A Papacy Reaches Its End

I've made no secret of my dislike of Pope Francis. His papacy had the potential to be a great one, but that potential was quickly squandered by consistently poor leadership choices. 

I'm a cradle Catholic. I was away from the church for many years, and Francis was pope when I came back and settled in for good. I was initially a fan of his pastoral approach to the papacy, focusing less on doctrine and more on mercy, meeting imperfect people, often on the fringes, where they were. Unfortunately, over the years this approach resulted in a papacy that said and did things that often seemed at odds with essential Catholic teaching, causing no small amount of consternation and confusion for the faithful. When Francis would say something off the cuff that sounded out of bounds from a Catholic point of view, others in the Vatican would have to scramble to explain what the pope really meant to say. Lack of clarity is not a good quality for a leader of any organization, and in this area the Francis papacy regularly fell short. 

Then came his repeated attacks on the traditional Latin Mass. He placed significant restrictions on saying the old Mass, claiming that the "rigidity" of its attendees needed to be reined in. For a pope who spoke so much of mercy and reconcilation, he consistently offered a distressingly heavy hand toward the 1% (at most) of Catholics who prefer the old Mass to the new one. There were persistent rumors over the years that Francis had a dictatorial disposition behind the scenes that gave the lie to his friendly public-facing persona, and the old Mass was the one topic that perhaps caused the mask to slip and gave us a peek into what he was really like. Francis was of the generation that came charging out of Vatican II ready to rip out the communion rails and modernize the church, so his disdain for the old ways is somewhat to be expected -- but it certainly didn't endear him to a lot of Catholics. 

Glowing tributes are predictably pouring in. The world liked Francis because he projected an aura of openness and kindness and inclusiveness that came at the expense of adherence to church teaching. Our culture is hostile to Catholic values, so if the culture loved him, it was because the culture perceived him as abandoning the "old" ways and getting with the times. Francis notably did nothing during his papacy to clear up any disconnect between church teaching and public perception to the contrary, and in fact he usually added to the confusion. More often than not, he seemed to hate his own church. 

Francis stacked the College of Cardinals over the years with men who presumably embrace views similar to his own, so I'd say there's unfortunately a least a decent chance we'll get someone doctrinally similar to him as the 267th pope. We can only hope for something better. 

In any event, while I hope that he rests in peace, I will certainly not miss him.