Rest In Peace, Pope Francis

Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, passed away earlier this week at age 88. He didn’t fix the Church or anything, but he was arguably the best leader the Catholic Church has had in decades, and maybe ever?

I am not Catholic - I’m Syrian Orthodox Christian - but I went to Catholic elementary school, so I grew up in the era of Pope John Paul II. At the time I didn’t even know Popes had politics, let alone that I should pay attention to them. JP2 was a beloved Pope as far as I can remember, but looking back now, his attitudes towards ordaining women and contraception were…well, I guess they were consistent with American conservative values at the time, but definitely not great viewed through today’s lens. He also didn’t handle the sexual abuse scandals well which was a large part of why that is still a persistent issue today. But he’s thought of relatively positively among people I knew back then, at least.

John Paul II was succeeded by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. I was XVI years old that year, and not yet paying attention to (or understanding) politics, but even I knew he wasn’t as well-liked. He also did poorly (even worse?) in handling sexual abuse scandals and would later blame them on increased secularization of the West, in a clear attempt to point out a speck in society’s eye while ignoring the log in the Church’s eye. It was poor leadership to try to pass the buck.

When he retired in 2013 (the first papal retirement in centuries, for which I give him credit), Pope Francis ascended. By this time I was doing better at paying attention to politics, realizing that I was liberal in my beliefs - wanting more opportunities and equity for all instead of gatekeeping and punishing others - and therefore pleased to see Pope Francis’s approach to most things was more in line with what I understood of Jesus’s teachings (to an extent). My disdain for conservative politics was slowly growing and every time he made conservative Catholic elders wring their hands or try to spin things, I knew it was the right kind of disruption. Cue images of flipping money-changers’ tables and hanging with sinners.

On the subject of hanging out with sinners - Pope Francis’s leadership shone in that space. He did not seem to think this came from a holier-than-thou attitude (and he would know), but rather a “let us learn from each other” place. I mean, he was still Catholic through-and-through, and his proselytization wasn’t going to change, but his approach seemed more open and non-judgmental, qualities I value in a leader.

The day prior to His Holiness’s death, I had seen this post on Threads. This OP posted this and then muted it so clearly she’s just looking for engagement (and probably not “saying this with love”), and I know better than to provide that…but it stuck with me because this was the crisis of faith I had back in 2020-2021.

“Progressive Christians, I say this with love: Conservative Christians are Christians. Their Jesus is just as real as yours. Their interpretation is just as valid as yours. Dismissing them as “not real Christians” feels more like protecting the brand of Christianity than genuinely protecting those harmed by it. You can challenge harmful theology without denying it’s authentically Christian—because historically and presently, it absolutely is.”

Of course Christianity has harmed people. I tend to focus on the cases where it’s wielded by people who don’t understand its tenets or who insert wildly incorrect pathology (see: Mark Driscoll). The book Jesus and John Wayne goes into this in great detail and how the evangelical movement shaped and has been shaped by conservative politics and massive eisegesis.

In 2020-21 I looked around at so many people claiming to be Christian but who refused to make the smallest accommodation by wearing a mask or getting a vaccine (”I’m tough, Jesus is all the vaccine I need” - blech). I wrote about that in a previous blog post which I’ll repost to Substack tomorrow, and how it was the first time my faith had been really shaken, how I seriously wondered if I could still consider myself Christian if this is who was loudly representing Christianity.

I floundered for a while there, but then I realized something. The so-called Christians spouting off about this, hurling Asian stereotypes and mocking masks while featuring “Jesus-lover” in their social media bios or in how they introduced themselves? They were objectively wrong about so many things at the time - COVID, masks, public health as a whole, and on LGBTQIA+ issues and racism issues (this was also just after George Floyd had been murdered) and many other things.

