When Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis on March 13, 2013, I was in my tiny bedroom in a 14th-century palazzo 100 metres from St Peter’s Square in Rome. I heard the roar of the crowd, peered out the attic window to see white smoke billowing above the Sistine Chapel, and 60 seconds later, I was with the throngs in the square.

Addressing the faithful a little later, Francis, who died on Monday aged 88, made an instant impression of humility and openness, wishing those gathered a good evening – not the usual papal proclamation. After the election, he travelled in a bus with other cardinals and later returned to his former hotel room to pay his bill himself.

Pope Francis at the Vatican in August.Credit: AP

He sustained this impression when I enjoyed a meeting – with 3000 other journalists – at his first press conference and, by and large, for the rest of his pontificate. No pope has been as personable since John XXIII, the reformer who launched the Vatican II council 60 years ago.

Francis, too, in his quiet way, was a considerable reformer – a man who, as Jesuit American commentator Thomas Reese put it, would “change the style of being Pope, attack clericalism” – the idea that priests and bishops are the source of all authority – “empower the laity, open the church to conversation and debate, and change the pastoral and public priorities of the church”.

No pope has kissed the feet of so many marginalised people. He was “the master of the personal encounter”, leading Australian Jesuit........

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