The reign of Pope Francis in retrospect: A Catholic World Report symposium

In October 2013, I wrote one of the more challenging pieces of my nearly 30 years as an author: a CWR editorial titled “Pope Francis: The Good, the Baffling, and the Unclear”. I won’t repeat much of it here; rather, I’ll just point to the end, where I wrote:

The bottom line, in many ways, is that the Church is not the pope’s to remake or revise or change. The role of the pope is more modest (which is not to say it is not divinely ordained or unimportant), as one pope explained not long ago: “The Successor of Peter, yesterday, today and tomorrow, is always called to strengthen his brothers and sisters in the priceless treasure of that faith which God has given as a light for humanity’s path.” Yes, that pope was Francis, in Lumen fidei, his encyclical on faith.

A great deal of ecclesial water passed under the bridge between then and now. I’m still convinced there was much good in the late pontiff’s reign, but also a great deal that was baffling and unclear. Further, there was, over the years, far too much that was harmful to the Church and her witness, as well as to the world at large.

Alas, I think Pope Francis often failed to strengthen his brothers and sisters in the Catholic Faith, and I believe attempts to ignore that point are not helpful in the least. I plan to write more about that point and related matters in the near future.

But I first wanted to hear from others. The following nine authors are serious and learned Catholics who have thought much and deeply about the thought and actions of Pope Francis. They do not always agree, and I think that is a good thing. They don’t profess to have all the answers, which is also a good thing.

O God, faithful rewarder of souls,
grant that your departed servant Pope Francis,
whom you made successor of Peter
and shepherd of your Church,
may happily enjoy for ever in your presence in heaven
the mysteries of your grace and compassion,
which he faithfully ministered on earth.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Pax Christi,

Carl E. Olson
Editor, Catholic World Report

 

Larry Chapp: “The disconnect between papal words and papal actions”

With the rise of modern media, the public footprint of the papacy has grown exponentially. This has been a mixed blessing. On one hand, it has increased the ability of the papacy to disseminate in a global instant its teachings and the overall optics of every papal trip and gesture. On the other hand—paradoxically, since it is the very nature of the new forms of media to reduce everything it touches into easily digestible “news of the day” tidbits—the various pronouncements from the Vatican have also been reduced to what media folks think will “sell”.

Pope Francis, depending on one’s theological perspective, was either woefully deficient in understanding this basic sociological fact, which caused him to fall victim to constant misinterpretation, or a master manipulator who counted on this media drift into populist binaries in order to bypass the entire ecclesial apparatus and speak directly to “the people” in a manner they could understand.

In my opinion, the answer is the latter, which complicates any assessment of his lasting legacy.

I think we see evidence of this papal strategy in the various performative contradictions of this papacy, which seem so vexing at first glance, but make sense as attempts to change the Church by first changing the cultural narrative about her. Specifically, the contradiction to which I am referring is that there was a disconnect (to put it mildly) between what Pope Francis taught on an official level and what he did in his various actions–actions including personnel decisions but also his many “off the cuff” remarks. Those remarks, in my view, were more strategically calculated than we think and part of an overall attempt to guide the media narrative precisely where he wanted it to go.

On the one hand, his official teachings in magisterial documents have all been capable of orthodox interpretations, despite what his putatively traditionalist detractors may claim. One can quibble about his change to the Catechism on the death penalty (we can quibble because after all, what does “always inadmissible” mean?) or his approach to communion for the divorced and civilly remarried (can long-standing church teaching really be changed by an ambiguous footnote in a single document?). But those very quibbles arose because of ambiguities in expression and therefore are not, in my view, evidence of explicit papal heterodoxy.

On the other hand, in his actions governing the Church, we see a decided privileging of personnel and policies that run directly contrary to those same teachings of the Church that the pope has upheld.

For example, on just the issue of homosexuality and despite his magisterial teachings on the topic, he went out of his way to promote priests, bishops, and even cardinals who have publicly dissented from Church teaching on that issue.

Furthermore, even though he has upheld the Church’s official moral theology in his teachings on matters relating to marriage and the family and sexuality, he nevertheless purged the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family in Rome of most of its faculty. Those faculty members who taught in line with Veritatis Splendor were replaced with moral theologians of a more “proportionalist” mentality. He did the same to the Pontifical Academy for Life. And early in his papacy, Pope Francis praised the moral theology of Bernard Häring, one of the earliest theologians in the modern era to espouse a version of proportionalism. Häring, not insignificantly, was a very public dissenter from both Humanae Vitae and Veritatis Splendor, and an overall critic of almost the entire edifice of traditional Catholic moral theology. Yet Pope Francis thought he was a role model for how to do moral theology properly.

Actions speak louder than words. What the actions of Pope Francis indicate to me is a pope who wanted to change the Church in controversial ways, but to do so in a manner that did not rip the Church apart. Therefore, what he could not accomplish via papal fiat without creating a schism, he decided to pursue via a kind of ecclesial drift, but a drift that was engineered to go in the desired direction.

We see evidence of this preference for directed drift in the fact that Pope Francis, though a proponent of the “theology of the people” (and, therefore, was a bit of an ecclesial “populist”), nevertheless strongly opposed right-wing populism, in both secular politics and the Church. Therefore, when he said of the Church that “everyone is welcome” (Todos! Todos!), we must remember that his actions toward Catholics who espoused traditional moral theology and liturgy betrayed a decided slant in just who this “todos” included.

Along these lines, when one looks at his many statements disparaging theology and contrasting it with the simple faith of the people, and his upholding the truth of doctrines but then undermining them by characterizing them as lifeless abstractions and mere ideals that are at odds with “mercy”, and his constant references to the need for accompaniment in a manner that veered away from the law of gradualism and into the gradualism of the law, a picture begins to emerge. That picture is of a pope who pursued a pastoral strategy of valorizing the sentiments and experiences of “common people” in a direction emphasizing a moral and doctrinal minimalism centered around a “fundamental option” moral theology, which downplayed the importance of individual moral acts or doctrinal beliefs.

But those who want to continue to focus on a maximalist approach to faith and morals, and who want to valorize the heroism of the call to sanctity in that same “everydayness”, were often heavily criticized by Pope Francis as elitist, out of touch, pharisaical “backwardists” (indietrists).

