wounded. His tender words, "We are only allowed to look down on someone to help them up," distilled his lifelong mission: to make mercy the beating heart of the Church’s witness.
He reminded us that before we speak of conversion, we must ourselves be converted; before we preach forgiveness, we must ask forgiveness. Through countless gestures of humility, from washing the feet of prisoners to embracing the forgotten, he showed that the path of the Church is not pride, but penitence and grace.
By urging priests to "put God's forgiveness back at the centre of the Church," he rekindled in the hearts of many a longing for reconciliation and peace. In doing so, Pope Francis reshaped the spiritual imagination of a generation, inviting all humanity to encounter a God whose mercy knows no bounds.
Today, as we mourn, we also give thanks. We give thanks for a shepherd who carried the lost on his shoulders; for a pontiff who bore the heart of Christ into the darkest corners of human sorrow.
May Pope Francis rest eternally in the embrace of the Divine Mercy he proclaimed with his life.
May his dream of a forgiving Church continue to inspire us, now and always.
Bakah Derick
Administrator and Lead Strategist
Hilltopvoices Communications Group Ltd