Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the death of Pope Fran­cis is a loss not just for the Catholic Church, but for all who val­ue hu­man­i­ty, jus­tice and com­pas­sion.

In a state­ment is­sued on be­half of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­fered con­do­lences to the Vat­i­can, the glob­al and lo­cal Catholic com­mu­ni­ties, and “all peo­ple across the world.”

“In­deed, the Catholic Church and the world have lost one of our best cham­pi­ons of hu­man­i­ty, free­dom, and glob­al uni­ty,” she said.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Ar­genti­na, Pope Fran­cis was the first Latin Amer­i­can to lead the Church, as­cend­ing to the pa­pa­cy in 2013.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said his hu­mil­i­ty, love for the poor, and fo­cus on con­tem­po­rary is­sues like cli­mate change made him a beloved fig­ure far be­yond the Catholic world.

“His nat­ur­al charm, deep hu­mil­i­ty, gen­uine love for the poor, and keen in­ter­est and cham­pi­oning of con­tem­po­rary is­sues like glob­al cli­mate change en­deared him to not just the Catholic com­mu­ni­ty but the en­tire world, cast­ing him as hu­man­i­ty’s moral con­science,” she said.

She de­scribed the late pon­tiff as a “uni­ver­sal guide and au­thor­i­ty fig­ure” who re­mained an in­spi­ra­tion to hu­man­i­ty, even in his fi­nal days.

Quot­ing one of his most wide­ly shared re­marks dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic — “We have re­alised that we are on the same boat, all of us frag­ile and dis­ori­ent­ed and all of us to row to­geth­er, each of us in need of com­fort­ing the oth­er” — Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Pope’s lega­cy would live on as a moral re­minder.

“His life will for­ev­er serve to us all as a re­minder of our oblig­a­tion to build a cul­ture, lo­cal­ly and glob­al­ly, in which the strong pro­tect the weak, and jus­tice, fair­ness, dig­ni­ty and pro­gres­sive­ness is God’s ul­ti­mate gift for hu­man­i­ty,” she said.

“May this hum­ble, wise, and fear­less priest from Ar­genti­na, who be­came one of our world’s great­est moral lead­ers and the Good Shep­herd of our times, find eter­nal peace with the Lord, and may we al­ways find com­fort and ex­am­ple in his life’s great, in­spi­ra­tional work and en­dear­ing lega­cy.”