an essay by alexander pope

An Essay on Criticism Summary & Analysis by Alexander Pope

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" seeks to lay down rules of good taste in poetry criticism, and in poetry itself. Structured as an essay in rhyming verse, it offers advice to the aspiring critic while satirizing amateurish criticism and poetry. The famous passage beginning "A little learning is a dangerous thing" advises would-be critics to learn their field in depth, warning that the arts demand much longer and more arduous study than beginners expect. The passage can also be read as a warning against shallow learning in general. Published in 1711, when Alexander Pope was just 23, the "Essay" brought its author fame and notoriety while he was still a young poet himself.

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The Full Text of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

1 A little learning is a dangerous thing;

2 Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

3 There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

4 And drinking largely sobers us again.

5 Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

6 In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,

7 While from the bounded level of our mind,

8 Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,

9 But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise

10 New, distant scenes of endless science rise!

11 So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try,

12 Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;

13 The eternal snows appear already past,

14 And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

15 But those attained, we tremble to survey

16 The growing labours of the lengthened way,

17 The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,

18 Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Summary

“from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” themes.

Shallow Learning vs. Deep Understanding

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts, While from the bounded level of our mind, Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,

But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise New, distant scenes of endless science rise!

Lines 11-14

So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky; The eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

Lines 15-18

But those attained, we tremble to survey The growing labours of the lengthened way, The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Symbols

The Mountains/Alps

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“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

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Extended Metaphor

“from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• A little learning
• Pierian spring
• Bounded level
• Short views
• The lengthened way
• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

Rhyme scheme, “from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” speaker, “from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” setting, literary and historical context of “from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing”, more “from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” resources, external resources.

The Poem Aloud — Listen to an audiobook of Pope's "Essay on Criticism" (the "A little learning" passage starts at 12:57).

The Poet's Life — Read a biography of Alexander Pope at the Poetry Foundation.

"Alexander Pope: Rediscovering a Genius" — Watch a BBC documentary on Alexander Pope.

More on Pope's Life — A summary of Pope's life and work at Poets.org.

Pope at the British Library — More resources and articles on the poet.

LitCharts on Other Poems by Alexander Pope

Ode on Solitude

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An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope

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An Essay on Man

"The Essay on Man in modern editions is a single poem, arranged in four “Epistles.” But in the beginning, each epistle was published separately, the first on February 20 [1733], the second on March 29, the third on May 17, and the fourth in the next year, on January 24, 1734. In May of 1733 the first three epistles were issued as a stitched together pamphlet, but the pamphlet was made up of separately issued copies of the three epistles. It was not until May 2, 1734, that all four parts were printed together as a single poem.", Alexander Pope; a bibliography , by Reginald Harvey Griffith (1922), Volume I, part I, p .211.

This transcription is of an edition published in 1751.

IN FOUR EPISTLES,

Alexander Pope , Esq

EDINBURGH ,

Printed for, and sold by James Reid Bookseller in Leith , MDCCLI.

• The Contents
• Epistle II.
• Epistle III.
• Epistle IV.
• The Universal Prayer
• Notes on the Essay on Man

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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An Essay on Man: Epistle I

by Alexander Pope

To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o’er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan; A wild, where weeds and flow’rs promiscuous shoot; Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit. Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield; The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye Nature’s walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man. I. Say first, of God above, or man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? Of man what see we, but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? Through worlds unnumber’d though the God be known, ‘Tis ours to trace him only in our own. He, who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, What other planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples ev’ry star, May tell why Heav’n has made us as we are. But of this frame the bearings, and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, Gradations just, has thy pervading soul Look’d through? or can a part contain the whole? Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee? II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, Why form’d so weak, so little, and so blind? First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why form’d no weaker, blinder, and no less! Ask of thy mother earth , why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove’s satellites are less than Jove? Of systems possible, if ’tis confest That Wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree; Then, in the scale of reas’ning life, ’tis plain There must be somewhere, such a rank as man: And all the question (wrangle e’er so long) Is only this, if God has plac’d him wrong? Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, though labour’d on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God’s, one single can its end produce; Yet serves to second too some other use. So man, who here seems principal alone , Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; ‘Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. When the proud steed shall know why man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o’er the plains: When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Egypt’s God: Then shall man’s pride and dulness comprehend His actions’, passions’, being’s, use and end; Why doing, suff’ring, check’d, impell’d; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity. Then say not man’s imperfect, Heav’n in fault; Say rather, man’s as perfect as he ought: His knowledge measur’d to his state and place, His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest today is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago. III. Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescrib’d, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play ? Pleas’d to the last, he crops the flow’ry food, And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood. Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv’n, That each may fill the circle mark’d by Heav’n: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore! What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest: The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor’d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul, proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way; Yet simple nature to his hope has giv’n, Behind the cloud -topt hill, an humbler heav’n; Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d, Some happier island in the wat’ry waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To be, contents his natural desire, He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company. IV. Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense Weigh thy opinion against Providence; Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, Say, here he gives too little, there too much: Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man’s unhappy, God’s unjust; If man alone engross not Heav’n’s high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there: Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, Rejudge his justice , be the God of God. In pride, in reas’ning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel: And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against th’ Eternal Cause. V. ask for what end the heav’nly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ” ‘Tis for mine: For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow’r, Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev’ry flow’r; Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew, The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My foot -stool earth, my canopy the skies.” But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? “No, (’tis replied) the first Almighty Cause Acts not by partial, but by gen’ral laws; Th’ exceptions few; some change since all began: And what created perfect?”—Why then man? If the great end be human happiness, Then Nature deviates; and can man do less? As much that end a constant course requires Of show’rs and sunshine, as of man’s desires; As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, As men for ever temp’rate, calm, and wise. If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav’n’s design , Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline? Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar’s mind, Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? From pride, from pride, our very reas’ning springs; Account for moral , as for nat’ral things: Why charge we Heav’n in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right is to submit. Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here; That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never passion discompos’d the mind. But ALL subsists by elemental strife; And passions are the elements of life. The gen’ral order, since the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man. VI. What would this man? Now upward will he soar, And little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as griev’d appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say what their use, had he the pow’rs of all? Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper pow’rs assign’d; Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; All in exact proportion to the state; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: Is Heav’n unkind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleas’d with nothing, if not bless’d with all? The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; No pow’rs of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a fly. Say what the use, were finer optics giv’n, T’ inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav’n? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o’er, To smart and agonize at ev’ry pore? Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain? If nature thunder’d in his op’ning ears, And stunn’d him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heav’n had left him still The whisp’ring zephyr, and the purling rill? Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies? VII. Far as creation’s ample range extends, The scale of sensual, mental pow’rs ascends: Mark how it mounts, to man’s imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass : What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole’s dim curtain, and the lynx’s beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles through the vernal wood: The spider’s touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From pois’nous herbs extracts the healing dew: How instinct varies in the grov’lling swine, Compar’d, half-reas’ning elephant, with thine: ‘Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier; For ever sep’rate, yet for ever near! Remembrance and reflection how allied; What thin partitions sense from thought divide: And middle natures, how they long to join, Yet never pass th’ insuperable line! Without this just gradation, could they be Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? The pow’rs of all subdu’d by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these pow’rs in one? VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth. Above, how high, progressive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep extend below! Vast chain of being, which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see, No glass can reach! from infinite to thee, From thee to nothing!—On superior pow’rs Were we to press, inferior might on ours: Or in the full creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great scale’s destroy’d: From nature’s chain whatever link you strike, Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. And, if each system in gradation roll Alike essential to th’ amazing whole, The least confusion but in one, not all That system only, but the whole must fall. Let earth unbalanc’d from her orbit fly, Planets and suns run lawless through the sky; Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl’d, Being on being wreck’d, and world on world; Heav’n’s whole foundations to their centre nod, And nature tremble to the throne of God. All this dread order break—for whom? for thee? Vile worm!—Oh madness, pride, impiety! IX. What if the foot ordain’d the dust to tread, Or hand to toil, aspir’d to be the head? What if the head, the eye, or ear repin’d To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another, in this gen’ral frame: Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, The great directing Mind of All ordains. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; That, chang’d through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in th’ ethereal frame, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees , Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent, Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns; To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. X. Cease then, nor order imperfection name: Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heav’n bestows on thee. Submit.—In this, or any other sphere, Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear: Safe in the hand of one disposing pow’r, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony, not understood; All partial evil, universal good: And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