This then brings me back to where I began. I think the performative contradictions of this papacy were the mark of a pope who learned well after Vatican II that, as even Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged, the Council of the media turned out to be the real Council, and the historical Council as such became an unreal abstraction. Thus, we see that the famous “spirit of Vatican II” emerged as the generative ecclesial engine that has driven the past 60 years of Church life.

I think that Pope Francis, in his clever manipulation of media words and images, sought to “continue the revolution” via the path of a kind of “theology of the people” to which his frequent media statements were geared. Statements such as “Who am I to judge?” pass from being an off-the-cuff remark of no magisterial significance to something of deep ecclesial weight when, after the remarks were spun in the media in a pro LGBTQ+ way, the Vatican remained silent. Which, of course, implies that the media spin, whether planned in advance or not by the Vatican, became the truth of what those words meant.

In my view, Pope Francis was not a heretic as his most fevered critics claim. But with all due respect for him and with sincere filial love for his soul, which I pray is with our Lord, his pastoral strategy was a recipe for institutional suicide. And that is something, perhaps, that is worse than heresy.

Larry Chapp, Ph.D., is a retired professor of theology who taught at DeSales University for twenty years. He received his doctorate from Fordham University in 1994 with a specialization in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar.

 

David Deane: “A figure too often fighting ghosts of the past”

The hours following His Holiness’ death were intense. I was more emotional and far sadder than I expected to be. I loved him: as Pope, and as the frail, fragile, beautiful, and earnest man he was. I’ve been praying for him, but stepping back from the sadness to do interviews with the media, I’ve been asked the same question again and again: “How will Pope Francis be remembered?”

These interviews are short, so there’s no time for a proper answer. A proper answer would begin with, “Remembered by whom?”

In secular media, Pope Francis was the everyman hero who stepped out of the TV shows and movies of the late 20th century. He wasn’t bound by stuffy convention; his speech, like his shoes, was plain and unpretentious. He stood up to the establishment and blew the minds of the ossified old curia in Rome. He scandalized the rigid pearl-clutchers with his unconventional ideas. In the secular imagination, he was Bruce Willis in Moonlighting, or Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam.

To Catholic conservatives, he was the embodiment of 1980s theology and Church culture, resurrected like a character in a bad soap opera, dead in season 3, inexplicably back in season 4, stepping out of the shower like Bobby Ewing in Dallas. They saw his ‘vibe-first’ theology as unclear, but implemented with an iron fist, clamping down on the Latin Mass, silencing critics. His humility struck them as performative; his anti-clericalism, paradoxically, as papal authoritarianism.

The first group may remember Francis as the West remembers Mikhail Gorbachev, beloved reformer and rebel, the man who, intentionally or not, collapsed the old regime. The second group may also see him as a Gorbachev figure, but like the last loyal Bolsheviks, they regard him as someone who sought the approval of the Western liberal elite, even if it meant surrendering the Church’s identity to gain it.

My point is twofold. First, how Francis is remembered will depend entirely on who is doing the remembering. And secondly, Pope Francis, from the very beginning, seemed like a dated figure. The problems he identified in the Church were often ghosts from another era. His solutions felt like they belonged not to the second decade of the 21st century, but to the final quarter of the 20th. He was a man shaped by the 1980s. He saw the curia and the rigid ideologues he opposed as the two old white millionaires from Trading Places. He saw himself as Eddie Murphy.

Francis attacked a starched, arrogant, joyless Church, one whose priests harangued people with long sermons. I’m 51 years old. That Church is not the one I knew. As a child of the ’80s, I went to Mass with woolly-jumper-wearing priests and folk choirs who, two decades earlier, had swayed to the music of Peter, Paul, and Mary. That Church wanted to smell like the sheep; it wanted to move past the starched, arrogant, joyless Church of the past. It was, in essence, the Church Pope Francis longed for—the very Church I grew up in, in Ireland, in the 1980s.

So too with his theology—Francis often felt decades out of date. He critiqued theology rooted in abstract principles and railed against an all-male theological establishment. But theology hasn’t been an all-male discipline in a very long time. His war on abstract theology felt at least fifty years late. If you survey theological departments across the West, Francis, as ever, seemed to be preaching to (or “journeying with”) the already converted.

The arrogant Church he attacked had largely disappeared before his papacy began. The sexual abuse crisis, and the resulting public revulsion, left many priests too cowed to critique anyone from the pulpit. I’ve attended Sunday Mass in Ireland where priests, anxious not to upset or delay a restless congregation, skipped the homily entirely. In places like Canada, where disgust with the Church is so visceral that dozens of churches have been burned to the ground, Francis’ critique of clerical arrogance has been egregiously out of step.

Perhaps his war on clericalism was directed elsewhere. But here, too, there’s danger: the risk of imposing a Western lens on the Global South, assuming those churches are “where we were” fifty years ago. It’s a quasi-colonial posture, one that borders on the racist, seeing non-Western churches as merely our theological and cultural past.

Even his theological language, his deep Marian devotion, and his frequent invocations of Satan have all felt more like the lexicon of the past than the present. He seemed shaped by a particular time and place, and he stayed there, bearing both the blessings and burdens of Argentine Catholicism from six decades ago. Among the blessings was surely his Marian piety, more explicit, more intense, and more real than in any pope of the last hundred years.

Among the burdens was a desire to push the Church “forward” into a vision that, in truth, had already arrived in the 1980s: a Church stripped of liturgical richness that it deemed pompous and pretentious; a theology not critical of modernity but formed by it, adopting its assumptions, then adding, with a hint of biblical justification, “us too!” A Church that broke with generations past –those portrayed as indifferent to the poor, inward-looking, clericalist–and embraced a Church with the smell of the sheep.

But this Church was a novelty only in the imagination of Pope Francis. I only experienced a Church that didn’t smell of the sheep in movies, a sinister Church of actors with British accents. I heard about it in stories told by older clerics or lapsed Catholics, stories about the bad old days of an arrogant Church—and I believed these stories. Like the stories I heard as a child about banshees, these stories shook and scared me, but they referred to a past that, if it ever existed, was long gone by the time I was around.

Wider secular society loved him. Progressive culture, by its nature, is often retrograde. Consider how the French Revolution idealized ancient Rome. Its enemies exist as much in the imagination as in reality. Cultural artifacts like Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Netflix’s Adolescence are the “evidence” for things they oppose. Echoing this in style and content, Pope Francis’s progressivism made him a beloved figure in the wider culture. This is not a bad thing. The record numbers of people received into the Church just two days ago at the Easter Vigil may never have had Catholicism within their “Overton Window” were it not for the “Francis Effect.”

