He was expected to be the Rock, the successor of Peter, yet what we received was a gradual shift—a soft decomposition clothed in white. Under Pope Francis, the Vatican transformed from fortress to open refugee camp, its gates swinging wide for strangers, non-believers, and protestors demanding entry with self-righteous noise. In a world aflame with division, Pope Francis spoke in hashtags and soundbites, apologizing for the perceived sins of the West to those who sought her cathedrals’ destruction. The clarity of sin blurred into suffering, and the edifice of order crumbled into empathy. The gospel of Christ was reimagined as a global HR manual, more fitting for a Davos luncheon than the sacred pulpit.
Pope Francis’s vision was clearly articulated in his encyclical, *Fratelli Tutti*, a love letter to a borderless world. It was not the bruised realm of saints and martyrs he addressed, but rather a world of smirking, corrupt bureaucrats who saw no blood but only brotherhood reminiscent of the French Revolution. Empathy saturated the text, disarming defenses and baptizing the stranger in syrupy theories. Nations dissolved into a nebulous concept of “neighbors,” mere words stretched across deserts and oceans like a prayer gone astray. Sovereignty became heresy, identity an inconvenience. In this new doctrine, war was sin, hierarchy was sin, capitalism was sin—yet the dilution of the sacred was mercy. He whispered unity while erasing the names of peoples who once knelt before hand-carved crosses. Fraternity was his call, but it smelled of surrender.
Illegal immigration became his crusade, as walls were labeled un-Christian, yet the Vatican remained encircled by its own. Heaven’s gates were still depicted as shut to the impure—were these teachings merely metaphor now? Were boundaries no longer sacred? He washed migrants’ feet, neglecting the forgotten faithful. His chastisements targeted Western nations, the builders of cathedrals he inherited, even as he aligned with forces unraveling Europe. Where some saw invasion, he imagined pilgrimage; where others warned of lawlessness, he praised yearning. This was universalism sans judgment, discernment abandoned, chaos warmly embraced.
He welcomed men in lipstick and lace not as sinners seeking redemption, but as misunderstood harbingers of “inclusivity.” Once asking, “Who am I to judge?” Pope Francis became the confessor of the degenerate modern world—not hearing sins but deleting them. Under his watch, same-sex civil unions were praised, not simply tolerated, and marriage blurred into bureaucratic recognition of emotional convenience. Transgender activists were blessed on their journeys, each gesture chipping away at the old stone altar. Despite the catechism’s words, his merciful tone smothered them, leading the flock into the fog of decadence.
Online, his defenders proliferated like mold in a cathedral crypt. Memes propagated narratives of papal kindness, humility, and his mastery of social media. He became a brand, a “progressive” pontiff fluent in modern slogans, almost saintly in his honoring figures like Greta Thunberg. Mystery gave way to spectacle, the digital liturgy overshadowing ancient rites. Hashtags drifted upwards where incense once rose. His bending of creed trended while algorithms sanctified him. Cameras adored him, atheists cherished his interviews. He questioned dogma but never ideology, labeling demons as racism, sexism, capitalism—never the rot creeping beneath the Church’s robes.
When a pope embraces the world so thoroughly, the Church inevitably risks becoming its puppet. Pope Francis’s legacy was one of proclaimed inclusion at the expense of discarding gospel tenets. His papacy unfolded as an era of apology and compromise. Armor gone. Sword rusted. Fire extinguished. While he wept for the wind, the cathedral crumbled. Now, even in his absence, smoke rises—heavy, uncertain. The throne remains occupied yet feels desecrated. The Church must awaken from this delirium, recalling that love detached from truth is betrayal. Those who still believe are called to lift the standard once again, to face the world not as it demands to be seen, but as a world hungering to be saved.