Summary of An Essay on Man: Epistle I

• Popularity of “An Essay on Man: Epistle I”: Alexander Pope, one of the greatest English poets, wrote ‘An Essay on Man’ It is a superb literary piece about God and creation, and was first published in 1733. The poem speaks about the mastery of God’s art that everything happens according to His plan, even though we fail to comprehend His work. It also illustrates man’s place in the cosmos. The poet explains God’s grandeur and His rule over the universe.
• “An Essay on Man: Epistle I” As a Representative of God’s Art: This poem explains God’s ways to men. This is a letter to the poet’s friend, St. John, Lord Bolingbroke. He urges him to quit all his mundane tasks and join the speaker to vindicate the ways of God to men. The speaker argues that God may have other worlds to observe but man perceives the world with his own limited system. A man’s happiness depends on two basic things; his hopes for the future and unknown future events. While talking about the sinful and impious nature of mankind, the speaker argues that man’s attempt to gain more knowledge and to put himself at God’s place becomes the reason of his discontent and constant misery. In section 1, the poet argues that man knows about the universe with his/her limited knowledge and cannot understand the systems and constructions of God. Humans are unaware of the grander relationships between God and His creations. In section 2, he states that humans are not perfect. However, God designed humans perfectly to suit his plan, in the order of the creation of things. Humans are after angelic beings but above every creature on the planet. In section 3 the poet tells that human happiness depends on both his lack of knowledge as they don’t know the future and also on his hope for the future. In section 4 the poet talks about the pride of humans, which is a sin. Because of pride, humans try to gain more knowledge and pretend that is a perfect creation. This pride is the root of man’s mistakes and sorrow. If humans put themselves in God’s place, then humans are sinners. In section 5, the poet explains the meaninglessness of human beliefs. He thinks that it is extremely ridiculous to believe that humans are the sole cause of creation. God expecting perfection and morality from people on this earth does not happen in the natural world. In section 6, the poet criticizes human nature because of the unreasonable demands and complaints against God and His providence. He argues that God is always good; He loves giving and taking. We also learn that if man possesses the knowledge of God, he would be miserable. In section 7, he shows that the natural world we see, including the universal order and degree, is observable by humans as per their perspective . The hierarchy of humans over earthly creatures and their subordination to man is one of the examples. The poet also mentions sensory issues like physical sense, instinct, thought, reflection, and reason. There’s also a reason which is above everything. In section 8, the poet reclaims that if humans break God’s rules of order and fail to obey are broken, then the entire God’s creation must also be destroyed. In section 9, he talks about human craziness and the desire to overthrow God’s order and break all the rules. In the last section the speaker requests and invites humans to submit to God and His power to follow his order. When humans submit to God’s absolute submission, His will, and ensure to do what’s right, then human remains safe in God’s hand.
• Major Themes in “An Essay on Man: Epistle I”: Acceptance, God’s superiority, and man’s nature are the major themes of this poem Throughout the poem, the speaker tries to justify the working of God, believing there is a reason behind all things. According to the speaker, a man should not try to examine the perfection and imperfection of any creature. Rather, he should understand the purpose of his own existence in the world. He should acknowledge that God has created everything according to his plan and that man’s narrow intellectual ability can never be able to comprehend the greater logic of God’s order.

Analysis of Literary Devices Used in “An Essay on Man: Epistle I”

literary devices are modes that represent writers’ ideas, feelings, and emotions. It is through these devices the writers make their few words appealing to the readers. Alexander Pope has also used some literary devices in this poem to make it appealing. The analysis of some of the literary devices used in this poem has been listed below.

• Assonance : Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line. For example, the sound of /o/ in “To him no high, no low, no great, no small” and the sound of /i/ in “The whisp’ring zephyr, and the purling rill?”
• Anaphora : It refers to the repetition of a word or expression in the first part of some verses. For example, “As full, as perfect,” in the second last stanza of the poem to emphasize the point of perfection.
• Alliteration : Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line in quick succession. For example, the sound of /m/ in “A mighty maze! but not without a plan”, the sound of /b/ “And now a bubble burst, and now a world” and the sound of /th/ in “Subjected, these to those, or all to thee.”
• Enjambment : It is defined as a thought in verse that does not come to an end at a line break ; instead, it rolls over to the next line. For example.

“Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor’d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.”

• Imagery : Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example, “All chance, direction, which thou canst not see”, “Planets and suns run lawless through the sky” and “Where, one step broken, the great scale’s destroy’d”
• Rhetorical Question : Rhetorical question is a question that is not asked in order to receive an answer; it is just posed to make the point clear and to put emphasis on the speaker’s point. For example, “Why has not man a microscopic eye?”, “And what created perfect?”—Why then man?” and “What matter, soon or late, or here or there?”

Analysis of Poetic Devices Used in “An Essay on Man: Epistle I”

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is the analysis of some of the poetic devices used in this poem.

• Heroic Couplet : There are two constructive lines in heroic couplet joined by end rhyme in iambic pentameter . For example,

“And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.”

• Rhyme Scheme : The poem follows the ABAB rhyme scheme and this pattern continues till the end.
• Stanza : A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. This is a long poem divided into ten sections and each section contains different numbers of stanzas in it.

Quotes to be Used

The lines stated below are useful to put in a speech delivered on the topic of God’s grandeur. These are also useful for children to make them understand that we constitute just a part of the whole.

“ All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony, not understood; All partial evil, universal good.”

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An Essay on Man: Epistle I

Pope, alexander (1688 - 1744).

An Essay on Man

30 pages • 1 hour read

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Summary and Study Guide

Alexander Pope is the author of “An Essay on Man,” published in 1734. Pope was an English poet of the Augustan Age, the literary era in the first half of the 18th century in England (1700-1740s). Neoclassicism, a literary movement in which writers and poets sought inspiration from the works of Virgil, Ovid, and Horace, influenced the poem. Writing in heroic couplets, Pope explores the connection between God, human nature , and society. The poem is philosophical and discusses order, reason, and balance, themes that dominated the era. Pope dedicated the poem to Henry St. John, one of his close friends and a famous Tory politician.

This is Pope’s final long poem. It was intended to be the first part of a book-length poem on his philosophy of the world, but Pope did not live to complete the book. Pope initially published “An Essay on Man” anonymously, as he had a fractious relationship with critics and wanted to see how people would respond to the work if unaware that he had written it. The work was praised highly when it was published, and is still esteemed as one of the most elegant didactic poems ever composed.

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Poet Biography

Alexander Pope was born in 1688 in London, England. His father was a wealthy merchant, but because he was Catholic and the Church of England was extremely anti-Catholic, his family could not live within ten miles of London, and Pope could not receive a formal education. As a result, Pope grew up near Windsor Forest and was self-taught. At the age of 12, he contracted spinal tuberculosis, which resulted in lifelong debilitating pain. He grew to be four and a half feet tall and was dependent on others.

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Despite these early challenges, Pope’s poetic talent enabled him to attain a higher social status. He began publishing poetry at the age of 16. He translated Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey , as well as the works of Shakespeare, and sold the translations for a subscription fee. From the profits of these translations, Pope purchased a grand mansion and large plot of land in Twickenham in 1719. Pope is famous for being the first poet able to support himself entirely on his writing. He valued his friendships, which were with some of the greatest minds of his time, including Jonathan Swift, the famous satirist and author of A Modest Proposal .  Pope also had many enemies due to his biting wit and talent for mocking the conventions of his era. For this, he was called “The Wasp of Twickenham.” His Essay on Criticism (1711) expressed his views on criticism and poetry. His mock-epic poem, The Rape of the Lock (1714), was one of his most famous satirical poems. His satire , The Dunciad (1728) lambasted the culture and literature of his day.

He died in 1744 at the age of 56 from edema and asthma. He never married and had no children. Pope is considered one of the greatest English poets of the 18th century and his style defined the Augustan age of poetry. After Shakespeare, he is the second most quoted writer in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations .

Pope, Alexander. “ An Essay on Man .” 2007. Project Gutenberg .

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The scandals haunting Pope Francis Scheming cardinals are sharpening their knives

'He can be terrific fun and also incredibly vengeful.' Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images

Damian Thompson

April 27, 2024   20 mins.

