By John Leake
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was many “firsts” in papal history.
This morning in Rome, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo (office for announcing Pope’s death) declared from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived:
At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of His Church.
Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which made him the first pope from Latin America. He was also the first pope from the Jesuit order, which was banned in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV (and restored by Pope Pius VII in 1814).
Pope Francis was also the first to take the name of Francis of Assisi —the Italian mystic, poet and Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. Saint Francis has long been celebrated for his humility, simplicity, and his dedication to ministering to the poor. Pope Francis is said to have been especially inspired by Saint Francis.
The New York Times just published what strikes me as a competently written account of some key aspects of his papacy.
Francis was elected in March 2013 after the resignation of Benedict, the first pontiff to step down in nearly six centuries, amid turmoil and intrigue about secret lobbies and financial chicanery. The cardinal electors sought a reformer with a strong administrative hand, but few anticipated how Francis, then the 76-year-old archbishop of Buenos Aires, would blend reformist zeal and folksy charm in a push to clean house and transform the church.
“Buona sera,” good evening, Francis announced to the faithful in his first remarks as pope from the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, breaking the ice with unaffected style. He joked about being from Argentina, noting that in fulfilling their duty to produce a pope, “it seems that my brother cardinals have gone almost to the ends of the Earth to get him.” …
Francis signaled his humble style from the outset. He paid his own bill at the Vatican hotel where he stayed during the conclave that elected him, rode about town in a modest Ford Focus, lived in a Vatican guesthouse rather than the ornate papal apartments and, in a Holy Week ritual performed at a youth prison, washed the feet of a young Muslim woman. Later, in his ailing years, he referred to his own frailty in demanding dignity for the aged.
His humility could be disarming. When asked about a priest who was said to be gay, he responded, “Who am I to judge?”
“Who am I to judge?” This statement seemed to recall Jesus’s statement to the Pharisees when they brought before him a woman condemned to be stoned for adultery. When they asked him if she should be stoned in accordance with the Law of Moses, he replied, “If any one of you is without sin, let him throw the first stone.”
Setting aside Paul’s explicit condemnation of homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27, the trouble with Francis’s statement is, it seems to me, twofold. First is the fact that Roman Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy—that is, they explicitly renounce sexuality.
Secondly, the Pope’s statement was remarkably tone-deaf to scandals that have rocked the Catholic church in recent decades involving gay priests who have abused minors in their congregations.
In 2018, Francis initially ignored Chilean abuse victims when he appointed Juan Barros Madrid to head the diocese of Osorno in Chile. Barros had been mentored by a notorious abuser named Father Fernando Karadima.
I mention the controversial matter of sexuality not in an attempt to adjudicate it, but to point out the broader controversy of Francis’s papacy—namely, his conspicuous embrace of many elements in the globalist agenda, including his advocacy of mass illegal immigration and what may be characterized as the Climate Change Cult.
In 2016, Francis seemed to throw his prestige behind the globalist propaganda campaign to prevent Donald Trump from being elected president. On February 18, 2016, he stated:
A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel.
Seeing this reminded me of the walls around Vatican City. Pope Leo IV commissioned their construction in 846 in response to Saracen attacks that caused significant damage to the St. Peter’s Basilica.
We believe the most disturbing gesture of his papacy was Vatican City’s issuance of a 20 Euro silver coin in 2022. As the Numista catalogue describes it:
The coin depicts a doctor, a nurse and a young person who is ready to receive the vaccine. The Holy Father has repeatedly stressed the importance of vaccination, recalling that healthcare is “a moral obligation”, and it is important to “continue efforts to immunize even the poorest peoples.
Note that the formulation “a young person who is ready to receive the vaccine” is identical to the formulation for a communicant “who is ready to receive the host”—in Italian “pronto a ricevere l’Eucaristia.”
The obverse of the coin bears the name Franciscus, the year 2022 (“Anno MMXXII”) and the Coat of Arms of Pope Francis.
I have no doubt that Francis performed many acts of Christian love and charity during his long life, and I hope he will rest in peace.
