Pope Woes

2025.05.27

I want to write this short essay, to explain myself. In particular my dislike of Pope Francis, and my trepidation around Pope Leo XIV.

From day one, Pope Francis said all the right things. He even did some of the right things. But it was a flimsy facade. Behind that gaudy show, he was doing some really nasty stuff. Which leads to a frustration that worms its way through my mind: the nasty stuff is not hard to find. It's not hidden, not covered up, but for some reason, it gets ignored.

I'll offer two examples, both involving sexual abuse.

The first was incredibly public. Shortly after Francis was elected Pope, he set up the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, didn't do anything with it for years, then finally, had a much-publicized meeting, after which norms for reporting were released, and these norms were essentially what had already been in place.

What makes this specific example hurt all the more, is that we have well-crafted rules and directives by the USCCB that could have served as inspiration, but these were completely ignored in favor of keeping everything essentially the same.

The second example, is Pope Francis' defense of Rev. Marko Rupnik. Rupnik was a Jesuit and also an artist, with a huge pile of abuse allegations. Francis not only meddled in proceedings when Rupnik was subjected to the minimal justice that the Vatican can level against abusers, but kept using his art in official Vatican media as the pile of allegations continued to grow, despite the chorus of victims saying how hurtful it was to see his art still in official use.

In both these examples, nothing was hidden, everything was visible to anyone who wanted to poke around. There are plenty of other examples where things were more hushed, especially political maneuverings when he placed his friends in positions of power.

In conclusion, if you think Pope Francis was a cool guy, I invite you to dig a little deeper. Below I'll link a news article that covers in more detail the two examples I gave above, as well as some other instances. But there is so much more out there. Pope Francis' legacy, to use the words of Christ, is a whitewashed tomb: clean on the outside, but the inside is filled with filth. And so when we hear Pope Leo XIV referencing Pope Francis and praising him, we should be concerned.

For further reading:
https://catholicreview.org/pope-francis-leaves-complicated-legacy-on-addressing-the-sexual-abuse-crisis/