The cardinals are already meeting to discuss who should be the next pope. Some of the liberal ones, who feel safe because they’re in favour with the ailing Pope Francis, can be seen comparing notes in a bar near the gates of the Vatican. The conservative cardinals are more nervous: they gather at suppers in each other’s apartments or — if they can trust the fawning waiters not to betray them — in a favourite restaurant.

Perhaps you can see the flash of a bishop’s ring as he taps a piece of gossip into WhatsApp; the Holy See employs world-class electronic spies, so everyone uses a private phone rather than the Vatican-issued ones. Even the phone-tappers are busy exchanging information, because like everybody in Rome they suspect that the painfully fragile Francis — who is often too short of breath to read out his own sermons — hasn’t got long to go.

They are just guessing, of course. The Pope is secretive about his health, and two years ago he bounced back from major surgery on his colon that was assumed to be advanced cancer. Even so, he’s 87, the oldest pope for more than a century, and a conclave can’t be too far off.

Ludwig Ring-Eifel of the German news agency KNA said in January that seeing the Pope so short of breath at a press conference at which he was too ill to answer prepared questions was “a difficult moment for me … and you can tell that this situation has also affected many colleagues emotionally”. At the beginning of March, Andrew Napolitano, a retired Superior Court judge from New Jersey, was staying in the papal guest house behind St Peter’s. “The Pope is in poor health, can barely speak or walk; and he radiates sadness,” he reported . “I don’t think he’ll be there much longer.”

Vatican nerves are always on edge in the final years of a pontificate. In the case of the conservative Benedict XVI, they were overshadowed by leaks — gleefully reported by a hostile media — revealing flamboyant corruption at the top of the Roman Curia, the government of the Holy See. Benedict was too frightened to act and resigned in despair.

Now the Vatican is once again paralysed by scandals, but this time round, correspondents working for secular and Catholic outlets are trying to protect Francis, who faces more serious questions about his personal conduct than any pope in living memory.

For years, allegations that would torpedo the career of any secular Western leader have been concealed or played down by a Praetorian Guard of liberal journalists who, back in 2013, staked their reputations on “the Great Reformer”. As a result, even devout Catholics don’t know that the first Jesuit pope has tried to shield several repulsive sex abusers from justice, for reasons never satisfactorily explained.

Inside the Catholic civil war

By Damian Thompson

Only now is the truth coming out, to the relief of Vatican staff who have to deal with a pope who bears little resemblance to the wisecracking, avuncular figure they see on television. They are — or were until recently — terrified of a boss whose autocratic rule is shaped more by his rages and simmering resentments than by any theological agenda. And they can’t conceal their satisfaction that one particularly gruesome scandal involving papal ally Fr Marko Rupnik is stripping away the facade of “the Squid Game pontificate”, as it’s nicknamed, after the South Korean Netflix series in which contestants have to win children’s games to save themselves from execution.

The Rupnik affair is the most sickening scandal I’ve encountered in more than 30 years of reporting on the Catholic Church. Rupnik, a supremely well-connected artist on whose tacky mosaics the Church has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds, was expelled from the Jesuit order last year after he was credibly accused of raping religious sisters belonging to a community he founded in his native Slovenia. Women have come forward claiming that the community was a sex cult. They say he tried to force them to watch pornographic films, drink his semen out of a chalice , violently took the virginity of one sister in a car and encouraged young women to engage in sexual threesomes that, according to Rupnik, would illustrate the workings of the Holy Trinity.

Last year, facing an explosion of rage on Catholic social media — mainstream media were strangely silent — Pope Francis said he would act against his friend Rupnik. He hasn’t done so. Nor has he explained why, when Rupnik was facing excommunication for abusing the confessional to “absolve” one of his female sexual victims, he was invited to conduct a retreat at the Vatican, or why his subsequent excommunication was mysteriously lifted within weeks with the approval of the Pope.

This month Fr Rupnik was listed in the 2024 Vatican directory as a consultant on Divine Worship, of all things. Meanwhile Bishop Daniele Libanori, the Jesuit who investigated the women’s claims and found them credible, has been removed from his position as an auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Rome.

Another toxic scandal is still unfolding in Argentina. In 2016, Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, the former Cardinal Bergoglio’s most pampered protégé, had to resign from the diocese of Orán after he was accused of financial corruption and aggressive attempts to seduce seminarians. The Pope’s response? He airlifted Zanchetta to Rome and invented a job for him:”‘assessor” of the funds managed by the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), the Vatican treasury. Zanchetta was later convicted of assaulting seminarians, even though Rome refused to supply documents requested by the Argentinian court. He’s serving his jail sentence in a retreat house amid reports that his accusers are being harassed.

The story is coming back to haunt Francis, whose enemies — emboldened by his loosening grip on the government of the Holy See — are circulating extremely damaging documents. These suggest that the Pope is even more tangled up in the scandal than previously suspected. And there are other cases: as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis unsuccessfully attempted to keep the child molester Fr Julio Grassi out of jail, commissioning a report that branded his victims as liars.

The dark secrets of this pontificate will weigh heavily on cardinals’ minds in their pre-conclave discussions before they cast their votes in the Sistine Chapel. They will be speaking in code: no one wants to take the risk of openly trashing the reputation of a recently deceased (or retired) Supreme Pontiff. But the cardinals will be forced to talk about the increasingly poisonous divisions between liberal and conservative Catholics, which date back to the Second Vatican Council but have been made far worse under this pontificate. And they will find it hard to draw a line between Francis’s policies and his personality, since he takes such visible delight in using his powers to spring surprises on the universal Church.

When Francis first took office, most cardinals shared the popular enthusiasm for his informal style: his preference to be known as plain “Bishop of Rome” and his abandonment of some of the more comical trappings of his office such as the red shoes. But they quickly discovered that this “informal” pope, in contrast to his predecessors, liked to rule through executive fiat.

Francis has issued a torrent of papal ruling s known as motu proprios (literally, “of his own accord”) — more than 60 so far, six times more frequently than John Paul II. They have made massive changes to liturgy, finance, government and canon law. They often land without warning and can be brutal: the Pope has used this mechanism to seize control of the Order of Malta , for example, and to strip away the privileges of the secretive but ultra-loyal organisation Opus Dei.

Two rulings above all have traumatised the conservative Catholics for whom Francis nurtures a pathological dislike, rarely missing an opportunity to point out their “rigidity” or to mock their traditional vestments, decorated with what he calls “grandmother’s lace”.

The first is his decision, issued via motu proprio , to crush the celebration of the pre-1970 Latin Mass that Benedict had carefully reintegrated into the worship of the Church. In 2021, in a decision that he knew would cause his retired predecessor terrible pain, Francis effectively banned its celebration in ordinary parishes.

Only a tiny proportion of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics attend the Old Rite Masses, so why has the ban turned into such a big deal? Partly it’s a reflection of the Cromwellian thoroughness with which it has been enforced by Francis’s new liturgy chief, Cardinal Arthur Roche, the most powerful English cleric in Rome. A native of Batley with the manner of a self-important Yorkshire alderman, Roche has evolved into that familiar Roman beast: an authoritarian liberal with a nose for the juiciest Satimbocca alla Romana and the fluffiest tiramisu. This year he forced his old rival, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, to ban the Old Rite Holy Week ceremonies in his diocese.

Ten terrible years of Pope Francis

The British Conservative peer Lord Moylan, a traditionalist Catholic, vented his fury in a post on X: “I heard a wonderful Tridentine Maundy Mass this evening. I shan’t tell you where it was in case Arthur sends his henchmen round. I’ll just say that English Catholicism has a centuries-old tradition of underground Masses. All that has changed is who’s persecuting us.”

Many bishops aren’t keen on the intricately choreographed Latin ceremonies, but what they dislike far more is having their arms twisted by a pope who, while telling the world that he’s empowering bishops by encouraging “synodality”, whatever that means, is undermining their pastoral authority over their parishes.

But even this controversy pales in comparison with the explosion of rage from half the world’s bishops when, just before Christmas, without warning or consultation, the Pope signed Fiducia Supplicans , a document allowing priests to bless gay couples. This time his chosen instrument was a declaration from the Church’s doctrine office, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), that same-sex couples or people in other “irregular” situations could receive “non-liturgical” blessings from priests. This was amazing because, as recently as 2021, the same office had condemned the notion of same-sex couples. Also, no one had ever heard of a non-liturgical blessing. It didn’t exist in canon law. Who came up with that idea?