But these same people long for something radically different from wider progressive culture. They long for something eternal, something real and true. Therefore, in order to build on things Pope Francis made possible, the Church will need a very different kind of leadership, one for the second decade of the 21st century, not the eighth decade of the 20th century.

David Deane is Associate Professor of Theology at the Atlantic School of Theology (Halifax, Nova Scotia). His most recent book is The Tyranny of the Banal (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2023).

 

Robert Fastiggi: “A very human and often misunderstood pope”

In n. 204 of his Major Catechism (Catechismo Maggiore) of 1905, Pope St. Pius X raises the question: “Come deve comportarsi ogni cattolico verso il Papa” [How should each Catholic behave towards the Pope?]. He replies: “Ogni cattolico deve riconoscere il Papa, qual Padre, Pastore e Maestro universale e stare a lui unito di mente e di cuore” [Each Catholic should recognize the Pope as Father, Shepherd, and universal Teacher and be united with him in mind and heart].

I begin my reflections on the papacy of Pope Francis with these words of Pius X as a Catholic who has been teaching theology in Catholic institutions of higher education since 1985. During my 40 years of teaching, I’ve done my best to be united with three popes—John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis—in mind and heart. It would be facile to dismiss the words of St. Pius X as “Ultramontanism” or “hyper-papalism.” It would likewise be facile to qualify Pius X’s response with the proviso: “as long as the Pope is teaching according to Catholic tradition.” It is Catholic dogma that “the Roman Pontiff is “the father and teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in the person of Blessed Peter, was given by our Lord Jesus Christ the full power of feeding, ruling, and governing the whole Church” (Council of Florence, Decree for the Greeks, A.D. 1439; Denz.-H, 1307).

Popes are human. They can sin, make prudential mistakes, and be negligent in their duties. In their ordinary Magisterium, they can teach something that is subject to future qualification, development, or even reversal. Despite the human limitations of each Roman Pontiff, we believe that

Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and in a particular way, to the Roman Pontiff as Pastor of the whole Church, when exercising their ordinary Magisterium, even should this not issue in an infallible definition or in a “definitive” pronouncement but in the proposal of some teaching which leads to a better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals and to moral directives derived from such teaching (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Donum Veritatis, 1990, n.17).

The Church holds that “magisterial decisions in matters of discipline, even if they are not guaranteed by the charism of infallibility, are not without divine assistance and call for the adherence of the faithful” (Donum Veritatis, n.17).

I bring forward these opening points to put into context my evaluation of the pontificate of Francis. During his twelve years in office, I’ve tried to look upon him as “the pope chosen for us” (electum nobis) for whom the Church prays at the Good Friday liturgy. God, in his providence, has chosen to lead his people through imperfect instruments. Both Moses and David committed murder; the first pope, St. Peter, denied our Lord three times. The frailty of God’s chosen leaders is a reminder “that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor 4: 7).

As the pope “chosen for us,” Francis brought forward some important initiatives for which I am extremely grateful. In particular, I am grateful for the special years he proclaimed: the 2015–2016 Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which coincided with the 2014–2016 Year of Consecrated Life; the 2020–2021 Year of St. Joseph; and the current Jubilee Year of Hope. These special years have been accompanied by some excellent documents: the papal bull, Misericordiae Vultus (April 11, 2015) for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy; the apostolic letter, Patris Corde, for the Year of St. Joseph; and the bull, Spes Non Confundit (May 9, 2024) for the 2025 Ordinary Jubilee of Hope. As Catholics, we have all been enriched by these papal reflections on mercy, the importance of St. Joseph, and the need for hope.

As the Roman Pontiff, Francis has left the Church with a collection of important documents that will be read and appreciated for many years to come. His first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (2013) was originally drafted by Benedict XVI so it should be considered a co-authored encyclical. It contains some deep insights into the life of faith within the Church and the dialogue between faith and reason. Francis’s second encyclical, Laudato Si` (2015), is a sustained reflection on the earth as our common home. It is grounded in Scripture and a sound theology of creation. His third encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (2020), takes up the themes of human fraternity and peace, and it stands in the great tradition of Catholic social teaching going back to Leo XIII. Finally, there is Dilexit Nos (October 24, 2024), Pope Francis’s encyclical on devotion to the Sacred Heart, which traces devotion to the Heart of the Savior from Scripture to recent times. In Dilexit Nos, Francis builds upon prior papal encyclicals on the Sacred Heart by Leo XIII (Annum Sacrum, 1899), Pius XI (Miserentissimus Redemptor, 1928) and Pius XII (Haurietis Aquas, 1956).

Although Pope Francis was considered “progressive” by many, his forms of piety were very traditional. In addition to his devotions to St. Joseph and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, he had a profound devotion to the Virgin Mary. Before and after his pastoral visits abroad, he would pray before the Marian icon, Salus Populi Romani (Health of the Roman People), located in the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. His choice to be buried in this Basilica is an expression of his deep Marian piety. When speaking to a group of young people in Rome on June 29, 2014, Pope Francis said: “A Christian without the Madonna is an orphan.” Pope Francis also recognized the central role of Mary in the work of redemption. In his homily of January 1, 2020, he stated that “there is no salvation without the woman” (non c’è salvezza senza la donna).

In addition to his four encyclicals, Pope Francis published numerous apostolic exhortations and letters. Unfortunately, many of his apostolic letters never received much publicity. They deserve, though, to be read and better known. I especially appreciate his apostolic letters on the importance of the Christmas scene (December 1, 2019); on St. Jerome (September 30, 2020); on Dante Alighieri (March 25, 2021); on St. Francis de Sales (December 28, 2022); and on Blaise Pascal (June 19, 2023). Several of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortations, such as Evangelii Gaudium (2013) and Amoris Laetitia (2016), are fairly well-known. More attention, though, should be given to Gaudete et Exsultate (2018) on holiness in today’s world; to Christus Vivit on young people; and to C’est la confiance (2023) on the 150^th anniversary of the birth of St. Thérêse of Lisieux.

