Francis’ pontificate turns 10: 5 things to know about his time as pope
Pope Francis marks his 10th year on Monday as head of the Catholic church and its 1.38 billion adherents around the globe. It’s an anniversary that will be viewed differently depending on where one falls on the doctrinal spectrum.
The former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was born in Argentina and is of Italian descent, was elected the 266th pope on March 13, 2013. It marked the first time a pontiff from South America has held the position.
Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013, a papal conclave elected Bergoglio as his successor. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi.
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Over that span of time, Catholics, especially in the West, have become much more polarized around political lines, a trend that has exacerbated divisions among Catholics. The 86-year-old Pope Francis, on a great number of issues, has been seen as a polarizing force for his progressive stances on several issues.
Here are five things to ponder from his time as pope:
5. Waning foreign policy influence
The power of the papacy — at least when it comes to exerting foreign policy influence — has waned under Francis.
The biggest example of this has been the war in Ukraine. The pope and the Vatican have repeatedly called for a ceasefire. The Russian, who invaded the neighboring nation more than a year ago, have ignored those pleas.
Francis once again made an appeal for a ceasefire ahead of last month’s one-year anniversary of the invasion. While the Vatican has relations with 180 nations, this pope — unlike John Paul II — has had little influence when it comes to foreign policy.
Francis’ worst blunder of all may be his handling of China. China’s Communist government appoints its own bishops through its Bishops Conference of Catholic Church in China. It was last October that the Holy See and Beijing renewed an agreement, first signed in 2018, on the appointment of bishops that Rome views as a necessary compromise to keep Chinese Catholics united. Critics continue to view the deal as acquiescence to the Chinese government’s growing control of religion.
4. Important trips to Africa
The pope has visited 60 nations and clocking over 250,000 miles in the process. He has visited places like Brazil and Jordan to Poland and the Phillippines.
Most importantly, the pope has visited several African nations such as Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. Catholicism in Africa is growing and trips like these matter for the future.
It was in January that Pope Francis, despite bot being in the best health, embarked on a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, two nations marred by conflicts in recent years. The trip was both strategic and successful for many reasons. Above all, it is important to consider the role of Africa’s future within Catholicism.
Europe is no longer the home to the world’s largest Catholic populations. Italy has the largest number of baptized Catholics of any European country — and ranks fifth in the world after Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States. Next after Italy is the Democratic Republic of Congo.
3. His misunderstood encyclicals
An encyclical is the most important document any pontiff can write. Francis has written three, starting in 2013 with “Lumen Fidei” (Light of Faith) on the importance of Christian faith, “Laudato Si” (Praised Be) in 2015, where he called for urgent action on climate change and “Fratelli Tutti” (Brothers All) in 2020 discussing the issue of solidarity among people.
“Laudato Si” is the one that gets most attention because – and this is part of a larger trend – that an awful lot of what he says gets misconstrued by the press. Since the encyclical focuses on climate change, it is often used to pain Francis as a political leftist.
The pope connected the problem of waste to a “throwaway culture,” writing that the industrial cycle of production and consumption “has not developed the capacity to absorb and reuse waste and byproducts.”
As a result of the news coverage surrounding the encyclical, Francis was sharply criticized by those who question that humans have caused climate change. Others viewed the encyclical as an attack on capitalism.
These misunderstandings — often as a result of and poor mainstream news coverage of such issues — hasn’t been relegated to just politics. It has spilled over on issues of sex, morality and culture when it comes to this pope.
2. Mixed messages (And media coverage) on cultural issues
Many Catholics are very likely to spend the time marking Francis’ pontificate by comparing him to his two immediate predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Some will praise the new direction this pope has chartered for the church; others annoyed by them.
Vatican observer John Allen may have had the best take on all this squabbling that has highlighted the past decade between Catholics on the doctrinal left and right. Allen used as his example church attendance in Italy, the country where he has the most influence:
Results of the twenty-year period between 2001 and 2021, which are the most recent available, are especially illuminating. In effect, the cohort of Italians who say they attend religious services at least once a week, and those why say they never do so, switched positions.
In 2001, 36.4 percent of Italians said they went to church at least once a week, while 15.9 percent said they never went. Two decades later, 32.4 percent said they never go, while just 19.2 percent said they go every week.
What’s important for our purposes is to note the time spans involved.
The onset of the decline in Mass attendance came in the 1960s, coinciding with the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and extended through the relatively left-of-center papacy of Paul VI. In the 1980s, under the more conservative Pope John Paul II, things appeared to stabilize, only to start sliding anew in the 1990s and to continue unarrested ever since.
