Pope Francis passed on Monday, seeing one final Easter Sunday at 88 years old. As RedState's write-up explained, his tenure was marked by controversy for many Catholics (and Protestants alike). Being the first Jesuit to hold the role, Francis was what most would describe as "liberal" in his beliefs, with a focus on secular issues like "climate change" and immigration.
To say that Francis's papacy was conflicted is an understatement. He made environmentalism a pillar of his social teaching and devoted a major encyclical to the subject. In retrospect, his ventures into environmental policy and climate change will probably be viewed as unwise as Pope Paul V's opinions on astronomy. He emphasized pastoralism over hide-bound clericalism, which is laudable. Unfortunately, along the way, he muddied a lot of waters concerning homosexuality, divorced and remaried Catholics, and the role of women in the Church that we'd thought definitively settled by Pope John Paul II. His pronouncements on immigration and the death penalty put him in the position of developing doctrines previously foreign to Catholicism. His dislike of the American Catholic Church, orthodox seminarians, and traditional Catholics became legendary.
In Church governance, he never brought the Vatican's finances under control; he appeared to protect some known sexual predators if they were of sufficient status; and most troubling was a still secret treaty with Communist China that placed the selection of bishops in the hands of the Chinese government. His predecessors frequently consecrated Chinese bishops in secret to protect them from their government. Totally predictably, the Chinese responded by appointing bishops without Papal approval, and the Vatican was powerless to intervene. His attempts to open Church governance to the laity produced the confusion his critics predicted.
Still, he did resist the secularization of the Church in some ways. That meant the press vacillated from loving Francis to hating him at times, a dynamic that showed up in the headlines upon his passing.
What a perverted way to headline his death. No mention of God.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 21, 2025
Just “he didn’t stomp on enough church teachings” and “climate change.” pic.twitter.com/D9FPf5KyEy
You know what you don't see in those headlines? Any mention of God. On the contrary, if the words "pope" and "Church" weren't included, one could assume a CEO or politician had passed.
What does that tell you? It tells you exactly how the press views Christians and what their hopes for Francis were. The proliferation of the Gospel, you know, the entire purpose of Christianity as a religion, doesn't even register with these people. Instead, the Church only exists to serve left-wing secular wants. In that context, "reform" is simply code for secularization.
The press truly wanted Francis to use his role to change church doctrine on things like homosexuality, gay marriage, and sin as a whole. It never crossed the average journalist's mind what the Bible says about those things, nor why Church doctrine is what it is. Everything is a political game to them, and if that meant perverting an institution like the Catholic Church to achieve their ends, that was just fine with them.
That's not how any of this is supposed to work. Christians are not supposed to bend their viewpoints to the world's hedonistic views, and though I disagreed with Francis on several issues, I likewise disagreed with those who saw him as a vehicle for their political wants. The Church, no matter what denomination, is not supposed to be a plaything for left-wingers. It's not supposed to "reform" so that people can feel better about their sin. It is supposed to preach the unvarnished, unchanging Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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