As he would be the first to admit, Pope Francis was not a perfect pope. During his 12 years as Pontiff, certain actions and documents of his received vigorous criticisms. His mistakes, I believe, were made without any ill intent. For example, it was a mistake for him to refer to the wooden statues thrown into the Tiber River as “pachamamas.” The Holy Father was only using the name for the statues that is employed by the Italian media. His mistake, however, led to a frenzy of accusations of idolatry that allegedly took place during an October 4, 2019, prayer service held in the Vatican Gardens. The narrative of “pachamama worship” has been thoroughly refuted, but some continue to use this accusation as a hammer to attack the Francis pontificate.

Catholics certainly have the right and sometimes the duty to express their opinions on matters that pertain to the good of the Church (see Lumen Gentium, 37 and canon 212§3 of the 1983 CIC). In my opinion, though, many critics of Francis went overboard. Certain criticisms challenged not only Pope Francis but papal authority itself. Now is not the appropriate time to rehash the controversies over chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia, the inadmissibility of the death penalty, Traditionis Custodes, etc. I believe an orthodox and benevolent interpretation can and should be given to all of the teachings and decisions of Pope Francis.

In saying this, I am not “pope-splaining.” I am expressing my honest opinion after careful reading, study, and prayer. As with John Paul II and Benedict XVI, I’ve tried my best to be united in mind and heart with Pope Francis. I agree with what St. Pius X taught in 1905 about how Catholics should behave towards the pope. I hope to have the same unity of heart and mind with whoever is the pope chosen for us in the upcoming conclave.

Dr. Robert Fastiggi, Bishop Kevin M. Britt Chair of Dogmatic Theology and Christology, has been at Sacred Heart Major Seminary since 1999.

 

John Grondelski: “A pontificate of ambiguity, contradiction, and confusion”

John Donne insisted that “each man’s death diminishes me,” something especially true for Catholics when that man is the one we call “Holy Father.” As the visible head of the Church on earth, he plays a unique role in the lives of Catholics. But while de mortuis nil nisi bonum remains good counsel, truth also compels me to offer fainter praise for Pope Francis.

Criticism of a just-dead pontiff will be denounced by some: it’s not the Roman bella figura. I’ve been told on social media that Francis is the “most Christ-like Pope ever.”

Taking his counsel as to “whom am I to judge,” I dare not even imagine Francis’s relationship to God: that’s between them. But one can ask whether the Church in 2025 is better off than it was in 2013, and I think the answer is “no.” That’s why—aware some will criticize me—I think the past 12 years witnessed a pontificate of many lost opportunities.

Is a “Christ-like” Church one that emphasizes “accompaniment” while mumbling about conversion? Is the Church’s role to make people feel better in their accommodation of the Zeitgeist? Because, during this recent pontificate, the forces of secularism (abetted by Flemish and German episcopal cheerleaders) have advanced with apparent approval.

The Church in 2025 remains so mired in sexual abuse scandals that each new report is largely taken as “business as usual.” Because of that, the Church’s teaching authority on sexual matters is compromised and largely unheard. Indeed, this Pope did little to address that domain, while sending many mixed messages—moral and theological—in others.

Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio was elected to pursue necessary reforms in the Church. After a dozen years, those genuine reforms appear further away than ever, while the Barque of Peter has instead been rocked by unnecessary instability, but calling it “reform”.

Bergoglio was elected a decade after the scandals of mass priestly sexual abuse first shook the Church, primarily centered at that time in the Archdiocese of Boston. Electing somebody from outside Roman circles augured hope that the strong institutional reforms necessary to prevent the recurrence of such scandals.

Instead, much of Francis’s pontificate was dominated by more clerical sexual scandals, primarily homosexual, coupled with episcopal cover-up. The scandal unleashed in June 2018, of which ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick became the focal point, achieved what few would have imagined possible: it made the scope of the 2002 Boston scandals seem paler in comparison.

Since 2018, the ongoing drip-drip-drip of similar scandals, both big and small, has become so regular as to be almost a “new normal”. It also seems that too many Church leaders learned and changed little, at least in terms of what matters, from those scandals.

As in 2002, the institutional Church herself did not lead in the disclosure of those scandals. Indeed, much of what was learned came from secular sources–the non-Catholic press and judicial processes–while many leaders again circled the wagons. Under Pope Francis, for example, the Vatican report on how Theodore McCarrick got to where he did could be summarized as “everybody who knew anything is dead and anybody who is alive knew nothing.” That the report did not pass the public smell test is hardly news.

Pope Francis presided over all this. Worse, he appeared to blow hot and cold. He assured Catholics that “zero tolerance” would be applied—except to certain papal friends. He branded accusations of cover-up against a Chilean bishop as “slander,” until the accusations were shown to be true, after which Francis apologized. Accusations against traditional clerics—charges that even the Pope suggested were dubious—led to resignations accepted, while charges against less traditional clerics could spin out indefinitely in legal and canonical processes. Tone deafness was commonplace. Pope Francis made video statements with the artwork of Marko Rupnik hanging in the background, while his Dicastery for Communications chief could not understand what the controversy was about.

Amidst sexual, cover-up, and financial scandals, the effect of Pope Francis’s actions to pursue reform seemed to be intermittent, indeterminate, and often half-hearted. And it is those scandals, but especially the sexual scandal involving youth and dependent people, that compromise the Church’s ability to speak to the contemporary world, yet one Rome appears to let them fester.

Instead, the Church is focused on “reform” that few, except the Pope and some in his echo-chamber, were demanding. Francis’s particular fixation on “synodality,” a process he claimed essential to contemporary ecclesiology but which supporters struggled to define, is the primary example. This papacy has convened multiple synods, prefaced by even more preparatory meetings, whose outcomes have been ambiguous and sometimes even apparently at odds with the Church’s preceding tradition.

Indeed, the question of teaching is the other major disappointment of Francis’s twelve years as Pope. The nave of St. Peter’s Basilica states in big black letters what is the role of the See of Peter: to confirm the brethren in the faith.

That has hardly been the outcome of the Francis pontificate. After almost 35 years of patient and clear teaching under Popes St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the Francis pontificate bequeathed the Church a dozen years of ambiguity, contradiction, and confusion. “Demos,” the apparent pen name of the late Cardinal George Pell, captured the tenor of this pontificate in his play on the traditional adage: from Roma locuta, causa finita (Rome has spoken; the case is closed) the Church has moved to Roma locuta, confusio augetur (Rome has spoken; the confusion grows).