Step forward the new Prefect of the DDF, Cardinal Victor “Tucho” Fernandez, the most eccentric of the Pope’s Argentinian protégés. It’s hard to exaggerate the weirdness of appointing Fernandez to head the DDF. He was best known for writing a book on the theology of kissing — until it was discovered that he’d also written one about the theology of orgasms , containing passages so disturbing that Tucho himself had second thoughts and apparently tried to hide all the existing copies.

How could this embarrassing lightweight come to occupy an office previously held by Benedict XVI, who as Joseph Ratzinger was arguably the greatest Catholic theologian of the 20th century? One theory is that Fernandez wasn’t Francis’s first choice, but the name of his preferred candidate , the German progressive Bishop Heiner Wilmer, was leaked and so he picked someone else. As soon as he was in office, Tucho wrote Fiducia Supplicans and slipped it onto Francis’s desk without showing it to other senior cardinals.

The fall-out was spectacular. There was already a growing rift between Catholic bishops, led by German and American progressives, who thought it was OK to bless gay couples and those who thought it made a mockery of the teachings of Christ. After Fiducia that rift seems irreparable.

On 11 January the bishops of West, East and Central Africa jointly announced that they “do not consider it appropriate for Africa to bless homosexual unions or same-sex couples”. Francis, unpredictable as ever, then said that was fine because they were Africans, thus throwing Tucho under the bus, opening himself up to accusations of racism and offending the LGBT lobby. Gay rights activists were already mortified by panicky Vatican “clarification”  of January 4 stating that the blessings of same-sex couples should last a maximum of 15 seconds and were “not an endorsement of the lives they lead”.

Taxi drivers are corrupting Italy

By Tobias Jones

Meanwhile the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, wounded by papal overtures to Putin, said Fiducia didn’t apply to them either. Likewise the Polish Church. Most recently the Coptic Orthodox Church has taken the drastic step of suspending theological dialogue with Rome.

“ Hagan lio! ” — “make a mess! — was the new pope’s message to young Catholics in 2013. What did he mean? All his words are drenched in ambiguity; perhaps it’s explained by his statement that the Church “always does what good she can, even if in the process, her shoes get soiled by the mud of the street”. But Fiducia Supplicans smells like an accidental mess, not a calculated risk. It’s something you scrape off your shoe because you weren’t looking where you were going. Had the Pope taken leave of his senses?

“He is one of the most complicated men I have ever met,” says a Vatican source who has been observing the Pope closely for a decade. “He can be terrific fun and also incredibly vengeful. If you cross him, he’ll kick you when you’re at your lowest ebb.”

“But don’t get the idea that he’s a master strategist. He’s a clumsy tactician who spends his time lighting and putting out fires. His number one priority, overriding everything else, is that he should be inscrutable. He doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s planning to do — and, if you find out, he’ll do the opposite, even if it disrupts his plans.”

My source does not belong to any clerical faction and his assessments of people tend to be conspicuously gentle. It’s been interesting to watch how, during our meetings in Rome over the past five years, his opinion of Francis has hardened to the point where he unhesitatingly describes him as a nasty man.

If Francis cancels any plan anticipated by the media, then that helps explain the disaster of Fiducia Supplicans : Bishop Wilmer is probably more heterodox than Cardinal Fernandez on the subject of homosexuality, but he would never have put his name to “Tucho’s amateur doodlings”, as one critic describes the document.

But note how quickly the Pope switched into reverse gear. A book just published by the French conservative Catholic Jean-Pierre Moreau portrays Jorge Bergoglio as a liberal iconoclast inspired by quasi-Marxist liberation theology. I think that’s wrong, and he is what he’s always been: a Peronist. Like Juan Perón, the populist President of Argentina during his childhood, he is more interested in power than in ideas. My Vatican source talks of Francis’s “powerful charm, his way of making you think you’re the only person who matters”. They said the same thing about Perón, a consummate opportunist who, at the height of his powers, won simultaneous support from neo-Nazis and Marxists but who also took pleasure in lashing out unexpectedly at allies and opponents alike.

Ideologically, Peronism is all over the place, but it has always been committed to social welfare and also passionately anti-American — two enduring strands in Francis’s thinking. During John Paul II’s pontificate Bergoglio stressed his theological orthodoxy, earning the hatred of some of his fellow Jesuits. But he always disliked meticulous ceremonies — there’s footage of him virtually throwing the Blessed Sacrament into a crowd in Buenos Aires — and when you watch him yawning his way through ceremonies in St Peter’s you can’t help wondering if he finds Mass boring. He no longer celebrates it in public, and the excuse that he’s always too ill to do so doesn’t work: John Paul II said Mass even when crippled by Parkinson’s and barely able to speak.

On the evening Francis was elected, the traditionalist website Rorate Caeli published a cry of anguish from Marcelo Gonzalez, a journalist in Buenos Aires. It was headed: “The Horror!”’ and described the self-effacing figure who had just walked on to the balcony of St Peter’s as “the worst of all the unthinkable candidates”. Bergoglio was a “sworn enemy of the Traditional Mass”’ who had “persecuted every single priest who made an effort to wear a cassock”.

Like most observers, I thought the article was over the top, and like most observers I was wrong. Gonzalez was proved right about the Latin Mass — and also about cassocks. These days ambitious priests in Rome know that the swish of the soutane could land them in a miserable curacy, so now they scuttle across the piazzas in drab clerical suits.

But is Francis really a liberal? The fact that he loathes conservatives doesn’t mean that he supports women’s ordination — he doesn’t — and one shouldn’t read too much into the occasional photo-op with an LGBT Catholic: gossips in the Curia suggest that, when the Holy Father lets his guard down and slips into scatological Buenos Aires slang , he’s not especially complimentary about “the gays”. Or some other minorities.

It’s hard to explain the prominence of gay clergy in his entourage, both in Argentina and Rome, given that no one has ever suggested that Jorge Bergoglio, the former nightclub bouncer who had a girlfriend before he entered seminary, is homosexual. But he knows whose closets contain skeletons. One priest in Rome told me: “When Bergoglio visited Rome in the old days, he’d park himself among other visitors in the Casa del Clero, absorbing the gossip, much of which was about gay clergy. And he wouldn’t forget it.”(The Casa is where Francis went back to settle his bill after his election and made sure there were cameras set up to record his humility.)

Of course, the future pope wasn’t alone in gathering information in this way. Latin American politics, clerical as well as secular, has always been oiled by the exchange of secrets — and nowhere more so than in Argentina, where two thirds of citizens have some Italian ancestry and political horse-trading has a distinctly Italian flavour.

Perhaps it was naive of the cardinals in 2013 to expect the former Cardinal Bergoglio to clean up the corruption that had driven Benedict XVI to the state of helpless despair in which he resigned his office. But that was the main reason they elected him. He promised pest control, and it was a promise he didn’t keep.

The fairy tale that freed Napoli

Maybe the cardinal should have taken a closer look at two retired cardinals who were acting as his unofficial campaign managers. The American Theodore McCarrick and the Belgian Godfried Danneels were both in disgrace, having been caught trying to lie their way out of sex scandals. McCarrick’s assaults on seminarians had been an open secret in the American Church for decades, while Danneels had already been caught attempting to cover up incestuous child abuse by one of his bishops. Francis immediately rehabilitated both of them. McCarrick resumed his role as the Pope’s emissary and fundraiser (though Francis eventually had to defrock him when he was charged with child abuse). Danneels, incredibly, received a papal invitation to a synod on the family.

Meanwhile, Francis’s financial reforms began promisingly. He created the new job of Prefect for the Economy for the late Cardinal George Pell, a no-nonsense Australian conservative. Pell stumbled across gigantic money-laundering operations involving senior curial officials — whereupon he was conveniently forced to resign to face trumped-up charges of child abuse in Melbourne.

During Pell’s long, ultimately successful, battle to clear his name, Francis inexplicably gave free rein to Archbishop Angelo Becciu, who was already suspected of having his hand in numerous tills. Becciu took the opportunity to sack Libero Milone , the independent auditor appointed by Pell, threatening to throw him into a Vatican jail cell for the crime of ‘spying’ (i.e., doing his job).

