Pope Francis was a leader whose mercy only flowed in one direction - towards progressives
21 April 2025, 21:58 | Updated: 21 April 2025, 22:03
There have been 266 popes since Jesus founded the Catholic Church when he appointed Saint Peter.
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Pope Francis, the 266th may well have been one of the most controversial popes in the whole of Catholic history.
There have been some very low spots , particularly infamous & controversial were the Borgias in the 16th century. But Francis has caused controversy for more complex reasons.
His particular style may have been set when he told Catholic youth at a festival in 2013 that he wanted them to go and make a mess.
This might be an exciting commission from a youth leader wanting to get done with the kids but the consequences of applying it to the world’s oldest organisation with 1.4 billion members proved to be more difficult.
On the whole, people are very good at making their own mess. Conventionally, the job of the church has been to tidy up mess to bring order coherence and structure to incoherence and anarchy.
Read more: 'He served with such devotion': King Charles leads tributes as Pope Francis dies aged 88
But Francis himself certainly did create a mess. He produced some pontifical documents that were unusually ambiguous.
At times they contained elements that looked almost heretical, so much so that a number of cardinal exercise their right to present him with questions to clarify what he meant.
To everyone’s shock, he chose to ignore them.
Secular society was delighted when he professed himself disinclined to judge homosexuals.
But what was a carefully balanced phrase predicated on not knowing all the facts of someone’s life became in the hands of the media a pro-LGBT slogan without limits, which caused serious trouble for those trying to articulate a conventional Catholic doctrine of sexuality.
Although he famously launched a year of mercy to allow divorced Catholics to seek annulments, his own behaviour towards people he perceived as opposing him could be much more heavy handed. His critics called him Francis the merciful, intending to be sardonic or even sarcastic.
His mercy only flowed in one direction, towards progressives. Towards faithful traditionalists he was merciless.
He fired a number of bishops who is only fault was speaking Catholic truth to secular power on public matters like abortion.
He appeared determined to destroy the communities that reverenced the Latin Mass, a form of prayer and liturgy that stretched back to the apostles (and which astonishingly were growing in numbers).
Problematically, he personally defended a number of high ranking sex offenders to enable them to avoid accountability for their crimes.
No one ever understood his betrayal of Chinese Catholics to the Chinese government, ceding to them the right to appoint bishops.
What will cardinals look for in his replacement? A pope who will bring clarity not ambiguity; one who will cleanse the church of predators and not protect them; one who will allow different spiritualities to flourish not just the ones he approves of; one who will not not mistake differences of opinion for dissent; one who will know how to be politically neutral but spiritually inspirational.
Dr Gavin Ashenden is a former Anglican bishop and associate editor of the Catholic Herald.
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