The last time a sitting pope died in 2005, the largest gathering of world leaders in history came to his funeral, witnesses that Pope John Paul II was the most consequential historical figure of the late 20th century.

In 2025, the funeral of Pope Francis had a different flavor. It became an instrumental occasion for diplomacy; St. Peter’s was a venue for the initiatives of others. The Vatican provided the ushers who furnished the chairs in which others sat.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy held an impromptu bilateral meeting in St. Peter’s Basilica — “the nicest office I have ever seen,” said Trump later — while the mortal remains of the Holy Father were still present. The heads of government of the United Kingdom and France, as well as the European Union, did some diplomatic maneuvering in addition to mourning.

The “foreign policy” of a pope is not his primary mission, but it remains important. The late Holy Father made foreign policy a very high priority. Five areas are worthy of assessment: migration, tyranny, China, climate change and Islam.

Migration

The first papal trip, dramatic and powerfully symbolic, was to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa in 2013, highlighting the plight of migrants and to inaugurate the Holy Father’s constant plea for more open immigration and refugee policies. He established care for migrants as his primary priority in international affairs, becoming the world’s leading advocate for liberal migration policies.

In addition to Lampedusa, in April 2016, he went to Lesbos, Greece, on a similar trip with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. Earlier that year, he offered the Holy Mass at the U.S.-Mexico border, during the administration of President Barack Obama — the so-called “deporter-in-chief” — and during Trump’s first presidential campaign, during which anti-immigrant rhetoric was central.

Two years into the pontificate, during the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, that message seemed to resonate. Europe opened its doors, with a great influx of refugees settling in Germany. It was the high-water mark for the Francis approach.

The aftermath of that was unpopular. It led to a tightening of immigration policy across Europe and the rise of parties explicitly favoring immigration restrictions, some elements dabbling in racism. By the time of his death, the flag raised by Francis at Lampedusa had been lowered around the world.

Pope Francis undermined his own refugee advocacy by refusing to match his exhortations to receive refugees with condemnations of those causing the flight of refugees in the first place. The two greatest outflows of refugees under Francis were Venezuelans under the Nicolás Maduro regime and Ukrainians after the Russian full-scale invasion. Ignoring the producers of refugees while emphasizing their plight made it easier for nations to ignore the Pope’s pleas.

Tyrants

The reluctance to criticize Maduro, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua or Vladimir Putin of Russia with the same ferocity as he reserved for others made Pope Francis vulnerable to the criticism that he played favorites and was soft on tyrants.

That the first Latin American pope was utterly impotent to resist direct religious persecution of Catholics in Venezuela and Nicaragua massively reduced the influence the Holy See had in international affairs. If the Vatican could not mount a defense of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, expelled from Nicaragua, its diplomatic influence would impress nobody.

The Ukraine war showed Pope Francis at once deeply sympathetic to Ukraine’s plight — he never ceased pleading for “martyred Ukraine” — and reluctant to identify the cause of that plight. To the contrary, in his musings about NATO expansion and advising Ukraine to embrace the “white flag,” it appeared, painfully, to many in Ukraine that the Holy Father was taking the side of the tyrant against the tyrannized.

China

The central foreign-policy initiative of Pope Francis was his still-secret accord with China — specifically the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which controls religious affairs in China — over the appointment of bishops. That came to fore this week as the CCP announced the “election” of a new bishop for Xinxiang, despite the sede vacante making that impossible — and the fact that Xinxiang already has a bishop. The timing was a deliberate provocation.

It is evident that the Holy See promised, under the terms of the accord, not to criticize China, even when the most prominent Catholic political prisoner in the world, Jimmy Lai, languishes in a Hong Kong jail. It is not evident what the Holy See got in return, and China has arrogated to itself the power to change the boundaries of dioceses without the Holy See’s knowledge.

The most prominent see in China is Shanghai, and the communist regime appointed a new bishop there without even informing the Holy See. Pope Francis was forced to recognize him after the fact, a deliberate humiliation the CCP threw in his face.

The China deal had prominent critics in the Catholic hierarchy, and its defenders were few outside of the Vatican Secretariat of State, which had negotiated it. It is not hard to imagine that a future pope will set aside the flagship diplomatic deal of this pontificate.

Climate Change

From the beginning, Pope Francis signaled his commitment to the climate-change agenda. He explicitly timed his encyclical on environmental matters, Laudato Si, to influence the United Nations climate conference in Paris 2015. In October 2023, he published Laudate Deum, a follow-up apostolic exhortation that committed his magisterium to specific scientific findings and policy positions regarding climate change.

Laudate Deum was intended to shape negotiations at the U.N. climate conference in Dubai in December 2023, which Pope Francis planned to attend in person. Poor health prevented that trip.

Committing magisterial teaching to such specific U.N. initiatives went much farther than his predecessors did regarding, for example, respect for international human-rights agreements. The climate-change initiatives remain a dividing line in assessing the pontificate, both on the substance of the argument and whether entering the debate was wise.

Islam

Though it received less attention, it may be that relations with Islam will be, in retrospect, the enduring contribution of Pope Francis.

During his pontificate, a massive shift took place in the Islamic world in two respects. Saudi Arabia moved significantly toward social reform that limited the scope of Wahhabi Islam, cut off funding for international extremism and terror, and widened the possibilities for pluralism at home. At the same, the largest Muslim organizations in the world, based in Indonesia, found a new voice, arguing for an Islam compatible with fundamental human rights and religious pluralism. Both are shifts likely to change the shape of the 21st century. Pope Francis took note of this and sought to support what he could from outside the Islamic world.

His 2019 trip to Abu Dhabi, on Saudi Arabia’s doorstep, led to signing the joint declaration on human fraternity with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the preeminent scholarly center of Sunni Islam.

While drafted in imprecise theological language from the Catholic side, the real significance was on the Islamic side. It was momentous for al-Tayeb, himself not untouched by intolerant positions, to elevate the category of universal fraternity above the division of the world into Islam and infidels.

The 2021 trip to Iraq included a meeting in the Shiite holy city of Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. It was the first papal meeting with one of the most revered figures in Shiite Islam. That the Holy Father went to al-Sistani’s home was a gesture with repercussions across the Shiite world, including Iran.

Last September, the Holy Father’s longest foreign trip took him to Indonesia, to bolster with his presence the reformist Islam being nurtured there. Arabia is Islam’s historic and cultural home, but Indonesia is the world’s most populous Islamic nation. The battle for the future of Islam is being led there by moderate, pluralistic imams, leaders who look explicitly to the teaching of Vatican II on religious liberty for guidance. That Pope Francis, in ill health, traveled so far was deeply appreciated.

On migration, tyranny, China and climate change, the failures of the Francis pontificate’s foreign policy may not matter much in 10 years if there are reversals on those issues. The future of Islam matters a great deal, and Francis was wise to lend Catholic support where he could.