Eventually Becciu himself was sacked after the discovery of billions of dollars poured into dodgy investments — at which point, very oddly, Francis made him a cardinal. And he remains one today, despite losing most of his cardinal’s privileges in 2020 after he was charged along with nine others with embezzlement. He was found guilty and now faces five and half years in jail — but no one thinks he’ll serve them: he knows too much.

Yet not everyone with access to damaging information has been promoted. Bishop Nunzio Galantino was president of APSA when Zanchetta was hiding there in the non-job of “assessor”. He expected to be made a cardinal when he retired. He wasn’t and is reportedly furious .

This month I was sent a 500-page dossier on Zanchetta. Many of the stomach-churning details of the allegations of the sexual exploitation of seminarians have never been reported. I was also sent a photocopy of a document purporting to show that diocesan officials from Orán accused Zanchetta of hiding the sale of properties that funded the building of his seminary. It displays the signatures and stamps of the officials. Allegedly, Zanchetta claimed that Pope Francis himself advised him to conceal the transactions. A leading Catholic blog reported this claim in 2022; the mainstream media did not. I showed the photocopy to a former very senior Vatican official, who replied via WhatsApp: “I had heard of this matter as a rumour but now I see it in black and white!”

However hideous the scandals associated with this pontificate, it’s unlikely that they will influence the next conclave as much as the document signed by Francis on 18 December last year. Fiducia Supplicans changed the dynamics of the electoral college — not just because it forced Catholic bishops to address the radioactive topic of homosexuality that has torn apart the Protestant Churches, but also because it summed up the catastrophic incompetence of this pontificate.

At least three quarters of the future cardinal-electors will have been appointed by Francis. So you might think that the conclave, while recognising Fiducia as a blunder, will be looking for a pope who supports Francis’s relatively undogmatic approach to issues of human sexuality. And so it might — if he’d created enough liberal cardinals. But he hasn’t.

In the early years of his reign, Francis adopted a tribal approach, especially in the United States. It was as if he was playing a Peronist board game, moving red hats to unlikely sees occupied by Bergoglian loyalists. Newark, New Jersey acquired its first cardinal: Joseph Tobin, who had been close to Ted McCarrick. Los Angeles was punished for having an orthodox archbishop, José Gomez, who really had his nose rubbed in it: instead of becoming the first Hispanic cardinal, he had to watch the honour go to his über-liberal suffragan Robert McElroy of San Diego, accused of ignoring warnings about Ted McCarrick’s predatory habits. Chicago got a red hat, as is customary, but it landed on the head of the aggressively Left-wing Blase Cupich, needless to say a Francis appointee.

Catholics for clout

By Ann Manov

Elsewhere in the world, Francis adopted a policy of appointing cardinals from the “peripheries”: Mongolia’s 1,450 Catholics have one; Australia’s five million Catholics don’t. Tonga has one, Ireland doesn’t. But, by doing so, he had to abandon his game of boosting liberals and twisting the tail of his conservative critics. These factional labels don’t mean much in the developing world. In the last two consistories he has created 33 cardinals, only a handful of whom hold Western-style radical views on sexuality. To quote one Vatican analyst: “Francis has wasted his chance to firmly stack the deck for the next conclave.” And now the college is full; even if he lives to call another consistory, he won’t have many places to play with.

The new cardinals tick various Bergoglian boxes. They relish the Pope’s attacks on free-market capitalism and his melodramatic warnings about climate change. None of them is a Right-wing traditionalist and until recently no one paid much attention to their ferocious views on “sodomy”.

Now those views really matter. To quote the same analyst, “when Fiducia Supplicans was published, the African cardinals ditched their Francis-worship overnight. The vast majority won’t vote for anyone who has backed Fiducia” . There are currently 17 African cardinal-electors; nearly all of them are in the anti-gay bloc. To these we can add at least 10 cardinals from Asia, Latin America and the West who share their views, even if they use milder rhetoric. Under current rules, a pope must be elected by a two-thirds majority of the cardinal-electors. This means that social conservatives, if they join forces with the significant number of moderates alarmed by Fiducia, can block anyone seen as progressive on homosexuality.

That’s bad news for Cardinal Luis Tagle, the ambitious former Archbishop of Manila. He was once dubbed the “Asian Francis” on account of his showmanship and socially liberal views. In 2019 Francis put him in charge of worldwide evangelisation — a huge prize that was snatched away when the Pope restructured his department and sacked him as head of Caritas, the Catholic aid agency dogged by sex abuse scandals.

It’s also tricky for Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the affable bicycling beanpole who’s Archbishop of Bologna. His politics are socialist — no problem for developing-world bishops — and during Benedict XVI’s reign he developed an enthusiasm for the old liturgy, even learning how to celebrate the Tridentine Mass. His stance on homosexuality is cautious — but he allowed a gay couple to have a church blessing in his diocese and then, disastrously, had his spokesman basically lie about it, claiming it wasn’t a same-sex blessing when it obviously was. Zuppi isn’t a fan of Fiducia Supplicans , but at the moment he’d run up against the blocking third.

Hardline liberals stand even less of a chance. Blase Cupich of Chicago isn’t papabile ; nor are the “McCarrick boys” Tobin, McElroy, Gregory and Farrell, or the veteran European Leftists Hollerich, Marx and Czerny. The name of the Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech has been mentioned because he’s secretary general of the “synod on synodality”, a consultative body of bishops and lay activists that the Pope notably didn’t bother to consult about the new gay blessings. Grech, unkindly nicknamed “the Bozo from Gozo”, has seen his reputation collapse along with that of the toothless synod. His enemies describe him as the biggest toady in the Curia (unfair to Arthur Roche, many would say).

As for hardline conservative papabili , there really aren’t any; Francis has at least made sure of that. But there is a moderate conservative possibility: Cardinal Péter Erdő, Primate of Hungary. Unlike the exuberant, tearful Tagle, he’s an emotionally reserved scholar. When I met him for coffee in London years ago, we were half an hour into the laborious business of using a translator when he suddenly switched into fluent English. He has the reputation of disliking the limelight and being a bit thin-skinned — but at a synod on the family in 2015, despite arm-twisting from papal apparatchiks, he used his position of relator-general to deliver a masterful defence of traditional teaching. One Vatican-watcher describes him as “boringly conservative, which may be exactly what we need right now“.

What about moderate cardinals who are difficult to pigeonhole? The newest papabile is Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Italian-born Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. In recent months the horrors on his doorstep have revealed a diplomat of rare skill. His condemnation of IDF attacks on civilians in Gaza earned him a rebuke from the Israeli foreign minister — but he had earlier condemned Hamas for its “barbarism” and offered himself as a hostage in place of Israeli children. And while it’s not hard to believe him when he says he has absolutely no wish to be pope, it’s possible he may be forced to think again.

But any Vatican-watcher will tell you that new papabili flash through the sky during the last days of a pontificate. This time around they are busy memorising the names of Asian electors. (It’s generally assumed that after Francis we can forget about another Latin American or Jesuit for a few centuries.) Three names keep cropping up: William Goh from Singapore, orthodox on sexuality, quietly critical of the surrender to Beijing; Charles Maung Bo from Myanmar, also a critic of the China deal; and You Heung-Sik, the new prefect for the dicastery for the clergy from South Korea. Cardinal You is a fascinating figure: a teenage convert to Catholicism whose father had either been killed or defected to the North — no one knows. He then converted the rest of his own family. His faith is joyful and his vision of priestly formation far more attractive than Francis’s bitter tirades against “clericalism”.

Finally, we have to consider the most senior of all the papabili — Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who as Secretary of State (a mixture of prime minister and foreign secretary) is technically number two in the Vatican. The 69-year-old Italian is visibly on manoeuvres and his candidacy is being taken seriously. And that in itself is odd, because Parolin was in office when his deputy Becciu and others were embezzling or gambling with billions of dollars from Church funds. Also, he was the architect of the Vatican’s 2018 deal with Beijing, which — as former Hong Kong bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen warned him — would turn the Chinese Catholic Church, including persecuted underground believers, into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Communist Party.