The declines from 2001 to 2021 coincide with the last four years of the John Paul papacy, when his cumulative influence should have been at its peak; all eight years of Benedict XVI; and the first eight years of Francis. In other words, we’re talking about 12 years of conservative papal leadership and eight years of a more progressive agenda, none of which appears to have affected how many people go to Mass one whit.
Whatever actually is driving these trends, whether the sitting pope is conservative or liberal seems to have remarkably little to do with it.
At the same time, the divide is real. Tensions within Catholicism grew as Pope Francis expressed an openness to the LGBTQ community. He made news in July 2013 during his first news conference as pope. The Associated Press reported it this way:
A remarkably candid Pope Francis struck a conciliatory stance toward gays Monday, saying “who am I to judge” when it comes to the sexual orientation of priests.
“We shouldn’t marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into society,” Francis said during an extraordinary 82-minute exchange with reporters aboard his plane returning from his first papal trip, to celebrate World Youth Day in Brazil.
“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” the pope asked.
Francis’ first news conference as pope was wide-ranging and open, touching on everything from the greater role he believes women should have in the Catholic Church to the troubled Vatican Bank.
While his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, responded to only a few pre-selected questions during his papal trips, Francis did not dodge a single query, even thanking the journalist who asked about reports of a “gay lobby” inside the Vatican and allegations that one of his trusted monsignors was involved in a gay tryst.
Francis said he investigated the allegations against the clergyman according to canon law and found nothing to back them up. He took journalists to task for reporting on the matter, saying it concerned issues of sin, not crimes like sexually abusing children. And when someone sins and confesses, he said, God not only forgives — he forgets.
“We don’t have the right to not forget,” he said.
A big part of Francis’ legacy is tied to the outcome of the Synod of Synodality. It’s a multi-year process that could lead to some changes in how to church deals with an ever-secular West and with a church that’s getting smaller in that part of the world.
Catholic teaching says homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” — but Francis’ tone on the subject for much of his papacy has signaled an openness never seen in past popes. He recently said being gay shouldn’t be illegal, but did call it a sin.
Pope Francis then had to clarify his comments, saying he was referring to official Catholic moral teaching that teaches that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin.
1. Choice of cardinals and the church’s future
Handing out red hats and stacking the College of Cardinals with men who a pope agrees with matters. This is the body that elects the pope. A big part of a pope’s legacy are the bishops he has elevated.
Francis has named 111 cardinals to lead dioceses around the planet. There are currently 123 cardinals under the age of 80 and eligible under church law to enter a conclave to elect a pope once Francis dies or chooses to retire. Francis has appointed 81 of them.
Pope Francis has completely abolished the idea of cardinalatial dioceses. As a result, important cities without cardinals now include Milan, Venice, Krakow, Paris and Los Angeles.
While Francis has been very good about expanding representation in Asia and Africa in the post-Benedict era, many see the lack of a red hat for Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles as a sign of larger divisions within the current church.
Gomez is one of the most powerful Catholics in the United States and a former president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He also oversees a part of the country with a very large Latino population. It was seen as a slap in the face when Robert McElroy of San Diego was named a cardinal — not Gomez.
This is how the Los Angeles Times summed up the situation:
The liberal-minded National Catholic Reporter called Gomez a “failed culture warrior” for his work heading the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“In an organization whose history is peppered with failed leaders, it is hard to find one less accomplished,” the newspaper said.
On the right, Father Thomas G. Weinandy, a columnist for conservative Catholic publications, described the papal snub of Gomez as a politically motivated “insult.”
“It is precisely [Gomez’s] loyalty to the Church’s perennial teaching, especially with regards to its moral teaching, that disqualifies [him] from Francis’consideration,” Weinandy wrote.
In his latest consistory last year, Francis elevated Oscar Cantoni of Como in northern Italy, who was among the first to apply the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, which would, under certain conditions, grant Holy Communion to the divorced and remarried.
The debate over Amoris laetitia became so fierce that prominent church leaders, including U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, penned five dubia — or doubts — about its validity and opposition to church teaching. It is such disagreements that fueled talk of a possible schism, a concern Pope Francis said he has prayed about.
In 2019, the pope’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon inflamed these debates further in what critics called the pope’s embrace of pagan worship when mixing Catholic liturgy with statues of Pachamama.
A pope’s biggest legacy is the College of Cardinals and the next pontiff who is elected by this group. This pope’s legacy remains a work-in-progress, but several major themes have emerged over the past decade that have made Francis, like many pope of the past, both a beloved and divisive figure.
Clemente Lisi is a senior editor at Religion Unplugged and teaches journalism at The King’s College in New York City. He is the author of “The FIFA World Cup: A History of the Planet’s Biggest Sporting Event.” Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.