(REVIEW) A new PBS documentary on the life of Pope Francis that premiered on June 20 has some bold claims to make about the controversial pope from the very start: he’s called an “advocate for the impoverished,” a “champion for the ignored” and “an apostle of the environment.”

It paints the pope as a charismatic, kind reformer of the Catholic Church who — since his appointment in 2013 — has pointed Catholics back toward love and mercy as the core tenets of their religion. At only an hour long, it takes a mostly positive overview of the pope’s influence on the Church and the world at large. It’s a quick, easy watch, best for beginners to Francis’s biography, but includes interesting details for familiar followers as well. 

The documentary is part of the “In Their Own Words” series on PBS that explores the lives of notable figures in modern history. The second season of the series begins with the pope and includes musician Chuck Berry and Princess Diana. 

It begins with the childhood of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the son of Italian parents who had immigrated to Argentina. Neighbors, friends and family who knew Bergolio as a child say he was always service centered and loved helping others. A close relationship with his grandmother helped foster his Catholic faith. Interviewees say these things set Bergoglio up to be the pope he is today, focused on poverty and the lives of ordinary people. 

The documentary follows Bergoglio throughout his early days in the Church: in seminary for Jesuit priesthood, as archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and as a consecrated cardinal in 2001. He was actively involved in the military coup and resulting Dirty War in the 1970s and has said he hid some people from the authorities. 

He was made cardinal “because of his humility,” the documentary says, and his leadership in Buenos Aires only emphasized that Christ-like humility. He is known during that time for only riding the bus wherever he went and visiting the poor areas of the city to meet and pray for the people who lived there. (Later, as pope, he would refuse again the traditional material privileges that come with the job, living in the Vatican guesthouse rather than papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace.)

The documentary returns often to the night of his election in 2013, focusing on the shock and awe of the night. Many in St. Peter’s Square had no idea who he was, and even those who did were surprised by his election. Francis was, and in many ways still is, a pope of firsts. He was the first from South America — and the Western Hemisphere as a whole — and the first Jesuit. An immediate alienation could have happened. 

But he greeted the crowd first with a “buona sera” — “good evening,” in Italian — immediately enamoring the crowd with a familiar language and greeting. He even asked the crowd to pray for him.

Most important, however, was his name. 

He’s the first Francis ever in the papal line, named after Francis of Assisi. Francis of Assisi was the charismatic patron saint of the environment and animals; he’s also known for being a leader of evangelical poverty in the early 13th century. Many took the name to reflect Francis’s missions in the papacy: a peaceful, wholistic care for others and the environment. 

What resulted from these component parts was a crowd that was quickly affectionate of their new pope.

“I think one of the one of the signs that he's anointed is his immediate acceptance by the people of God — not necessarily by the elites, but by the ordinary people,” Dr. Austen Ivereigh, Pope Francis’s biographer, told ReligionUnplugged. “You absolutely saw that in the square. And I think one of the things that Francis has done has been to put the church back to the people to a large extent.”

Ivereigh has written two books on Francis: “The Great Reformer” and “Wounded Shepherd.” He also collaborated with the pope on his book “Let Us Dream,” which is focused on reflections of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The rest of the documentary focuses on the main points of Francis’s papacy, including many of reform and controversy: his interfaith care of Muslim migrants, his inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics, his teachings on climate change and his handling of the sex abuse crisis. 

That Francis was raised an immigrant is no coincidence in how he treats others; all people he meets are shown a kindness that comes by way of understanding. The documentary notes a well-known story from a papal visit to the Greek island of Lesbos: he brought 12 Syrian refugees safely to Rome on the papal plane. 

It focuses also on his remarks of LGBTQ Catholics in 2013 on a flight back from Brazil by asking “If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge him?” A controversial statement for most, as more conservative Catholics dislike his lack of condemnation and many LGBTQ Catholics believe his acceptance isn’t genuine. He has also since broadened his acceptance of LGBTQ people, offering public support for civil unions (though church doctrine remains unchanged).

It mentions his 2015 encyclical, Laudato si’, which advocates for a better care of the environment and the reality of climate change. He’s shown speaking to climate activist Greta Thurnberg and in the U.S. during the Obama presidency.

And it takes a look at Francis’s response to the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, particularly surrounding the appointment of Juan Barros Madrid as Bishop of Osorno. Francis appointed Barros despite pushback, as some claimed he was a close witness and participant of the sex abuse performed by Fernando Karadima. Francis appointed him anyway, and went so far as to suggest victims of Barros’ sexual abuse were lying. He called for an investigation all the same, and Barros was ultimately found guilty and removed from his position. One assault survivor describes how Francis flew him to the Vatican to apologize in person for his initial disbelief. 

It offers an update from June 2021 when Francis updated Church policy to say that Catholic leaders should be held accountable for covering up sex abuse.

Covering each of these things in only an hour means that the documentary is limited to a surface-level telling of events, which may turn off some viewers who have followed Francis since his election. But it’s thorough for those who didn’t know much about the papacy, and it offers an interesting exploration of Francis’s more Charismatic nature. 

“For [Francis], the Holy Spirit is always present,” Ivereigh said. “He's always discerning what it is that the Spirit wants. I actually think he's quite Charismatic in the joy that he exudes, in his confidence in the Spirit’s action and the way he sees his own ministry as opening our minds and hearts to the action of the Spirit.”

In his early adulthood, Bergoglio received a call to the priesthood that the documentary describes as properly Charismatic. On his way to meet up with a girl he was romantically involved with, Bergoglio felt called to step into church first and go to confession. That day, the documentary says he “received the light” to become a priest. 

The documentary also shows Francis as being connected to the Holy Spirit as he leads the Church and interacts with others. 

It’s that spiritual connection and his humility that will guide Francis through the next years of his papacy, Ivereigh says, as the world moves from beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and onto other struggles. 

“He wants to show that true religion is a religion of peace and solidarity in a fraternity, and I think this will continue to build alliances and bridges, which forestall fundamentalism and extremism and populism,” Ivereigh said. “I mean, the way I've been putting it is that he's been helping to guide humanity and the people of God to the threshold of a new era.”

“In Their Own Words” is available to stream on pbs.org.

Jillian Cheney is Religion Unplugged’s 2020-21 Poynter-Koch fellow who loves consuming good culture and writing about it. She also writes on American Protestantism and evangelical Christianity. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.