Matters long considered doctrinally and/or disciplinarily settled suddenly seemed, under Francis, to be up for grabs, while certain circles began treating Francis’s pronouncements with a kind of ultramontane submission not seen since the early Pian era. Doctrinal confusion seemed to be part of the pontificate’s strategy. When ex tempore papal remarks in interviews raise eyebrows early in a pontificate, the problem can be attributed to that pontificate’s still getting its bearings. But when that process continues a decade later, it cannot be written off as the consequence of a Roman amateur hour. It then appears to be a deliberate program of strategic ambiguity, questioning received teaching and practices through what is said and what is left unsaid. This has particularly been the hallmark of Francis’s papacy regarding marital and sexual ethics, including Communion for the divorced and “remarried” as well as the Church’s clearly established teaching on homosexual behavior.

When one couples ambivalence about saying clearly what the Church has taught with the practical showcasing of those who practically undermine that teaching (e,g, Fr. James Martin, S.J., New Ways Ministry) as well as the readiness to blunt Church teaching in the name of an “accompaniment” that seems to mumble the call to conversion, what emerges is a Church offering an uncertain message. That should not be the Catholic Church, especially the post-Vatican II Church. But intended or not, that has been the effect of the Francis papacy. And when one combines such practical kneecapping of ecclesiastical tradition with the Church’s compromised voice for failing decisively to lance the boil of sexual scandals, it seems one must conclude that Francis’s papacy has left the Church’s teaching voice significantly weakened and impaired.

Unnecessary and unresolved scandal, coupled with what seems to be a process of doctrinal and disciplinary dilution, looks to be the legacy the Francis pontificate leaves the Church. Even more than Francis, his successor will have to be a clear-eyed and unrelenting reformer. And his task will, unfortunately, be that much harder, because he will have to make up for many unnecessarily lost opportunities over 12 years for a Church whose clear voice the world desperately needs.

John M. Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) is the former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey.

 

Michael Heinlein: “The missing mozzetta and the failure to build bridges”

I remember well when Pope Francis was introduced to the world on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica in March 2013. Allegedly, some in Chicago media heard the new pope’s baptismal name announced in Latin (Georgium) and thought the Windy City’s Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I. was elected supreme pontiff. Alas, he wasn’t.

But the image that day of the new Pope Francis on the balcony left me unsettled. He wasn’t wearing the mozzetta, a traditional piece of papal garb worn for centuries. And that Francis didn’t wear the red shoulder cape, worn by popes on such and many occasions since images have been captured, was itself a red flag to me. I remember thinking immediately, “This is going to be a wild ride.”

Now, I’m no ultra traditionalist. Papal vesture has changed since the Second Vatican Council. Some popes choose to use some of it, others opt to leave certain items in the papal closet. Fine. But choosing not to wear the things that popes wear was intended to send a signal. Time would only bear out what that signal would mean.

Making sense of Francis’ eschewal of a traditional and common item of papal vesture seemed to mirror how he eschewed a key papal duty stemming from one of the oldest papal titles: pontifex maximus. A relic of Roman antiquity, even for a time a title assumed by the emperors, the etymology of pontifex maximus connotes the importance of the pope as “bridge-builder.”

Indeed, there are many bridges that popes ought to build, and even, by his ministry, ensure those bridges are fortified and kept from collapsing. Popes bridge the gap between Christ and his Church. As pastor of pastors, the pope is to keep his flock connected to their Lord and Master through fidelity to what he handed on to us. Popes exercise this by their clarity in proclaiming the Faith, their strength in defending it, their pastoral tact in adapting it to their present age, and, hopefully, in personal witness through their authenticity, integrity, and holiness of life.

A pontifex maximus must also build and undergird bridges among the members of the flock. He must commit himself to fostering communion within the Church and among other Christian churches and communities. In this capacity, popes must strive to prevent fracturing among the Body of Christ, do whatever he can to pastor his flock so that none are left behind or cast aside. And through his instruction, he must build bridges between his flock and the poor and abandoned who need our care.

As the Church must also be a leaven in society and in the advancement of human solidarity, the popes also build bridges between the Church and all our brothers and sisters. Popes must bear witness to justice and speak on behalf of the voiceless, especially. But, as important as this might be, the pope’s role is not primarily as an NGO figurehead. And this aspect of the “job” is ineffective if the pontifex maximus cannot accomplish the other, more requisite duties.

Thinking back to the absence of that red mozzetta. Over a dozen years later, it has come to symbolize for me how Francis ultimately was unsuccessful in building the bridges he ought to have built and supported. Ultimately, Francis leaves behind a more fractured and polarized Church. His legacy is muddied by an inability to adequately defend the Faith against modern errors nor to provide the requisite clarity amid emerging moral and doctrinal questions. It’s a legacy of inconsistency, unclarity, and sometimes even divisive double-speak. It’s a legacy of ignoring serious voices with weighty concerns, among them some of his own cardinals, and giving private audiences to dissenters and global elites. It’s a legacy that fueled in the Church an ideological divide he often deplored. It’s a legacy of irregular and sloppy governance. It’s a legacy heralded by many for perceived tenderness and inclusivity while it saw traditionalist Catholics abandoned, making them an enemy within. It’s a legacy that rewarded ideological loyalty and punished perceived opponents. It’s a legacy that spoke tough about the clergy sexual abuse crisis, but failed to effectively build bridges with victim-survivors of abuse or deliver them justice. In the end, while some credited him with building bridges—which he did in many cases, some for good and some for ill—he also built far too many walls.

That wild ride I intuited internally in 2013 was sensed by others. Back to Cardinal Francis George, who died only two years into the Francis era, whose tenth death anniversary was just last week. He identified concerns early on in Francis’s pontificate and was the first notable American bishop to speak about them, at least in public. Among those was when George wondered aloud about the pope’s now-infamous “who am I to judge?” line. George was concerned whether Francis thoroughly understood “what has happened just by that phrase.” The cardinal regretted how that soundbite was “very misused … because he was talking about someone who has already asked for mercy and been given absolution, whom he knows well.”

He added: “That’s entirely different than talking to somebody who demands acceptance rather than asking for forgiveness.” The pope’s original remark concerned a Vatican staffer, Msgr. Battista Ricca, who oversaw the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta, where Pope Francis took up residency upon his election. Ricca had long been rumored to engage in homosexual misconduct, which was noted in the press shortly after Francis appointed him in 2013 as prelate of the Vatican Bank.

