Francis

I am by no means glad that Francis is dead, but I must admit that I am relieved that his papacy is over — or would be, if I didn’t suspect that even worse is to come. 

Pope Francis was consistently and unreasonably generous towards those he deemed his theopolitical allies, regardless of their moral failings; consistently and unreasonably mean-spirited towards those he deemed his theopolitical enemies, regardless of their piety and devotion to the Church; and habitually prone to sowing confusion about what that Church teaches, as well as about its authority to teach it. 

However: Francis offered much wise and vital teaching in Laudato Sí — I wish that were more widely discussed in assessments of his legacy. (I wrote about it here.) 

There’s a good chance that his successor will be more impartial than Francis was — less Schmittian in his deployment of a Friend/Enemy scheme in dealing with people — and that he will be clearer in his articulation of what Catholicism teaches and why. 

I’m less confident, though, thanks to Francis’s work at reshaping the institution in his image, that the next Pope will be as independent of the Zeitgeist as he ought to be. Pio Nono got many individual judgments wrong, but when he (rather indignantly) denied that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself to and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” he was spot on. It is the task of Christ’s Church to preach and teach the Gospel and help the world to come to terms with it. I am of course not Roman Catholic, but any branch of the church that does that particular work earns my gratitude.

My fear is is that Francis has reshaped the imperatives of the Roman communion in ways that make it overly sensitive to the indignation of the bien-pensant and insufficiently sensitive to the unchanging message of the Christian Gospel. My hope is that my fear is unwarranted.