Dear Editor:
A lot was made of Pope Francis’s liberalism. Many Catholics considering themselves orthodox, from Mt. Athos in Greece to Mount Taylor in New Mexico, from the lands of Weminuche to those of Mapuche, saw this Pope, who was the first in history to use the name Francis for himself (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, originally), as a liberalizer of the Vatican. A dangerous fool misplaced as delegator, representative and steward of the awesomeness of God’s law. Marjorie Taylor Green even referred to him as evil before 24 hours had passed after his death Monday.
A more honest understanding of Francis brings us to a realization of just how conservative Francis was, actually. Chiefly emulating the 13th Century Italian saint of Assisi, Francis held the truth of kindness and the example of love highest. Emphasis was on the infiniteness of God’s purity that never looks away no matter how hard we try to do just that. Facing judgment for his stoicism and adamant reduplication of Christ’s example as the one law and the only law, he “stunned us out of our complacency”, Obama wrote on Monday. Francis undertook, as his first act upon being named the 266th Pope, a ceremonial mass washing on the outskirts of Rome of the feet of hundreds of prisoners, telling them, “any of us” can fall into sin. Some burst into tears as he knelt down without eye contact and washed and then gently dried. He did this once a year, most recently washing the feet of 12 women on March 28, 2024 at a prison in Rome. Because this is what we have to count on. Pope Francis wanted to demonstrate the example of humility, the extraordinary power of God in His infinite forgiveness, not just talk about it.
Incredibly, meeting the Vice President of the United States J.D. Vance in the Vatican was among the last things Francis did. I am thinking that the Pope welcomed Vance very much in the same spirit that he received those hundreds of prisoners. These were the two events that bookended his papacy. Emboldened against climate action, Vance sat and spoke for a few minutes with the Pope who had written the Encyclical Letter on Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis’s urgent call made in 2015 for the peoples and leaders of the world to address the climate crisis. This emissary from the benighted Trump Administration with plans to enact radical despoliation of what is left in North America of pure places, setting the tone and example for the rest of the world... also planning to ravage families of immigrants... with the priority of bolstering a repugnant child-oligarch’s legitimacy elevated above all other concerns (think - Gaza, Ukraine), during perhaps the most crucial years in the history of our species... Pope Francis smiled with a weary face and a large and heavy cross around his neck on a rope and a day to live and gave Vance chocolates to pass along to his three children for Easter.
Jonathan Dobson