“Does he not realize the repercussions? Perhaps he doesn’t,” George asked. “I don’t know whether he’s conscious of all the consequences of some of the things he’s said and done that raise doubts in people’s minds.” And, George said, “The question is: why doesn’t he clarify” such statements that can be so easily taken out of context? “Why is it necessary that apologists have to bear the burden of trying to put the best possible face on it?”

And that was only 2014.

That burden will soon be squarely on the shoulders of the new pope. But the absence of the red mozzetta at the end of the 2013 conclave, and ever since, has come to symbolize all of the above and more. I can only hope that no matter who he is, the next pope will wear the red mozzetta when he walks out on the St. Peter’s loggia. In this Jubilee Year of Hope—the first jubilee in which a pope has died in 325 years—I will then have hope that the pope might be taking seriously the fullness of his role as pontifex maximus.

Michael R. Heinlein is the author of Glorifying Christ: The Life of Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I.

 

Jayd Henricks: “Pope Francis and the future of the Church”

We pray for the repose of the late Holy Father. May eternal rest be granted unto him, and may he pray for us who remain on the journey back to Our Father’s house.

With that being said, it is important in this moment to look back on his pontificate, to examine it in order to see what is approaching on the ecclesial horizon. Without a sense of where we have been, it is difficult to know where we need to go.

It should first be noted that Pope Francis was a man who highlighted the plight of the poor and a call for the Church to be a simple witness to the universal community to which we all belong. We should be grateful for this legacy. It is too easy for many of us to be caught up in the trappings of modern culture, with its distractions and self-focus. May we take seriously his love for the poor and material simplicity.

Nonetheless, it seems on balance the pontificate fulfilled Bergoglio’s vision to make a mess of things, and so it is my judgment this was a failed pontificate.

Perhaps that is unsurprising in that he followed two giants in the life of the Church, Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both of whom should arguably be Doctors of the Church. Anyone who followed them would have very large shoes to fill—an almost impossible task. Comparing him to his immediate predecessors is, on one level, unfair, and yet on another, unavoidable.

Cardinal Bergoglio, it is widely reported, was elected with a mandate to reform the Roman curia. After 12 years of his leadership, there has been little improvement in the governance of the Vatican’s many offices. It still runs a significant deficit, its web of theological, pastoral, legal, and administrative offices does not seem to have a cohesive vision, and the rule of law has been inconsistent and sometimes arbitrary. There is no key through which his leadership can be understood. He dealt with his immediate subordinates roughly while repeatedly defending credibly accused cleric friends. He governed as a Jesuit, seemingly for Jesuits, even though he was elected as the universal pastor for all the faithful.

He was elected as a man of South America, where the faith was seen as more vibrant than that of Europe, and yet there have been few to no signs of spiritual growth in South America under his leadership. The Aparecido moment that was characterized as an infusion of new life never materialized in any significant way in South America or elsewhere under his leadership. In fact, Church attendance, vocations, and other key indicators declined sharply in South America during his papacy. Obviously, not all of that is his responsibility as secularism swept through most cultures with the force of a hurricane, leaving a spiritual wasteland in its wake. Nonetheless, there is nothing discernable that Pope Francis did to stem the tide in his native land.

The unexpected hallmark of his papacy is the notion of synodality, something that has yet to be defined in any precise way. We have been told it must be lived, not defined. Yet it’s clear that it has been used to advance heterodox positions, and it has marginalized those who are most faithful to the teachings of the Church. If there is an immediate legacy of synodality, it is one of division and confusion. Perhaps there will be long-term fruit from the Synod on Synodality, but that is very much an open question. The more likely scenario is that it will quickly fade from the ecclesial landscape and happily be forgotten.

One of the indirect benefits of the Francis papacy is a necessary correction to the cult developed around John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Both men, by their holiness and intellectual strength, drew devotion to themselves that sometimes eclipsed that which belongs exclusively to Christ. Looking back, I see how I was prone to that from time to time. As a priest friend of mine once said, Rome took the place of Jerusalem. This was not good for the life of the Church or for the faithful. Francis, unintentionally, has remedied this false elevation of Peter. Hopefully, this brings Christ back to the center of the faith for more of us. For this, we should be thankful for how the Holy Spirit can work in unexpected and mysterious ways.

What we are left with in the wake of the Francis papacy is a Church more confused and more divided than at any time since the immediate aftermath of Humanae Vitae. It is perhaps a comfort that the Church has seen division and confusion many times in her history, and yet she survives. This is a kind of proof of her divinity. No other institution could survive such trials.

And so, we look toward the future with confidence that the Holy Spirit remains in the Church as the source of her life. The next pope has a monumental task of bringing unity back to the Church through clarity of teaching and holiness of life. Let us pray that the Francis pontificate might be used in a mysterious way by the Holy Spirit to bring new life into what we know is the mystical body of Christ.

Jayd Henricks is the former executive director of government relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has an STL in systematic theology from the Dominican House of Studies.

 

Fr. Robert Imbelli: “The paradoxes of Pope Francis”

News of the death of the Pope sent me back to a small book published by America Press in 2013: A Big Heart Open to God. It contains the famous first interview of Pope Francis with Antonio Spadaro, S.J. The interview took place a short five months after the papal election. In his introduction to the book Father Spadaro remarks that the Pope expressed “his great difficulty in giving interviews;” stating “that he prefers to think carefully rather than give quick responses.” Twelve years, and an estimated five hundred interviews and press conferences later (including one on “60 Minutes”!) one cannot but smile at this paradox of a Pope, both reticent and all too garrulous.

Pressed by Spadaro to characterize himself, the Pope confessed forthrightly: “I am a sinner.” He then continued, using words that struck me at the time and have continued to replay in my mind. Francis said: “I am a bit astute … a bit naïve.” So reads the acceptable English translation. The Italian sounds more colorful and even a tad alarming: “un pò furbo … un pò ingenuo. “Furbo” perhaps better rendered as “cunning” or “shrewd,” often with something of a negative connotation: an “operator.” Cunning and ingenuous – another paradox.

A further paradox has been amply commented upon. Pope Francis will doubtless be known as “the Pope of synodality:” his call to active discernment and collegial participation in the life of the Church at all levels by the holy and faithful people of God. Yet he has also been the Pope of the “motu proprio,” issuing far more than his two predecessors combined. A salient manifestation of this rather imperial governance is his willful failure to convoke the College of Cardinals for crucial discernment and counsel. One harmful result is a widely dispersed crop of Cardinals who have scant knowledge of one another as they enter Conclave. Who knows what this may portend in terms of possible manipulation or protracted duration.

