Farewell, Francis. Hello, Leo XIV

Well, that’s finally over.

Pope Francis died on April 21, bringing to a close a chaotic pontificate characterized by chronic confusion and polarizing polemics. The late Pope, an imprecise thinker, writer, and speaker, was known to engage in studied ambiguity and to issue pointed barbs. Over the course of his 12-year reign, he disappointed Catholic progressives, angered and alienated Catholic traditionalists, and alternately delighted and perplexed the vast majority in the middle. This is evident in how Francis was perceived in the United States, where, according to a January 2024 Gallup poll, he enjoyed broad — but not vast — popularity. His 77 percent favorable rating among U.S. Catholics, though seemingly robust, was “below average for that group.” His 17 percent unfavorable rating, though seemingly negligible, was “a new high.”

Francis’s popularity (such as it was) could be attributable to the theological laxity prevalent among U.S. Catholics, whose thinking is more secular now than ever before. According to a Pew Research survey conducted this February, prior to the Pope’s hospitalization due to a respiratory complication, among U.S. Catholics:

•  84% say the Church should allow birth control,
•  83% say the Church should allow in vitro fertilization,
•  68% say the Church should allow women to become deacons,
•  63% say the Church should allow priests to get married, and
•  59% say the Church should ordain women as priests.

A laissez-faire spirit dominates; progressive Catholicism seems to have won the battle for the hearts and minds of our co-religionists. And yet Francis greatly misread American Catholicism. “There is a very strong reactionary attitude” here, he said, deriding U.S. Catholics as “backward-looking.”

How wrong he was.

The misreading was largely mutual. To the casual observer, including the casual U.S. Catholic, Francis remained a symbol of “change” — despite not effecting any actual change to doctrine (which a pope is unable to do unilaterally).