In 2013, when the Argentine cardinal, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was elected as Pope Francis, the world was supposed to witness a moment of genuine hope and anticipation. After all, Bergoglio would go on to become the first non-European pope in over a millennium, the first pontiff from the Americas, and the first Jesuit pope.

As Francis, he arrived at the Vatican with a reputation for humility, compassion, and a concern for the “marginalized.” His early gestures—refusing the papal apartments, washing the feet of prisoners, and speaking of a “poor Church for the poor” —captured the imaginations of people both within and outside the Catholic Church. Many began to think another era of renewal was dawning.

Yet, as the years unfolded, what began as a papacy of promise became a cautionary tale, one marked by a stark leftward drift in ideology and temperament. The speed and direction in which the Francis papacy moved began to overshadow and even undermine the doctrinal foundations of the Catholic Church.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in his 2021 motu proprio, Traditionis custodes, which drastically restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass and ignited a firestorm of controversy, deepening divisions within the Church.

The initial years of Francis were marked by bold rhetoric and symbolic acts. He spoke forcefully against clericalism, financial corruption, and the “spiritual worldliness” that plagued the Vatican. He called for a Church that “smells like the sheep,” one that would be closer to the people and less concerned with privilege and power.

Were such universally lauded measures merely a giant façade? A head-fake, if you will?

Perhaps not. With his focus on forgiveness, most notably during the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Francis sent a powerful message to all practicing Catholics. This was real.

However, the pope’s willingness to wade into such issues like “climate change,” the fuzzy notion of “global inequality,” and nearly every type of “justice” —climate, social, economic, racial, cultural, animal, etc.—won him admiration from progressives and the secular media, most of whom never stopped cheerleading for the leftward drift of the Church.

Keep in mind, any act, transaction, interaction, and so forth is either just or it is not just. Black and white. Binary. Justice is fixed by God—permanently. Man can recognize justice and live by it, but he cannot change it or modify it.

Historically, the umbrella movement of Marxism is a force that works to destroy justice. Its adherents append unnecessary modifiers to words like “justice.” Find a true Social Justice Warrior in the wild and you will discover a Marxist of some stripe.

But Francis was not a Marxist, merely a fellow traveler. His politics were more Machiavelli than Marx. When asked by an Italian newspaper about being called a Marxist by some conservative types in the U. S., Francis said, “I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended.”

The pastoral style that Francis embraced was often informal and off-the-cuff and suggested a break from the supposed “rigid” formality of his predecessors. He was seen as a bridge-builder, a pope who was supposed to heal the wounds of the Church while engaging the modern world with a renewed vigor.

But beneath the surface, however, the Francis papacy became increasingly defined by its leftist ideological agenda. His encyclical Laudato si’ placed environmental activism at the heart of Catholic social teaching, prompting backlash from those who believed the Church need not venture this far into secular political debates.

His outspoken criticism of capitalism, advocacy for open borders, and calls for the abolition of the death penalty further alienated not only conservatives but “middle-of-the-road” moderates, who now saw in Francis a pope more interested in progressive political causes than in defending Catholic doctrine.

His approach to moral and doctrinal questions was to shroud his conclusions—perhaps purposefully—in ambiguity, a tactic which only led to more confusion and controversy. For instance, the willingness of Francis to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion departed from established teaching and sparked public challenges from cardinals and theologians.

His statements on issues surrounding alternative lifestyles, while stopping short of doctrinal change, signaled a new “openness” that fundamentally weakened the moral clarity of the Church.

The breaking point, however, was in 2021 with Traditionis custodes. This motu proprio effectively reversed Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum which—for the first time since the Vatican II changes—substantively normalized the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) by both priests and the faithful. The document Francis issued ultimately placed strict limits on the celebration of the TLM and required bishops to seek Vatican approval for any exceptions.

What was at play in the fields of Bergoglio? The TLM’s suffocation to the point of non-existence at the hands of Francis.

The pope argued that his measures were necessary to preserve unity and prevent division, citing concerns that the traditional rite was now a rallying point for opposition to Vatican II and its subsequent reforms. Yet, objections to the post-conciliar Church have been on theological grounds, not political.

Francis, in either haste or anger, took the fight to the political battlefield. That decision soon proved unwise.

The reaction was immediate and intense. Traditionalist Catholics, those who find solace and spiritual depth in the ancient liturgy, were at once betrayed and marginalized. Critics accused Francis of cruelty, misunderstanding, and mistreating a significant (and growing) segment of the faithful.

Supporters of his move saw it as a necessary, if painful, step to ensure unity. However, the decision undeniably deepened the rift between the Vatican and those who leaned traditionalist or had sympathies toward those in that camp.

By the time of his death earlier this week, the legacy of Pope Francis was one of both inspiration and controversy. Leftists were inspired by him. On the right, he was nothing short of controversial.

His efforts to make the Church more welcoming and to engage with the world were lauded by the mainstream and secular media. Meanwhile, his habit of blurring doctrinal lines and the heavy-handed suppression of traditional practices left a trail of confusion and division.

The Francis papacy stands as a cautionary tale: The promise of “renewal,” particularly when it is untethered from the Church’s doctrinal moorings, will not lead to unity, only to further fragmentation.

For all his talk of mercy and inclusion, Francis’s reign ultimately demonstrated the perils of prioritizing ideology over religious doctrine and tradition, and of seeking “change” —the coin of the realm since the salad days of Barack Hussein Obama—at the cost of continuity.

The lesson for future popes: Genuine renewal must not be rooted in the spirit of the age, but in the enduring truths that have sustained the Church through the centuries.

As always,
Brian

P.S. – For more on the Traditional Latin Mass, my friend Tom Woods wrote an excellent book on that very subject. Get it on Amazon …

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