Claire Keegan's faithless Christmas Carol

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That is precisely what happened. Zen, now 92 and regarded by many orthodox Catholics as a living saint, has used extraordinary language about Parolin: “He is so optimistic. That’s dangerous. I told the Pope that he [Parolin] has a poisoned mind. He is very sweet, but I have no trust in this person. He believes in diplomacy, not in our faith.’”

This thought is echoed by a Vatican source who has worked with Parolin: “He’s nice to everyone but hollow in the middle. Also, his health is bad. [Everyone in Rome mentions rumours of cancer and Parolin hasn’t denied it.] Last time I saw him he was so frail I was afraid to shake his hand.” But another source says (and this gives you a real flavour of Vatican gossip): “I wouldn’t put it past Parolin’s people to exaggerate the cancer thing, because they think the cardinals want a short pontificate.”

No one disputes that Parolin is a smart operator who specialises in making sure his fingerprints are nowhere near the scenes of various crimes. He nuances his statements on Ukraine and Israel while the Pope puts his foot in it with his improvised comments. He love-bombs potential enemies. Sensing a backlash against Francis, he is tacking Right, admitting that Tucho’s gay blessings are a nonsense.

To his critics, Parolin is the Italian Francis: empty, devious and sneeringly dismissive of the Latin Mass, an idiotic stance when you consider the surprising fact that the old liturgy is fast acquiring cult status among young Catholics. But are they overlooking one big difference? From the moment he became a cardinal, Bergoglio had his eyes set on the papacy and his gaze never wavered. Parolin, on the other hand, may recognise that he is too compromised to survive successive ballots. Perhaps his real ambition is to become a truly powerful Secretary of State under the next man.

And we really don’t have a clue who that will be. So much depends on how moderate, non-aligned cardinals vote. They are revealing nothing, especially now that the Vatican and probably diocesan curia are stuffed with hidden microphones. We can only guess what a swing voter such as Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster is thinking. Until recently he invoked the name of Pope Francis with cringe-making frequency. Now, not so much. He must be sick of the meaningless rhetoric of synodality and being pushed around by Arthur Roche. He clearly wasn’t impressed by Fiducia .

One can easily imagine mildly liberal cardinals voting for a mildly conservative candidate who can tackle the structural damage of the past 11 years. “Francis has left canon law with so many holes in it that it’s like the surface of Mars,” says a priest who has worked in the Curia. That’s infuriating for cardinals who, like Nichols, are diocesan bishops. They have to decide whether divorced-and-remarried Catholics can receive Communion, a desperately sensitive subject on which the Pope is deliberately evasive. And how do they ensure that these Fiducia blessings are “spontaneous”and “non-liturgical”? What does that even mean?

It’s a fair bet that, in their pre-conclave conversations, most cardinals will agree that the next pope must be someone capable of supervising an emergency repair job that clarifies doctrine, the scope of ecclesiastical authority and puts an end to the jihad against traditionalist Catholics, many of whom are a generation or two younger than the jargon-spouting Boomers harassing them.

Also, the cardinals know they must delve deep into the past of the leading contenders. They have no choice. The next pope will face instant, merciless scrutiny from online investigators. A 2021 article in The Tablet by church historian Alberto Melloni described an all-too-credible catastrophe : “The newly elected pope steps out. And as he smiles and humbly introduces himself to the crowds in the square, a lone social media post makes a stunning allegation.” The new pope, when a bishop, had failed to act against a priest who went on to commit further crimes. “In the square and in the press boxes, eyes drop from the balcony to their smartphones … The pope steps back inside, and resigns. The see is vacant again.”

Would Kant really support BLM?

By Kathleen Stock

The necessary scrutiny will be an awkward business, but at the very least the cardinals mustn’t repeat the mistake made by their predecessors in 2013 — that is, taking a candidate at his own estimation. The truth is that many Catholics in Argentina from across the ideological spectrum knew about Francis’s character flaws: his compulsive secrecy, score-settling, disturbing alliances and rule by fear. But no one asked them.

One might argue that none of the 120-plus eligible cardinals is quite so mean-spirited as the Holy Father. Fair enough; but there should be no question of electing anyone who imitates Francis’s modus operandi. No chameleons, in other words. No one who was orthodox under Benedict, liberal under Francis and is now slinking back to the centre.

The new pope must be a holy man who relies on lieutenants who have no dirt on him and on whom he has no dirt — and it’s a shocking fact that this would represent a departure from recent precedent. The pope must be above reproach. That is far more important than whether he’s “liberal” or “conservative”.

Traditionalists will disagree, but I don’t think it’s a bad college of cardinals. Cynics might say that’s because Francis, having made factional appointments early on, lost interest and appointed independent-minded men by accident. But let’s not neglect the role of social media: while the Praetorian Guard have been busy hiding things, countless websites have been making life difficult for the poisonous old toads who have been trying to fix conclaves for the best part of 2,000 years.

Melloni is probably right: as the new Supreme Pontiff shuffles on to the balcony there will be an unnerving moment while the faithful check their mobiles. But if the cardinals have done their job properly the applause will quickly resume. And if you listen carefully, you will hear another noise coming from every office in the Vatican: a sigh of relief that the Squid Game is finally over.

Damian Thompson is a journalist and author

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“encouraged young women to engage in  sexual threesomes  that . . . would illustrate the workings of the Holy Trinity” I’d swear that was a Ken Russell movie with Oliver Reed as the priest.

And Georgina Hale would have been one of the women.

Ah, but would you swear it on the “Holy Bible”?

There’s “God the Father” and “God the Son”, so presumably “the Holy Spirit” is female, or possibly trans.

Perhaps a member of the Catholic clergy would like to clarify; or more likely, provide the latest update from Vatican central.

The Devils?

Maybe you’re thinking of The Devils (of Loudin)?

The best kind of article: intrigue, disgust, scandal, but still some hope.

I am tired of the constant embarrassment at Vatican misteps, and even more perplexed that the many good steps towards addressing the many abuses seems to be constantly undermined. It is weirdly at a point that as long as the abuse was of adults it is somewhat acceptable. I hate it, I detest it, and it leads me often to despair which I had only just started to recover from.

It is unfortunate that still the Church suffers from secret backroom dealing, we have never seemed to be able to let in the light. I suppose such is the way with any seat of power.

I sit on the edge of my seat, waiting for what surely will soon be a new pope. But most of all I wait for the day that the stain of what the predominantly Western boomer priests/laity have done to the beauty of the Church (as that generation has done elsewhere in the wider culture of things) will be repaired.

This papacy began with promises of mercy toward the laity and strict justice and accountability for clerical abusers. It has delivered the precise opposite. Meanwhile pouring forth an ongoing flood of boomeresque NGO-level babble. “Stain” is the right word. A huge, clown-shaped stain.

My hope has long been that the Spirit will work through those cardinals chosen “from the margins” Damian refers to. They are far more likely to be led by the Spirit than our dismal American or European hippy sociologist cardinals.

Kyrie eleison.

Make the Papacy Great Again.

‘The new pope must be a holy man who relies on lieutenants who have no dirt on him and on whom he has no dirt — and it’s a shocking fact that this would represent a departure from recent precedent. The pope must be above reproach. That is far more important than whether he’s “liberal” or “conservative”.’ Good luck with that! (Cynical I know, but I do hope your faith is not misplaced, and stability and sanity will resume. If only because I never wish to see an elderly woman masterbating at the doors of the Roman pantheon ever again).

People still donate money to this cabal of nonces and abusers? It baffles me

I’ve always thought that the RC Church is no different from any other multinational; it’s all about self-preservation at any cost; but if this article is correct, it is evidently far, far worse in the church than you could imagine anywhere else.

Yes, and as Hilaire Belloc once observed, given its history of corruption occasionally illuminated by sanctity, the Catholic Church has surely been protected by the Holy Spirit from dying a thousand times.

It may be a “church”, but it isn’t Christ’s church.

Far, far worse than the Parliamentary Conservative Party or Post Office management ?

But yes – a good spring cleaning of the Church is needed.

How many of the developing world cardinals and bishops does that description apply to ?

Very few, if any.

Btw the Church is more than its hierarchy . They die, the Church continues.

Seeing as the developing world tends to be more corrupt than the developed one, I’d wager it probably applies to more of them than in richer countries as their position in poorer ones would be much more powerful and influential, with much less chance of reproach

There is direct persecution – from Islamists, corrupt politicians – in the developing world – so being a cardinal or bishop isn’t as cushy as it is in the West.