In David McRaney’s book How Minds Change, he discusses talking to Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of Westboro Baptist Church found Fred Phelps, about her leaving that hate group. She said that “once we learn that something is incorrect, maybe the source from which we learned that is incorrect, too.” I just read that book earlier this year, but I came to a similar realization back in 2021. If the Mark Driscolls of the world and other followers of AmeriJesus were objectively wrong about so many things despite evidence (or lack thereof), they could be just as easily and egregiously wrong about how they represent Jesus. Which is funny because that’s probably the same logic they use to determine that doctors or scientists in general must be wrong about everything - minus the scientifically sound methods, evidence, and curiosity. It’s the difference between objective scientific evaluation and conclusion-shopping.

So my faith was back on solid ground, and my resolve was renewed to push back against the forces that had threatened to destabilize it. So now, three or four years later as I read this Threads post, I disagree with its message. It’s not incorrect to point out that AmeriJesus/MAGA “Christians” are doing the literal opposite of what Jesus had said. It’s not “protecting the brand.” It’s taking the religion back from those who weaponize its name.

Pope Francis did that, at least on some fronts. It was gradual, of course - there is a significant difference between the start and end of his tenure. He made significant progress on LGBTQIA+ issues but earlier in his papacy he definitely made moves I disagreed with, like meeting with Kim Davis in 2013 after she refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, but showed uneven but righteous growth as he continued in the role. Francis later endorsed the Fiducia supplicans in December 2023 which allowed for blessings of gay marriages and pissed off all the right people.

We couldn’t get him to acknowledge that the Bible doesn’t actually say anything against abortion, but progress is progress (and Catholics 4 Choice remains an awesome organization). I can appreciate a leader’s growth over decades and maybe it takes them a long time to bring their understanding into a modern age. I think that applies to religion as much as science especially when we have rabbinical scholars who have pored over Biblical and similar texts with the understanding that humans interpreting the word of God would have inserted their own prejudices and minimal understanding into their interpretation, yet the language does have meaning and context. That is why the Bible remains a living document and why Biblical literalism should not be taken seriously as it borders on perversion of the Message in some places.

That leadership and growth gives me hope for rehabilitating Christianity’s name and reputation. I wear a crucifix around my neck, but I don’t show it off, and my badge reel at work is a rainbow that says “You are safe with me” (by the awesome Claire Zagorski/Pin Pen Merger) and not one that expresses my Christianity because I find that symbol is far more welcoming to those who look for it than the cross. Maybe I should feel bad about saying that, but that’s what it is. In an era where the loudest AmeriJesus followers claim that Christianity is being persecuted in the US while they celebrate leaders who persecute LGBTQIA+ folks and people of literally every other religion, I choose to focus on impact rather than intent. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to change the perception of Christianity by non-Christians so that impact can match intention.

The one thing the Threads post gets right is that we cannot forget or ignore the fact that Christianity has harmed people in terms of discrimination as well as the sexual abuse scandals. Pope Francis made progress where none had been made before, and at the very least made an apology for the Church’s role, and acknowledged the abuse of power (as opposed to blaming it on secularization). That’s more than I can say for previous popes or the patriarch of my own denomination regarding sexual abuse scandals.

Obviously it is not enough and for the victims it may never be enough. And Pope Francis couldn’t speak for all Christians, only Catholics - other denominations have progressed further and still others have a LOT of work to do. But as the most visible Christian leader in the world, Francis let Jesus lead him in a more accepting, loving, and compassionate direction.

That also led Pope Francis to lead by example when it came to Gaza. He condemned the 10/7/23 Hamas attack, as I do, but he also recognized that what Israel is doing has gone so far beyond self-defense. He said that “terror should not justify terror” in his criticism of Israel’s repeated strikes - “cruelty, this is not war.” He spoke more critically and truthfully about what Israel is doing than any American president/candidate has, and was not afraid to say the word “genocide” or “ceasefire.” Francis was the leader many countries needed on that front.

For his leadership, his growth, and his compassion, I’m grateful to him, and I hope to high Heaven that the next Pope is just as, if not more, loving and accepting, a Jesus-style progressive that this world needs.

Rest in Peace, Pope Francis.