The first pontiff from Latin America, Francis helped galvanize the Roman Catholic Church with his warm, empathetic, humble, no-nonsense manner. Francis was beloved by many for his public displays of compassion, commitment to social justice and willingness to shake up the scandal-ridden Vatican. He largely hewed to the church’s conservative line on social issues such as abortion and LGBTQ+ rights but urged clerics not to be “obsessed with” those issues. His emphasis on God’s love and his demand that the church go out and minister to oppressed and needy people impressed even those who disagreed with him.
Mark E. Potts is the senior editor for video at the Los Angeles Times. A native of Enid, Okla., Potts graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. He has created and edited video for DreamWorks, YouTube, Microsoft, Sony and BET.
Henry Chu first joined the Los Angeles Times in 1990 and worked primarily out of the San Fernando Valley office before moving to the foreign staff in 1998. He served as bureau chief in Beijing from 1998 to 2003, Rio de Janeiro from 2004 to 2005, New Delhi from 2006 to 2008 and London from 2009 to 2014. He was a 2014-15 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. From 2016-19 he was international editor at Variety magazine. A graduate of Harvard University, Chu returned to The Times in March 2020 as deputy news editor based in London. He left in 2024.