Pope Francis’s inaugural apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, contains passages of splendid insight and stirring summons to evangelization. Here is a passage that has had special resonance for me. “The primary reason for evangelizing is the love of Jesus, which we have received, the experience of salvation which urges us to ever greater love of him. What kind of love would not feel the need to speak of the beloved, to point him out, to make him known?” (no. 264).

Yet this same Pope, in the ensuing years, often blunted his call to evangelization by dire warnings against “proselytizing” – an undertaking he never ceased to excoriate nor bothered to define. The unhappy result was that the repeated cautions often overshadowed the evangelical elan.

When America published the Pope’s initial interview, it also invited twelve Catholics of diverse backgrounds and ages to contribute preliminary impressions. I was one of the commentators, perhaps the lone voice to raise some polite concerns and tentative reservations. One of these was my perception of a certain indecisive “relativism” shading some of the new Pope’s remarks. This concern has been amplified over the years, especially in the realm of dialogue with the world religions.

At times, the Pope even seems to have verged upon an endorsement of the various religions as equally valid paths to God. However praiseworthy his efforts at religious dialogue, especially with Islam, such unnuanced observations, both orally and in writing, manifest scant coherence with his otherwise pronounced Christocentrism as shown, for example, in his lovely last encyclical on the Sacred Heart: Dilexit nos.

Significantly, both in the initial interview and in various comments made throughout the years of his pontificate, Pope Francis has shown great regard for the person and works of his Jesuit confrere, the late Henri de Lubac. It is the Lubacian strain in writings like Evangelii Gaudium and Dilexit nos that may well remain as the lasting legacy of Pope Francis.

De Lubac notably composed three volumes entitled Paradoxes. But he never attenuated his conviction and confession that Jesus Christ is the God-man, who does not suppress the paradoxes of our lives, but realizes their transfiguration through the life-giving Paradox of his Cross.

Perhaps this Lubacian stimulus inspired the words of Pope Francis last November to the participants in the plenary session of the International Theological Commission. Evoking the coming celebration of the 1700^th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, he issued a stirring appeal to those present and to the entire schola theologorum. Francis said: “This Council was a milestone in the history of the Church but also of all humanity, because faith in Jesus, the Son of God made flesh ‘for us and for our salvation’, was defined and professed as a light that illumines the meaning of reality and the destiny of all history. In this way, the Church responded to the exhortation of the Apostle Peter: “Worship the Lord, Christ, in your hearts, always ready to answer anyone who asks you about the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15).

This exhortation, addressed to all Christians, can be applied in a particular way to the ministry that theologians are called to exercise as a service to the People of God. You are called to foster an encounter with Christ and to attain a deeper understanding of his mystery, so that we can better appreciate ‘what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge’ (Eph 3:18-19).”

It is nothing short of Providential, then, that the very last homily written by Pope Francis (delivered in his name at the Mass of Easter Sunday) makes explicit reference to de Lubac. Francis cited one final time “the great theologian Henri de Lubac” who wrote: “It should be enough to understand this: Christianity is Christ. No, truly, there is nothing else but this. In Christ we have everything!”

For me, these words represent the moving, faith-filled testament of this paradoxical Pope: the summons to encounter Christ and to enter ever more deeply into his life-giving, transforming mystery. One fervently prays, then, that the paradoxes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio–like our own–may be fully untied and transfigured in Christ.

Father Robert Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, is the author of Christ Brings All Newness (Word on Fire Academic).

 

Matthew J. Ramage: “The ecological legacy of Pope Francis”

Among the many aspects of Pope Francis’s life and legacy that are worthy of our consideration, I am especially interested in his relationship with his predecessors—how he either extended or diverged from the trajectory set by those who preceded him in office. In this regard, it is no secret that many of us were disappointed by certain decisions made by our late pontiff, having had hoped for greater continuity with the course of renewal chartered by other recent popes. However, one notable area of continuity—and even development—lies in Francis’s work of articulating a robustly Catholic theology of creation and its care.

The Argentine pontiff spoke often on this theme, most recently at length in his 2023 apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum. Undoubtedly, however, his most significant treatment of the environment came in his 2015 Laudato Si’, the first papal encyclical ever to be dedicated to the theme of care for creation. In this lengthy and circuitous text, Francis brought the ancient wisdom of the Church to bear on the pressing challenges of environmental stewardship in our age. What many may not realize is that, in doing so, his work firmly followed in the footsteps of his predecessors in the chair of St. Peter—from Pope St. Paul VI who foretold a looming “ecological catastrophe,” to Pope St. John Paul II who described the work of “ecological conversion” as “an essential part” of Christian faith, to “the Green Pope” Benedict XVI.

The first of Francis’s major contributions in this domain was his retrieval of the ancient Christian teaching that an intimate bond unites every creature in heaven and on earth with one another and with their Triune Lord—“a covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying.” This covenant with creation represents one of the most distinctive aspects of Catholicism’s vision of the natural order that can contribute to the renewal of life on our planet today, as it urges us to behold all of God’s creatures as participants with us in a cosmic communion of love and praise.

Although Francis actually borrowed this concept from Benedict XVI (often without his editors acknowledging it), this element of Francis’s pontificate is critically important. It provides a richer foundation for what mainstream environmentalism seeks with the idea of animal rights, yet in a way that is more authentically biblical, deeply human, and scientifically serious. From this perspective, the duty to care for other creatures stems not from an assertion of their personhood or equality with man but from the place they occupy within our extended covenantal family. Thus, even as he stressed “the unique and central value of the human being,” Francis crucially taught that all creatures in this cosmos “are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect” (Laudate Deum, §67).

The second major hallmark of Francis’s environmental legacy is his explicit introduction of the concept of integral ecology into papal vocabulary. As far as I can tell, this terminology had previously appeared in Vatican circles only within the International Theological Commission’s 2009 work In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law. The term itself was coined in the past century as a way of capturing the deep interconnectedness between humans and the wider created world. Integral ecology emphasizes that what we normally think of with the concept of ecology (understanding and caring for the natural world) is inextricably bound up with human ecology, which is to say the truth of man’s integration in the created order and his endowment with a nature that has unique gifts and needs. In this context, Francis poignantly cited Benedict’s teaching that “man, too, has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will.”

