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“Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, died on Monday after suffering a stroke and cardiac arrest.” Reuters
“Here are some key events in the life of the man born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the first pope from the Americas, who became a groundbreaking figure in the history of the Catholic Church.” CBS News
The left praises Francis’s tolerance and humility.
“Francis often fought 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. When he became pope, more than half the cardinals were Europeans; at his death, fewer than 40 percent were. Importantly, he broadened the church’s outreach to other faiths through interreligious dialogue…
“Even as he widened the church’s aperture of tolerance and opened its eyes to a broader social justice agenda, however, Francis seemed blind to other problems. He refused to condemn Russia’s blood-soaked land grab in Ukraine. He promoted women to important administrative jobs but refused to countenance their ordination as priests. He pledged a zero-tolerance policy on clergy sex abuse and made important progress in that regard, but too often bishops and others complicit in cover-ups were able to evade accountability.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
“Those who doubt the effectiveness of his approach need only to look at the increasing number of L.G.B.T.Q. groups and retreats in many parishes, as well as prominent church leaders who have grown more vocal in their support — though still mainly in the West. In January, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, issued an apology for the church’s mistreatment of L.G.B.T.Q. people…
“Francis’ pastoral outreach helped L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics feel more at home in their church. But it also meant that a far larger group — their families and friends — also felt more at home. It potentially forced Catholics around the world, even in cultures where homophobia is more entrenched, to ask themselves: If Pope Francis is so welcoming, why not me?”
James Martin, New York Times
“Francis was beloved among many progressive Catholics… [and] generated many enemies on the Catholic right… [But] ‘He did not divide the Church,’ [Massimo Faggioli, a church historian] said. ‘The divisions were there already.’ Francis made them ‘visible’ because ‘he was not afraid to open a debate on issues that were considered taboo until very recently.’”
E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post
“Emphasising compassion over doctrinal rigidity, and making plenty of conservative enemies along the way, Francis revived the more open, tolerant spirit of the second Vatican council in the 1960s. Encapsulated in his reply to a question about gay people in the church – ‘Who am I to judge?’ – this pastoral emphasis benefited the everyday lives of millions of Catholics…
“In an era when the postwar legacy of universal human rights is under threat, and Christianity is weaponised in the west as a form of identity politics, Francis stood up for a gospel message of humility, inclusion and love for the stranger… Progressives of all faiths and none will miss that urgent advocacy on behalf of those whose own voices are too seldom listened to.”
Editorial Board, The Guardian
The right is critical of Francis’s doctrinal flexibility.
The right is critical of Francis’s doctrinal flexibility.
“The U.S. media preferred to see — some might [say] ‘wishcasted’ — Francis as the ideal progressive pope. Every comment was interpreted as an endorsement and later walked back by the Vatican that insisted the remarks had been misinterpreted or mistranslated…
“While Francis declared that those in gay marriages could be blessed by priests — not the marriages themselves, a detail that many progressives chose to ignore — he simultaneously occasionally used an offensive Italian slang term for gays…
“To be an American Catholic in the era of Francis meant regularly getting news alerts on your phone, announcing some sweeping, epoch-defining change — and then walking into church and everything seeming pretty much the same. (Actual changes, like the push to get rid of the Latin Mass, rarely seemed to generate those newsy push alerts.)… Francis was not nearly as progressive as his cheerleaders on the left wanted to believe he was.”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
“Modernist, liberal reformers thought the revolutionary changes that had been impossible under Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI might finally be within reach under Francis. Those changes never quite materialized, but Francis allowed the boundaries to be pushed just far enough to sow confusion over issues that should be — and according to Catholic teaching, actually are — clear-cut…
“Indeed, the true legacy of Francis is not opening the church to gay marriage, divorce and re-marriage, the ordination of women or any other major doctrinal reform, but opening up questions about these things that will now have to be answered definitively by a future pontificate. 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.”
John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist
“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 reasons so many in Latin America languish in poverty are at home: Lack of the rule of law, business-government collusion, protectionism, and other barriers to human flourishing…
“Argentina for much of his life was dominated by Peronism, a brand of left-wing populism… When Bergoglio looked around, he saw corruption and the rich doing very well as their fellow countrymen languished in poverty. Perhaps it was understandable that he confused Argentina’s corporatism with capitalism. Less forgivable was his deal with Beijing as pope that gave the Communist Party influence in the choice of bishops. Conditions for Catholics in China have worsened, though the Vatican has renewed the kowtow several times.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
