The apostle Paul ended one passage of his letter to the Romans with these words: “you are no longer under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14) … What does this “living under grace” mean? It is our joy: it is our freedom. We are free. Why? Because we live under grace. We are no longer slaves of the Law; we are free, because Jesus Christ liberated us, he gave us … the full freedom of God’s children, in which we live under grace. … Baptism, this admittance to being “under law,” “under grace,” is a revolution. There have been so many revolutionaries in history, many indeed. Yet none of them has had the force of this revolution that brought Jesus to us: a revolution to transform history, a revolution that changes the human heart in depth.
Pope Francis is the first Jesuit Pope, the first pope from the Americas, and his papacy is defined by his emphasis on mercy, service, and humility.