Hence the general level of sincerity, even holiness, is higher.

btw What makes you think that corruption is worse in the developing world than it is in the West ?

Here in the West, corruption is merely more discreet. The West’s public service ethos is now in ruins, alas.

Yeah, that kiss by Judas really got it off to a good start. Oh wait…

It has been a while since I last saw an article penned by Damian on his favourite topic, and now comes a TWENTY minute exposé. I ask people with more strength than me, is it worth a read or is it his usual anti-Francis rant? (Note, I am not a fan of Francis’s, but Damian’s output has become somewhat predictable)

It is most definitely worth 20 minutes of your time. It’s surprisingly optimistic about the future.

So, he is not planning is funeral just yet?

I shall try it, then.

You’ll be sorry. Damian’s usual stuff, but ever more hysterical. The Catholic Church is always interesting to we alumni, but could we please have the topic covered by a more disinterested writer? Damian should be sent off to watch some Fellini films, for historical background.

It is difficult to be disinterested about this papacy. For me, the Bishop of Trondheim, Erik Varden, is a candidate for the future. I hope he will eventually be made a cardinal: he is brilliant, a linguist, a superb writer – and amazingly enough, actively concerned with the idea of holiness.

Occurred to me on reading this article, it’s possible the College of Cardinals might look outside rather than within (though you have to go back centuries for the last instant). If that’s the case, they could well go to Trondheim. BTW, I have been following the whole Rupnik saga with disgust for the past few years. I don’t have enough evidence to convict Francis, but it is clear he is being protected by someone very senior.

Yes. Francis cannot possibily be more mean spirited than this article

It’s OK I’d give it a 68.5% star-rating, if that helps

Well at least Pope Francis has cured many Catholics of pope worship.

All this goes to prove that the church of Rome is a deeply flawed, human institution, led by the anti-Christ.

Vicar = in place of

Popular rhetorical questions: “Does a bear sh!t in the woods?” “Is water wet?” “Is the Pope an idiot?”

His predecessor did a bit of that too!

Benedict was a great scholar and theologian and while realising the limits of his office was a humble man.

Plus, Benedict didn’t want to be Pope and tried to derail his candidacy with his eulogy at JP2’s funeral. It backfired.

When he was elected, the response from all my German relatives was “Ratzinger? You must be joking?” Mind you, they are all Lutheran.

Was this even though he obtained an agreement with the Lutherans on Justification by Faith. No previous pope had done so much. His annual seminar on scripture was full of Lutheran scholars.

So this is what Christianity is all about? I am constantly amazed that apparently intelligent people support the established institutions. If you do believe in God, why not just worship in your own home and live according to your beliefs? The institutions are more awful even than elected governments.

No. Christianity is about Jesus Christ and sharing His message of peace and love. Whatever this is isn’t Christianity. The Vatican has always been a cesspool of filth and corruption, which is why Martin Luther penned his 95 theses. The only decent pope in my lifetime was John Paul II. But I think you’re right about worshipping outside of these untrustworthy institutions. Many no longer serve their original purposes, and some actively undermine societies they are meant to uphold. The Congregational Church of my childhood, with its remarkable choir and inspiring sermons delivered by brilliant ministers, now tries congregants patience with whiny harangues about climate change and social issues. Our church was so large, the average Sunday required five services. Now, even on Easter, the meeting house isn’t full for one. It seems the Southern Baptists are going strong, though. I think that’s because they never lost sight of what their job was and continues to be: reaching out and bringing others to the beauty and love of Christ.

The church of Rome is nothing to do with Christianity.

As with other comments below the votes surpise me…are there really loads of left footers reading Unherd? I’d always assumed if there were a sectarian bias its more Billy than Tim? Maybe its because the article is about papism?

The early gnostic Christians tried this, they died out. It turns out that a worshipping community is better suited to survival than a lone worshipper.

And that is it in a nutshell.

There’s far more to Christianity than the RC church, or the bishop of Rome, thank the Lord.

There’s far more to Christianity than the chaos, incoherence and scandalous divisions of Protestantism, thank the Lord.

Because if you’re a Christian, you believe that Christ founded a Church against which the gates of hell will not prevail, that He gave specific commissions to the apostles and their successors, and Peter chief among these. That He instituted Sacraments including the Eucharist, for which you have to be in a specific place. Fundamental to Christianity is that it is an incarnate faith, which means customs, times, and yes, places and institutions matter. Unfortunately that means we have to put up with quite a lot, but such is life, and such is human nature – if anything it helps us to understand the doctrine of original sin.

Hillaire Belloc famously wrote: “ The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.”

And yet they still pretend that these Popes are infallible ! Yes, someone will pop up and say “that’s only about doctrine”. But if someone’s judgement and conduct are so awful in general, why would they be any better for some doctrinal subset ? The author is surely wrong to suggest that simply picking a better candidate would eliminate the problems. Something about the structure and secrecy of the organisation means that these sort of experiences are not unusual and will recur. “Ecrasez l’infame” as Voltaire wrote.

Voltaire is dead and the Catholic Church remains alive. An interesting conundrum.

Popes are only considered infallible in a very narrow sense. You misunderstand how this term is applied.

It’s just a complete nonsense. However it’s applied. Humans are fallible.

Not when inspired by God.

Your misunderstanding is far greater. You’re being scammed, in the full glare of all.

We’re not being scammed, since we believe in the Catholic Faith – and in the Catholic Church as an ideal, not merely an institution.

You don’t understand faith, and you don’t know what your talking about. Bland boomer conspiracist secular atheist piffle

Ya know, there is a reason why the Book of Acts quotes Peter as saying on Pentecost “We can’t be drunk because it’s only nine o’clock in the morning!”

No “santo subito” I think?

They do say that if you like sausages you shouldn’t watch them being made. Perhaps that applies to Popes too?

Good article. Two things about Francis: 1. He’s obviously touched by Peronismo.This is an Argentinian disease which makes strait thinking impossible. 2. The Papacy is flawed; the Protestants were right. A hyper-centralised system like that lends itself to intrigue and abuse.

And a decentralised system like Protestantism leads to chaos, anarchy and incoherence.

Another refreshing round-up of the consequential situation in Rome. The Vatican is under-covered elsewhere by critical thinkers.

If 10% of the allegations in this article are true, it is shocking. For decades/ centuries the corruption in the Curia has been known, but no-one ends it. Now we have been drawn into the ‘Gay rights’ arguments: knowing the grief it causes the Anglican Church, and for no conceivable advantage. It is proof of God’s benevolence that so many Christians remain in the Church despite its failings. The next Pope must bring change. Jesus took on the Sanhedrin, and we need similar clarity of purpose. A clear statement that everyone found guilty of sexual abuse or fraud will automatically be removed from office back to the laity would be a good start. Cardinals and Bishops who dare to speak out the tenets of scripture and tradition would be wonderful. For years I have read the daily Bible commentaries by Cardinal William Goh of Singapore. He is orthodox but kind in his application.

As a female Anglican priest I venture to suggest thar the Catholic church might be less corrupt and secret at the Centre if you ordained women. Might not work, power seems to corrupt most of us.. Following our Lord faithfully might also be a help, for all of us, we all despair of our hierarchies, the local and the lowly are the best companions on the journey.

How would ordaining women render the Catholic church “less corrupt and sec ret at the Centre”? I am intrigued …

Thanks, Alison. I am neutral on women priests I.e. I do not know. I believe it has led to splits in the worldwide Anglican communion, not that this means it is wrong. I hope more women in the RC will take positions of influence. However, women priests do not (at least directly) address the far more important issues: sex crimes and the failure to implement the main issue – to explain Christianity and ‘preach Christ crucified’. Whatever you may think of him, Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI was a remarkable theologian who did this: his writings are remarkably clear and reasoned.

Please expand on your intriguing proposal. Would married clergy also be a step in right direction?

The Vatican. Makes the Mafia look like a law-abiding community group.

I’m sure if God were alive now, He’d be an atheist.

A logically incoherent sentence that consequently means nothing, but who cares about that when you’ve got cheap rhetoric

On a slightly more serious note, I have always though that if Jesus came back to Earth now, and looked at the Church created in his name, he’d say “You idiots, you misunderstood everything I said”.

