Whenever Pope Francis visits prisons, during his whirlwind trips to the world's peripheries or at a nearby jailhouse in Rome, he always tells inmates that he, too, could have ended up behind bars: “Why you and not me?” he asks.
That humble empathy and the ease with which he walks in others' shoes have won Francis admirers around the globe and confirmed his place as a consummate champion of the poor and disenfranchised.
But as he marks the fifth anniversary of his election Tuesday and looks ahead to an already troubled 2018, Francis faces criticism for both the merciful causes he has embraced and the ones he has neglected. With women and sex abuse topping the latter list, a consensus view is forming that history's first Latin American pope is perhaps a victim of unrealistic expectations and his own culture.
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