As understood by Francis, integral ecology is the holistic practice by which we seek to achieve the well-being of humans and other creatures in a society where they are often seen as unrelated or even pitted against one another. On this front, he liked to cite Benedict’s teaching that “the way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice versa.” Yet, while John Paul II and Benedict XVI had already spoken extensively on human ecology, neither explicitly linked it to environmental ecology under the framework of integral ecology. For this conceptual synthesis, the Church owes Francis a debt of gratitude.

One striking feature of integral ecology that Francis particularly emphasized is the sanctity of human life beginning at conception. While previous popes (notably John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae) consistently professed the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, I’m not sure that any pope has advocated so adamantly for the dignity of embryos as did Francis in lines like these:

When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities—to offer just a few examples—it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected (§117).

Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable, and creates difficulties? (Laudato Si’, §120).

As these statements illustrate, Francis recognized both the destruction of embryos and the pervasive wastefulness of modern culture as symptoms of a broader “throwaway culture” that pervades present-day Western society. In this light, he raised a critical question: How can we be expected to respect non-human nature if we do not even respect our own human nature? Unlike so many secular environmentalists, Francis steadfastly resisted the urge to privilege other creatures at the expense of the most vulnerable of our species—replacing an unchecked anthropocentrism with an equally destructive neo-pagan “biocentrism.”

Much more could be said about Francis’s ecological legacy that I cannot address at the moment. But, thankfully, this is precisely the kind of theme that I regularly address in my “God’s Two Books” column here at Catholic World Report. Among the other dimensions of Francis’s vision that would be worth considering in more detail, I will close by calling attention to just two more that have yet to receive the consideration they deserve: his call for the cultivation of “ecological virtues” (Laudato Si’, §88) and his 2016 declaration of care for creation as a new corporal and spiritual work of mercy. (Although I cannot elaborate on these ideas further here, I have explored them in greater depth in Chapter 9 of my book The Experiment of Faith: Pope Benedict XVI on Living the Theological Virtues in a Secular Age.) As with integral ecology, the terminology here may be new, but the underlying concept emphasized by our late pontiff stands in firm continuity with the teachings of his predecessors–and indeed marks a further development of them.

Matthew J. Ramage, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology at Benedictine College, where he is co-director of its Center for Integral Ecology.

 

Amy Welborn: “Pushing the papal limits in the post-Conciliar Church”

In 1980, British writer David Lodge published a novel about the lives of a group of young Catholics before and after the Second Vatican Council. The American edition of the novel was called Souls and Bodies, but the original English title—How Far Can You Go? – is far more apt, expressing as it does, a double reference to the faith-fueled sexual anxieties of these young people and even more fundamentally, to faith itself during the period: But in matters of belief . . . it is nice question how far you can go in this process without throwing out something vital.

The papacy of Pope Francis is, in a way, the culmination of that particular post-Conciliar question: how far can you go? Dogma? Liturgy? Curial organization? Ecclesiology? Commentators and historians will continue to hash over those matters for the near and distant future. The lazy will use the word “boomer” at least once per essay or social media post. The issue that Francis’ papacy highlighted, and we might even say embodied, though, is more fundamental than those particulars, though. It’s about the source and focus of our faith.

We know the drill, not only because it’s been unpacked for us by intellectual historians and theologians, but because we’ve lived it. Is faith what feels right or what is objectively true? We know what the answer is in 2025: even Christian religious faith in general has come to center on personal experience rather than objective truth over the past couple of centuries, the past and tradition of all types devalued as useless or even harmful to the spiritual needs of modern man.

Of course, none of this was taught by the Second Vatican Council–far from it–but this is the world of the post-Conciliar Church as it is lived and experienced with the journey that began with the “immemorial” Mass turning out to not be so immemorial after all one weekend in November 1969 and eating meat on Friday transformed from sin to not-a-sin just as quickly.

Now, when you strip structures away, that vacuum will be filled. By worldly sensibilities, by false teachings, and, in the current Christian world, the power of personalities and emotional connections. And when you have a universal Church in a world of mass media and celebrity culture, you have a prime landscape for persons to supplant principles and for allegiances a human figure – aka the Pope – to overshadow communion with and in Christ.

No, ultramontanism is not new at all. But the phenomenon we’ve seen with the past twelve years – which grew out of trends from the previous two papacies, to be honest – a focus on the person of the Pope as the embodiment of the Faith in the world, one whose seemingly every comment on a plane bleeds (for some) into magisterial territory – that’s definitely new.

This did not begin with Pope Francis, of course, but during the course of his papacy, the personal appeal he held for some, along with his own style of theological writing (in which his primary sources were Scripture and his own words), leadership and communication – as well as almost universal ignorance and confusion about various levels of papal authority – only served to heighten, both in the public eye and the reality of Church governance – a sense of the papacy primarily as a space for Francis’ person, preferences and agenda to be centered, rather than an office of one who is, as Benedict XVI wrote, “….not an absolute monarch whose will is law; rather, he is the guardian of the authentic Tradition and all that traditionally entailed.”

This, it seems to me, is the most significant way that Pope Francis represented his generation that had come of age during and right after the Second Vatican Council. Not his particular disdain for the Traditional Latin Mass or his Häring-shaded moral pronouncements, but in the insistent location of the action of the Holy Spirit in an experience or a “reality” to the practical exclusion of much that has gone before, and even more seriously, a determination that what has gone before is of no value and even an obstacle to encountering God in the present. In short, the hermeneutic of discontinuity, right there.

Which then, on the level of the visible Church universal, becomes oddly centered on whoever is Pope at the moment.

As many have noted, this leads to confusion, but it also leads to the ironic state in which we found ourselves during the Francis papacy: the rich, thick stuff of tradition, doctrine and yes, even law, is set aside in the name of the freedom of the spirit or making a mess, but what that leaves us with is the word, presence, preferences and person of other human beings filling the vacuum, sometimes in yes, authoritarian ways.

And so, after twelve years in the question that the Francis papacy leaves us with is the end game of all of this, the natural consequence of this process, all centered on the man in white: How far can you go in elevating the person of the Pope – his interests, agenda, concerns, personality – as synonymous with “Church?”

Amy Welborn is the author of over twenty books on Catholic spirituality and practice, and writes extensively at her blog, Charlotte was Both.