How low is our ethical bar when millions mourn the death of the least worst Pope of all time?

As spiritual leader of an organization shielding pedophiles, Pope Francis was reprehensible, just not as bad as his predecessors

I can't wait to die because that's when any of my faults are forgotten and everyone will only say good things about me. It's gonna be great.

We all do this of course, speak fondly of the dead no matter what they have done. But there has to be a limit, in my humble opinion.

I find it remarkable, maybe naively to a fault, that the media coverage, even from progressive organizations such as the CBC, is universally reporting on what a progressive reformer Pope Francis was. They get comments from sources who sing the praises of a dead guy who was essentially a likeable godfather of an organized crime syndicate sitting atop $65 billion in near priceless art, real estate, and stocks that reap sky-high dividends, tax-free of course.

Can we dispense with the platitudes for the dead head of a dying church that is still hiding documents about abuse at Indian residential schools in Canada, harbouring pedophiles, and covering up sexual abuse scandals?

"With centuries of dogma having piled up and hardened, it’s never going to dramatically pivot on its traditions or positions," according to Hemant Mehta, curator of The Friendly Atheist blog. "So any push to make it slightly less awful deserves some praise. But just some.

"Because on so many hot-button issues, Pope Francis only solidified the worst beliefs of Catholicism."

Here are but three (of many) examples of things Jorge Mario Bergoglio (his real name) said in recent years that garnered media coverage, but which are forgotten today as his corpse lies in a box in St. Peter's Basilica for three days of public viewing.

1. Calumny is it?

When Pope Francis visited Chile in 2018 he first spoke of "the pain and shame, that I feel at the irreparable damage caused to children by ministers of the Church."

Good start.

But then he told Chilean victims who were sexually abused by members of the Catholic Church what he really thought of them. He accused the people raped by priests on Bishop Juan Barros's watch of slander, saying their claims of abuse amounted to "calumny," which is a great word that most people probably don't know. It means "slander."

He said the victims were lying because there was "not a shred of evidence against him. The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I'll speak."

Like a classic abusive man, gaslighting the victims.

Fernando Karadima was an infamous priest who raped adolescent boys in Chile, abuse first made public in 2010. Bishop Barros was mentored by Karadima and did nothing about it at the time or after he rose in the ranks. One of Karadima's victims, Juan Carlos Cruz, was shocked to hear Pope Francis accuse him and other victims of the pedophile priest of slander.

"As if one could have taken a selfie or photo while he abused me and others [while Barros stood by]" Cruz said.

2. Ukrainians need to roll over and take it

Pope Francis was asked in a 2024 interview whether Ukraine should surrender and if the country did so, would that not legitimize the actions of Russia.

"The strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people and has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates," he said.

This message has been approved by Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

3. No, no, no you silly gays

"Pope Francis has reportedly once again used the Italian word for 'faggotry' when addressing a private meeting, a move likely to cause headaches for the Vatican press office and a case of whiplash for gay Catholic advocates who have long considered the pontiff an advocate."

So goes the lede in a June 2024 story by Crux, a publication started by The Boston Globe that reports on the Vatican and the Catholic Church in an honest and independent way. (It was started by the Globe in 2014, but has been fully independent since March 2016.)

The Italian news service ANSA reported in June 2024 that during a meeting with priests in the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome, Francis said “In Vaticano c’è aria di frociaggine” – meaning “In the Vatican, there is an air of faggotry.”

He also said gay men shouldn’t be let in the priesthood, which is interesting since by some estimates, including by LGTBQ Catholic groups, as many as 50 per cent of Catholic priests are gay. Seems like that ship has sailed.

In response to the controversy, Pope Francis ramped up the abusive-husband-style gaslighting previously used on victims of his worldwide pedophilia ring by "apologizing" in a way that is not an apology.

“The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term, reported by others,” said a Vatican spokesperson.

Note the careful use of language. When he said there was too much "faggotry" in the Catholic church and gay men needed to be excluded, he didn't "intend" to offend people and he apologized "to those who were offended." He also blamed the fact that it was "reported by others" for some reason.

Being offended is, of course, a personal choice. Some people are offended by certain words or photos of naked people or pieces of art they don't like. That's their problem. So if Pope Francis didn't intend to offend anyone, then he didn't do anything wrong. And apologizing to those who were offended is the classic gaslighting response: "I'm sorry you feel that way."

265 abusive fathers before him

Some Indigenous people have been quoted in the media since the pope's death saying very positive things about him. Again, that is only because the bar is so low for popes.

Many in the LGBTQ community are also issuing plaudits for a pope who wasn't as bad as the rest. But that doesn't mean he was good.

In Mehta's article on this collective and selective rosy amnesia about terrible acts when religious leaders die, he invoked George W. Bush who was universally loathed and was a terrible president for so many reasons. Yet in the light of Donald Trump, Bush seems downright folksy and fun.

There have been 265 popes before Francis, all perpetuating an anachronistic, misogynistic, homophobic, ethnocentric institution that helped in the cultural genocide of Indigenous people around the world while perpetuating lies wrapped in rosaries and weird practices, such as ritualized cannibalism.

If you get raped by 266 men in prison and the last one gives you a pat on the head and says "sorry," I'm not sure that warrants praise.

All that is to say that we don't need to excoriate the dead, we shouldn't. Nor should we put them on a pedestal and sanitize who they were, what they did, what they said, and most importantly what they didn't do, just because they are dead.

He might have been the least bad in a bad bunch, but less awful is still awful.

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Paul J. Henderson
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