(LifeSiteNews) — Popes don’t usually wear black pants under their white robes, and they don’t wear black shoes either.
They do not live in the Vatican guest house and do not use simple wheelchairs. No matter how frail a pope may be, he always maintains maximum dignity. He owes this less to himself than to his high office; after all, being pope always means fulfilling a role that is greater than yourself; but it also means that you become someone else to some extent. The numerous titles of the popes indicate this, most notably those that identify them as “successors of the Prince of the Apostles” or as “Vicars of Jesus Christ.”
Ultimately, only those who are prepared to deny themselves for this office are suitable for the papacy; and for this reason, popes also take on a new name.
Since Francis, however, we have become accustomed to a new form of papacy – or rather not accustomed to it, and an extremely eccentric one at that: Francis is not someone who accepts his role like his cross but rather makes the office his own in an autocratic manner and, tragically, at his own discretion. The Renaissance popes were the last to do this, causing enormous damage to the Church, and Francis is doing the same. The longer he is in office, the more agonizing and embarrassing this becomes, and the clearer the ruptures between the office and the person become.
Basically, Francis has always remained Jorge Mario Bergoglio and, on top of that, a Jesuit; you may find this somehow “authentic” in other top offices, but it is poison for the papal office. A pope must become someone other than he was before if only to be the representative of someone completely different. Only in this way can a pope be truly authentic. A pope never belongs to himself, and it is right to expect that “Francis” is never just “Jorge Mario Bergoglio.”
Incidentally, the modest Joseph Ratzinger, who neither longed for the papal office nor tried to adapt to it, demonstrated this very impressively. Certainly, as Benedict XVI, like every pope, he set his own priorities, but he never overstepped the bounds of what is generally expected of a pope and therefore never pandered or made a fool of himself.
With Francis, however, things are different; he transgresses the papal mandate every day and does so in a brute manner: only recently, a shocked world had to learn that he is habitually prone to using foul language; no pope before him has ever uttered the word “faggotry,” and certainly not in public.
READ: Pope Francis again uses ‘faggotry’ slur in meeting discussing homosexual men entering seminaries
It is fitting that he is considered vindictive and sometimes vengeful; his hair-raising favoritism or his treatment of critics is more suited to a Renaissance prince than the successor to the Prince of the Apostles.
In short, Francis lacks the humility and sophistication of a pope; he has neither the noble intellectuality of Benedict XVI nor the mystical charisma of John Paul II or the aristocratic nobility of Pius XII. We are inclined to say that he possesses at best the opposite of all this and constantly shows us the extravagant caprices of a Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who exhausts the power of his office but stubbornly refuses to finally be “papal” himself. In the meantime, Francis cannot even bring himself to wear the prescribed vestments at Holy Mass, and the once “papal” liturgies have reached their nadir.
Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that Francis is toying with the idea of changing the papacy. On the contrary, such a step is consistent with a pope who treats the doctrine and tradition of the Church as autocratically as if they were the quarries of Carrara.
READ: Pope Francis approves new document elevating ecumenism and synodality above papal primacy
In this respect, the recent publication of a Vatican “study document” dealing with the papal office and ecumenical dialogue made people sit up and take notice. It sounds complex, but it is easy to see through: ultimately, it is about downgrading the papal office so that it somehow suits everyone, including those who are neither “church” nor have valid offices, such as Lutherans and Anglicans.
It goes without saying that a “study document” is not a “doctrinal document.” But this document is, in truth, a test balloon and, thanks to papal approval, a reliable pointer as to where the final stretch of this pontificate should lead us: to confrontation with the papal dogma of the First Vatican Council (1870), whose “leeway” Francis wants to reinterpret, i.e., largely eliminate, with a “re-lecture.”
READ: Bishop Eleganti rebukes German bishops’ call to reinterpret Vatican I on papal primacy
The problem with this is that these dogmas are formulated in crystal-clear terms, offer no leeway at all and, on top of that, are associated with the anathema, i.e. excommunication. It is therefore not possible to downgrade the papacy, at least not if the Church is to remain Catholic.
But is it actually still Catholic, or has a pope who does not want to be papal not already led to a final erosion of Catholicism?
Unfortunately, the answer to this question is already “yes”: the Bergoglio pontificate has been a single war against the Church that has left a trail of devastation in its wake. From the repulsive fight against the Latin Mass and its followers to the blasphemous “blessing” of adulterous and homosexual couples, we have been spared nothing; the word has long been doing the rounds that Francis has turned the Catholic Church into a Bergoglian one, and this is certainly true in part.
In this respect, it only remains to be seen whether Francis will now risk the final crash. This could be a clear break with the Pope’s dogmas or – as rumored in recent days – a radical ban on the Latin Mass. Incidentally, this would also be anathema thanks to Pius V. However, Francis will hardly be deterred by such things: the Pope, of all people, who does not want to be papal, considers himself the Pope of all popes. It is clear that this is a dramatic misjudgment, and we know only too well that it is favored by all those who are themselves rather miscast in their office.
READ: Reports: Vatican planning to enforce a ‘final’ ban of Traditional Latin Mass, likely on July 16