John (12:18)
All right, first up, let's start with what the right is saying. The right acknowledges Pope Francis steadfast concern for the poor, but suggests his papacy did not help the interests of disadvantaged groups. Some say the pope's legacy will be a failed attempt at progressive reformation. Others say his messaging on global issues hurt the church's credibility. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said Pope Francis championed the poor while favoring ideas that kept them poor. Pope Francis was best known for urging concern for the poor in the best Christian tradition. He called for a clergy of shepherds who have the smell of their sheep, that is priests and nuns who shared the suffering of their neighbors. He made support for the weakest among us, the rhetorical centerpiece of his papacy, the board wrote. Alas, Pope Francis believed ideologies that keep the poor in poverty. One of those earthly dogmas is radical environmentalism, which isn't about keeping the earth clean for human beings, but keeping the earth for itself and treating man as the enemy. His papacy was marked by anti Americanism and not merely against Donald Trump. He seemed to believe that Latin America is poor because the United States is rich. That's a recipe for stagnation and despair because the real reason so many in Latin America languish in poverty are at home, the board said. The irony is that this progressivism is most popular in places like Europe, where the Sunday pews are empty. The church is thriving in Africa and among younger orthodox Catholics in the west, looking for meaning in life beyond material consumption. In the Federalist, John Daniel Davidson argued, the legacy of Pope Francis is chaos, confusion and division. As archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio, Francis was politically on the left, with strong anti American and anti conservative tendencies that would manifest themselves in the years to come. But he also had a reputation in Argentina for personal austerity and humility. Doctrinal conservatism and working closely with the poor. It was possible in those very early days to imagine that he could have been a pontiff to bring together the warring factions of the church and forge a path into the 21st century for a united Catholic church, davidson wrote. But it wasn't to be. It didn't take long for liberal reformers in the Catholic hierarchy, especially those in Western Europe who had done so much to elect him, to see that in Francis they had a pope that would be willing, for his own reasons, to push the boundaries of Catholic doctrine on contentious moral issues like homosexuality, marriage and divorce, and the ordination of women, Davidson said. Under Francis, great changes in the Catholic Church always seemed to be on the way but never arrived in full time. And again, what Francis gave with one hand, he withdrew with the other. The result was not some big reform or change in doctrine leading to schism, but deepening chaos and division in a church already on the brink of open war. In the Washington Post, George Weigel wrote, pope Francis oversaw a steep decline in the Vatican's role as a global witness. Francis was much appreciated for his personal warmth and many public displays of compassion for troubled souls. But the Vatican's declining influence on the world stage was another and lamentable feature of his papal tenure, Weigel said. The gravest of Francis mistakes was a 2018 agreement with Beijing that gave the Chinese Communist Party a leading role in the appointment of Catholic bishops in China and led at one point to the Chinese regime unilaterally changing the boundaries of the country's Catholic diocese. Then there was Ukraine. Although the Argentine pope eventually requested prayers for martyred Ukraine, he originally blamed the conflict partly on NATO barking at Russia's doors and later termed the war one of imperial interests, not just of the Russian empire but but of empires from elsewhere, weigel wrote. And there was also what seemed to many to be a further indulgence of moral equivalence. The Pope's commentary during the first days of Israel's response to the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, which did unnecessary damage to Catholic Jewish relations while further eroding the Vatican's stature as a voice of moral all right, that is it for what the right is saying. Which brings us to what the left is saying. The left praises Pope Francis legacy on humanitarian issues and the reforms he brought to the church. Some say that while the pope's record was imperfect, he ultimately made the church a more inclusive place. Others suggest that the church will elect a more conservative pope in line with global shift to the right. The Washington Post editorial board said. Pope Francis pulled the Catholic church into the 21st century. Francis was initially expected to focus mainly on cleaning up a scandal plagued Vatican. Instead, he fashioned a profoundly reformist papacy, deeply divisive within the Roman Catholic Church that sought to fundamentally reorient the institution as more liberal and less beholden to its own hierarchy, which he left less white, less Eurocentric and less bound by traditional. These shifts made the church decidedly more global, modern and inclusive, the board wrote. His new thinking triggered resentments and fury from traditionalists who saw him as abandoning core church principles as well as despair some liberals who wished for an even more sweeping and substantive overhaul. Francis fought for the right fights. He embraced the struggle against climate change and the plights of persecuted religious minorities, the poor in the global south and migrants and refugees in whose honor he unveiled a monument in St. Peter's Square, the board wrote. The extent to which Francis legacy will endure is likely to be determined largely by the selection of his successor. He will be chosen by members of the College of Cardinals under the age of 80, a cohort now dominated by prelates picked by Francis himself, many of them like him from Africa, Asia or South America. In msnbc, Guthrie Graves Fitzsimmons wrote about what Pope Francis meant to LGBTQ Christians like me. The late pope's non judgmental approach to LGBTQ issues did not go far enough for many LGBTQ advocates, but it's important to judge his legacy in the context of the Catholic Church and to recognize how remarkable his approach was given the institutional norms that for decades suppressed and ignored LGBTQ devotees, Graves Fitzsimmon said. For many LGBTQ Christians like myself, the changes Francis championed feel personal. I've experienced both the sting of exclusion and the quiet hope that perhaps one day church pews will be filled with all those who long to find God's love, regardless of whom they love. The Vatican did back up the merciful media soundbites reverberating around the world with some substantive policy changes, including allowing transgender people to be baptized and serve as godparents and allowing priests to offer blessings of same sex couples. These changes did not amount to full equality, but they were meaningful progress toward recognizing the God given dignity of LGBTQ people, graves Fitzsimmons wrote. France's plea for mercy for the vulnerable, whether LGBTQ people or migrants, is both remarkable and basic Christianity. In many ways, it's a sad reflection of what we expect of Christian leaders to find Pope Francis so revolutionary. In Jacobin, Pablo Castagno suggested, After Pope Francis, a Catholic move rightward seems likely. There may come a time when we look back on the last decade as an anomaly in the modern history of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis, the figurehead of these years and a radical by the standards of the Catholic hierarchy, is gone and we are now likely to see a major shift in the political orientation of the Holy See, castagno said. Francis ascension to the papacy marked a break with the geopolitical orientation of his predecessors as he aligned the Holy See much more closely with the global South. While John Paul II had been much a staunch ally of Washington in the so called fight against communism, Francis made sure to distance himself from Western governments on issues such as relations with China, Ukraine and Palestine. It is difficult to predict the outcome of the forthcoming conclave. However, there are strong reasons to believe that Francis successor will be a more conservative pope. First, his pontificate has been slightly transformative both institutionally and in its public messaging, making it unlikely the cardinals will choose another candidate equally inclined toward reform, castagna wrote. Perhaps more importantly, although the Sistine Chapel has thick walls, the Vatican is invariably influenced by global political trends. With Trump in the White House and with the far right on the rise worldwide, electing another pope as progressive as Francis would be swimming against the tide. And the Vatican has a long history of adapting to changing realities rather than confronting them. All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take.
