Pope Francis was elected on March 13, 2013, and ever since he has been astonishing people with countless kind acts. He speaks from his heart whenever he preaches in the Vatican and everyone appreciates it as they are able to see how much he cares for his people.

Pope Francis is a constant model of solidarity as he is slowly changing the Catholic worldview in his own creative way. Most recently, the Pope was found sneaking out of the Vatican at night in disguise to help the homeless in the streets of Rome. He lives his life to help his people and this has caused him to become one of the most publicly recognized Popes to date. In addition, he has swapped the luxuries of the Vatican – the gold throne and raised platform – for a simple wooden chair and flat floor, claiming that this makes him more unified with the people.

Pope Francis has also displayed his determination to make the world a better place since the day he was elected. For example on his first day, Pope Francis walked down to his hotel’s lobby and picked up his own luggage as well as paid the bill himself! This differed vastly from the previous leaders of the Vatican, whom were all treated like royalty.

In case you needed another reason to believe that Pope Francis is one of the most influential popes to date, he even ventured so far as to create a Twitter account which allows him to send out daily messages that inspire the nation. On Jun 7 2013, the Pope tweeted to his followers that, “true charity requires courage: let us overcome the fear of getting our hands dirty so as to help those in need.”

Interested? You can check out His Holiness’ twitter feed at @Pontifex.

In the most recent issue of Time magazine, Pope Francis was given the ‘Person of the Year’ award for his generous acts, and his humbleness which has charmed people of all cultures and religions from all over the world. He has shown his fearlessness of addressing the hard issues prevalent in the Catholic Church such as homosexuality and abortion. He constantly encourages compassion over condemnation.

His Holiness Pope Francis demonstrates to us on a daily basis that it important to treat everyone as equals and to be kind to one another no matter what. Unlike other Popes we have had over the past years, Pope Francis not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk.