During his 12-year papacy, Pope Francis has been both lauded for his influence and criticized for his modernizing, sometimes anti-traditional approach.

His legacy is one of expansion, as he worked to shape the Catholic Church’s future and broaden its reach beyond the U.S. and Europe.

“If you consider how he has approached appointing cardinals,” Tim Gabrielli, associate professor and Gudorf chair in Catholic intellectual traditions at the University of Dayton, told Digital, “he has been very deliberate about it.”

Pope Francis appointed cardinals from 24 nations that had never previously held the position.

“He was drawing attention to overlooked places,” Gabrielli said. “He was saying, ‘The church is also present here, and it has a voice. It deserves attention.’”

“I think it has been very significant,” he added.

Gabrielli argues that Pope Francis was playing “a long game” by expanding the Church’s geographical scope.

“The church is growing fastest in Africa, a fact often overlooked in the Northern Hemisphere,” he said. “The future resources of the church lie in those regions.”

In 2017, Pope Francis convened a Synodal Assembly, bringing together bishops to discuss the Amazon region and climate change, a key focus of his papacy.

“It seems to me that Pope Francis is saying, ‘This region, largely seen as a source of resources to be exploited, has a living, breathing Church operating there and people living there who deserve our attention,’” Gabrielli said.

“That aligns with his emphasis on economic exploitation,” he added.

Gabrielli believes Pope Francis’s first words as Pope highlighted his broader mission.

“Brothers and sisters, good evening,” Pope Francis said in his address to Rome on March 13, 2013. “You know that the duty of the conclave was to provide Rome with a bishop. It seems that my brothers went to the ends of the earth to find one.”

Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was the first pope from the Global South, hailing from Argentina.

Gabrielli stated that these words, combined with the careful expansion of the Church, demonstrate Pope Francis’s vision of a church present everywhere.

“The church in the U.S. has often seen itself as somewhat exceptional,” Gabrielli said.

Highlighting a new focus on often-overlooked regions, Gabrielli said that both Catholics and non-Catholics will see Pope Francis’ impact through his successor.

“This effort to internationalize the cardinalate or to visit places the pope wouldn’t normally visit is planting seeds that will, over time, foster a deeper sense of the international church,” Gabrielli said.