The former Archbishop of Canterbury has described Pope Francis as "mischievous, kind, and extraordinarily empathetic", saying he supported him at his "lowest".
Writing for Anglican Ink, Justin Welby described Francis as a "man who was above all, a pastor".
Recalling the time he first met Francis, he describes a humble, warm man, who operated in contrast to the grandeur and gravity of the Vatican’s architecture.
“I had never met a pope before and was on edge,” said Welby. “The Vatican is designed to overwhelm visitors with power… It is surreal.
“'I am senior to you' [Francis] says, with a level look," Welby recalled. “I feel a sense of disappointment: I did not think he was like that. ‘Indeed you are, Your Holiness…’ I begin. He interrupts, smiling, ‘by three days’. He was inaugurated that much before me: in March, earlier that year.”
“We both laugh and there are the beginnings of a friendship,” remembered the former Archbishop.
Welby said: “It always seemed to be sunny when we met.”
He described sitting at Francis’ side, at a gathering in Sudan, where Francis was unashamed to call for peace in front of the country’s government. The pope emphasised the damage of war and trauma of rape experienced by many in the country.
In 2019, Francis requested both rebel leaders and South Sudanese government leaders to attend a retreat at the Vatican.
Welby witnessed him kneeling at and kissing the feet of men who had waged violence, imploring them to make peace. He described a man of humbleness and simplicity, drawing on his own experience of heading up an international church body.
He went on: "As I found even in the small corner that is Anglicanism around the world, centuries of history and a global presence bring a complexity... It can be frustrating – I saw and heard his frustration. To the outside observer, little may seem to change. It will be decades before we see whether the things Francis did bear fruit. The next pope may well be from Asia or Africa, with a deep conservatism on issues we consider in the UK to be so obvious they need no discussion.
"But they will also find that bending the attitudes of 1.2 billion Catholics to a single agenda is unthinkable. They come from every country on earth and speak every tongue under heaven. The pope is not the CEO of Rome Inc., but the Holy Father."
The final meeting of the two church figureheads came on the phone, shortly after Welby's resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury in November 2024.
"There was little warning, just a call and his voice," said Welby. "This was typical of the man who was, above all, a pastor."
The former Archbishop said: “Francis was someone who made people want to know God – and God’s love – as he did. He was not perfect, but he was passionate for God. He was supremely relational – regardless of status – and he lived out his call for the shepherd to be close to the sheep.
“He saw those who sought, however poorly and fallibly, to follow Christ as brothers and sisters. Whether they were in prisons or palaces, slums or stadiums, made no difference.”