ROME—Not long after Pope Francis took office in March 2013, he ran into a wall. But it wasn’t the ancient Roman brickwork built around Vatican City. It was stronger. And it came from deep within the very church he was elected to lead. Every time he tried to introduce reforms, the wall was there. His foes were so strong he recently equated reforming the Catholic Church with “cleaning the Sphinx of Egypt with a toothbrush.”
Still, Francis persevered, relying on his immediate popularity and innate charm, and soon the outside world began to look at the Catholic Church in a new, positive light under his guidance. Suddenly, it it was cool to be Catholic.
But the traditional conservatives within the church didn’t want to be cool, and while the new pope was hardly progressive by secular standards (he is still Catholic, after all), they preferred the cold church, the one that protected them from the outside world behind layers of immovable doctrine.
While Francis reached far into the margins to minister to the poor and disenfranchised, the conservatives preferred punishing the sinners and adhering to archaic rules that have little place in the modern world, even if it meant sacrificing the flock.
Francis toyed with allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to take communion, he made it OK to forgive abortion to repentant women, and he was nice to gays. And the conservatives bristled.
It took five long years, but the conservative powers of the Catholic Church have finally begun to turn around the supertanker of support for the pope they seem to hate. And they did it using the one sin the whole church is guilty of: clerical sex abuse.
Francis cannot be blamed for mishandling the bulk of the church’s endemic sex abuse scandals, many of which have played out in dioceses that were run by those who would like to see him resign. There has been no major sex abuse scandal in his native Argentina—at least not yet—so his naysayers have had to pick a softer target.
Come on now, the writing is really terrible here. If you're going to write propaganda like this, write it in a more convincing way that doesn't sound like it was pulled straight out of 1984. Journalists continue to be slime.
Brandon Rogers
Be straight up honest, Catholics.
Is Francis an anti-pope or not?
Lucas Morgan
what do you mean anti-pope? the clergy of the church the laity is complicit with expects you to believe that this is catholic af.
Ethan Butler
The whole church has been an anti-church ever since the first pope usurped the rightful of authority of pastor Jim circa 65AD
It almost sounds as if we're the bad guys. Almost, because we're still right.
Evan Rivera
wew
Christian Cruz
But Terry Davis did.
Honk honk
Henry Evans
What the winnie the pooh is this gay shit? Who wrote this winnie the pooh shit? James Martin?
Cooper Perez
Of course not. He isn't one of the best popes but he didn't attack the Faith as much as media want us to believe. Besides the sex scandal shit the only thing wrong with him are the doubts raised by amoris laetitia.
Nolan Garcia
So it's basically: >Francis is a gud boi, he dindu nuffin! He wuz jus tryna turn the church aroun! Do these people actually think anyone will believe that?
Owen James
Why don't you answer the questions raised by Viganò instead of telling intricate stories of evil traditionalist plots while ignoring the scandal?
Mason Perry
Articles like this, written by servile wormtongues with absolutely no honesty convince me the Pope did something wrong even more.
Colton Harris
To be an anti-pope you'd have to go against something fundamental to the Roman tradition or to the basics, basically (at least so far as I basically understand it). He hasn't done THAT yet, but he's raised a few questions with the death penalty situation, and especially Amoris Laetitia. However, there have been no further developments since the initial controversies, so Pope Francis is not an anti-pope officially on any level.
However, that is SEPARATE from the possible occurrence any secular misdeeds, oversights or crimes that Jorge Bergoglio may have committed. And if he's doing things that are causing damage to the church on that end, it would be licit to take him to task and protest those situations and concerns.
Nicholas Phillips
It seems the only people who like pope Francis are atheists who want to see the Catholic church dismantled
Hmmm
Matthew Bell
That's his weakness: only atheists and nonchurchgoers """Catholic""" like him nowadays. He lost the conservatives from the beginning, and many moderates over time.
Noah Myers
The way this thing has been covered was disgusting from the beginning. Actual happening: Hundreds of priests caught sexually abusing children and seminarians. Catholic officials have been covering it up for years. High ranking Vatican official credibly accuses Francis of knowing about it and lifting sanctions on guilty priests. Headline: Ebil anti-faggotry conservatards are attacking the wokest pope ever! How dare they!
Kayden Jackson
OP clarify your statements. Exactly what reforms did Francis try to enact in 2013? Exactly how I am I guilty of the clerical sex abuse scandal?
He lost the conservative church members when he started openly insulting them, which started quite early on. JP2, despite being a little squishy in a few areas (not on big ticket stuff like abortion or homosex, but littler things) NEVER openly insulted the traditional laity. He even had them as advisers, on and off.
Benedict was even more hard-line, and made sure some traditional facets were preserved (Tridentine Mass for instance), which got him a lot of street cred. However he had a lot of internal enemies in Rome due to his position at CDF, particular during the 80s when he was at war against the Liberation Theology wing of the Jesuits at the time. But he too was differential to them.
Francis, in many statements, has proven not to be so friendly at all. And now his recent troubles are causing the moderates to flee. All he has now are the globalist critters, the "don't really care" lukewarm crowd (who will flee if the legal heat on the church is too great), and the small but vocal "Green Hair landwhale" faction (who I hopefully don't need to describe to you).
Luke Sanders
I rather meant to say he was differential to the trad laity. Not the Jesuits!
Isaiah Young
By the same author (who also writes for (((CNN))): "Italy Suddenly Gets Ugly for Jews" archive.is/dfCO1
Bentley Gonzalez
The jesuits are an evil order and always have been. Frances is a jesuit. He's a satan worshipping scumbag. The catholic church has been full of the most depraved humans imaginable for centuries, but the papacy of Frances marks the complete takeover of the Catholic church by satanists.
Sebastian Rivera
Frances has a track record of promoting perverts and pedophiles to high positions and then covering for them. The claims Vigano made aren't the first such claims made against frances.
