Pope Francis didn’t wear Balenciaga. I can’t imagine he ever will. But if we keep our eyes peeled, it won’t be long before we see him do something just as eye-popping to reveal once again to us the challenging, merciful love of God.

“Christ, in his abandonment, stirs us to seek him and to love him and those who are themselves abandoned. For in them we see not only people in need, but Jesus himself, abandoned.”

Pope Francis, recovering from bronchitis, delivered a forceful Palm Sunday homily asking us to remember the “many abandoned Christs” in our own time, or those who experience suffering and solitude.

Ahead of the U.S. theatrical release of “In Viaggio: The Travels of Pope Francis,” America spoke with Gianfranco Rosi about his ideas for the documentary and how the film is a modern-day Stations of the Cross.

I was pleasantly surprised to realize that amid all the polarization and turmoil found online among Catholics, we can still come together to pray for an old man who happens to be our pope.

“If those full seminaries had forged holy pastors, and the traditional formation imparted to them (were) solid and true, we wouldn’t have to mourn so many scandals today,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, said.