Didn’t Peter say… “Upon this rock I shall build my church”? Or something like that. I was raised Catholic and always wondered why the priests, Bishops and Cardinals – weren’t like Jesus – poor, holy, loving, nurturing and good. Didn’t read anything about Jesus having a precious stone ring and making people kiss it. My priests always took the little boys on vacation (at the time I didn’t understand) and the nuns were basically unhappy. My parish priests retired to play golf and live a nice life, while the nuns had to work until they died. My mother tried to get me into a nunnery and I ran away. Although this article is shocking, discouraging and unbelievable, I am not surprised. Amen

Never kissed a bishop’s ring.

“The Church” is more than the hierarchy – it’s mainly the laity, in fact.

It’s also an ideal – a Divine Mystery.

No, no it’s never been about the Laity. ALL meaningful power has always been with the Clergy from day one starting with Peter.

Well, you could say the same about Judaism, since Simon Peter is the Moses of the New Covenant.

But as Christianity (unlike Judaism and Islam) isn’t a political religion, there is no Power in Christianity – only Authority.

And that Authority isn’t Simon Peter’s or that of the Catholic hierarchy past or present – it is solely that of God and the message “He”* has revealed through the New Testament and its interpretation by Catholic doctrine.

You can accept that Authority or reject it. You’re entirely free – not even slightly oppressed – in the matter.

What you can’t do, is what Feminists like you desperately want to do: which is redefine Christianity in a feminist and liberal direction.

Complete with OK’s for abortion, contraception, divorce, fornication etc.

Truth is, as a modern liberal and feminist, you’re vastly over-optimistic about human nature, politics and society. The next few years are likely to cure you of that.

* “He” because God is neither male or female. Though at a symbolic level, it is right for us to refer to God as masculine.

Where do you come to the conclusion that she is a “feminists… desperately wanting to” “: which is redefine Christianity in a feminist and liberal direction.

Complete with OK’s for abortion, contraception, divorce, fornication etc.” ?

I just read criticism on some percieved difference in the RC church between a golfing retired (ie. male) priest and never retiring (ie. female) nuns. And that as a personal choice she preferred to run away from home than to become a nun according to the wishes of her mother.

Quite a big leap in perception….

If it’s the insinuation she made about the priests and young boys, that triggers your response, I sooner expect that to be a stark comment against a specific form of “fornication” than an approval of it.

How many UnHerd Readers are there ?

Peter didn’t say that, Jesus did.

Bad as he may be, Francis doesn’t come close to cracking the top ten of the worst popes. Number One has to go to Benedict IX (1012-1056), described as a demon from hell. He was said to have murdered, raped, and sodomized victims wherever he went. He was accused of bestiality and of hosting orgies. Due to this, um, lifestyle, he was forced out and a new pope elected. But Benedict lived for two comebacks before he was done. Stephen VI (d. 897) is best known for putting his dead predecessor on trial. This was not a symbolic trial; the body was dug up and brought before the court. The deceased Pope Formosus, unable to speak for himself, was represented by a deacon and found guilty of accepting the papacy while also holding the office of bishop. The corpse was stripped of its vestments, dressed as a pauper, and thrown into a shallow grave, but not before three of his fingers were cut off. This did not seem enough of a punishment upon reflection, so the corpse was dug up again and thrown into the Tiber. The so-called  Cadaver Synod of 897  led directly to the demise of Stephen VI. He was stripped of his title and strangled to death a year later. If Francis is to gain notoriety equal to his Dark Age predecessors, he is must shake a leg.  

I know, the history of the papacy is as interesting as it is colorful. You just couldn’t make some of the stories up.

I’m not so sure. I venture to say that on Judgment Day a pope’s personal sins, as egregious as they might be, will be dismissed as peccadilloes against his doctrinal error and equivocation and the scandal caused thereby across Christendom.

I don’t get this article: Agony Aunt column?; Daily Mail gossip-style article? (DM, by the way, communicates the message in far fewer words); the real-politik of the Catholic church? It certainly affirms my stance that there is no need for a priest/church to stand between me and God. So the Catholic church is an international Corporation -and embodies all the sins and travails of such entities. Does this matter for those who have faith? 

What was that book? The Bad Popes, I believe? By Chamberlin – back in the seventies. Maybe he was inspired reading that.

Excellent book!

This is the second time I have come across ‘strait thinking’ in the comments of unherd. Is this an aberration or is ‘straight thinking’ non-grata these days.

My previous comment has been pulled? WTF UnHerd, I just made a comment about Thomson’s fixation on Francis. [Edit: it has now reappeared] Anyway, I have now read the article, but I had to skip a few passages as the vitriol coming out of screen was about to hit me in the face. Anyway, for Vatican commentary I would recommend readers to peruse the Pillar, at least it is less… vitriolic.

It might be better for your case if you pointed out what inaccuracies you’ve detected in the article.

It is not the inaccuracies, but the vitriolic style which I find grating. He pretty much churns out always the same article. As I said, I recommend The Pillar.

It is not so much the inaccuracies, but the sheer vitriol that exudes. That is why I prefer the pillar. Let’s face it, his output has become quite predictable. UnHerd should ask someone with a different opinion to write a piece.

The current pope’s actions and beliefs deserve the vitriol..

“ As a result, even devout Catholics don’t know that the first Jesuit pope has tried to shield several repulsive sex abusers from justice, for reasons never satisfactorily explained “. The Catholic Church has spent huge amounts of time and energy for (at the very least) hundreds of years shielding repulsive sex abusers from justice. Why would anyone think they would stop now?

Decades, yes. Centuries,. no.

As for justice, in the UK, paedophilia was legal until about 1880.

There were many child prostitutes in Britain until then.

So why single out the Catholic Church for criticism ?

Answer: because you hate Catholic Christianity.

Pedophilia may have not been illegal then, but it certainly wasn’t morally proper or ethical. I would think you would expect a little more from your priests.

We do – and in 99% of cases, we receive it.

Why single out the Catholic Church? Because not only are large numbers of their clergy rampant sex abusers (which would be bad enough), but they are smug hypocrites as well, preaching a moral code that their clergy wilfully and wantonly ignore.

You should take a quick peek into the American public school system. Around 350 educators were arrested and charged with sex crimes in 2022. The district we fled had 7 such instances in the past 8 years.

Did the senior administrators in that District try to cover up those crimes like the Catholic Church does?

They sure do; it’s a feature.

They are only hypocrites if they are complicit in that sex abuse (eg by covering it up).

The vast majority of priests are innocent both of sexual abuse and complicity in it.

But the media ignore that !

In any case, your comment is irrelevant – the job of the clergy is to preach (among other things) the moral code they believe God has entrusted to the Church.

If people don’t obey that code, the worse for them – not for the moral code.

And that moral code is as strait-laced about money and power as it is about sex.

I would say that for every priest that has committed sexual abuse, there are three that have assisted in covering it up, and six who have turned a blind eye to it.

A superbly thorough, wide-ranging yet depressing essay. This pontificate will go down as one of the worst since the 10th century nadir of the church. Even Borgia was less destructive than this petty, arrogant nonce-defending pope.

It would help if the senior cleracy of both Catholic and Anglican Churches were actually Christian. It is plain that neither the Pope or the current Archbishop believe a word.

It is difficult to believe all that “Son of God, died on the Cross and Rose from the Dead” stuff nowadays.

It was just as difficult to believe in Rising from the dead, two thousand years ago.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

If you trust in Jesus the Christ, you trust that He is God as well as human – and therefore did Rise from the dead.

Yeah, I get it. I just don’t trust in Jesus the Christ. I’m not saying he was a bad bloke, mind you. I just can’t do all that “Christian” stuff.

Based on all the information here, I hope the new Pope will be You

We should pray for all those who write about church politics.

Look on the bright side: they make the British Government look acceptable.

Sounds ghastly

The St Galen Mafia wanted someone corruptible , and who would carry out their agenda, then Latin America was the place to go, not a region noted for honesty amongst its leading lights!!. ( I say this having worked in Latin America for 12 years ). One point from an excellent synopsis , which Damian omitted – ” Why is it that Bergolio has never returned to Argentina during his papacy??” This in itself when contrasted with JP II’s rapturous return to Poland in particular, is strange to say the least??

Looks that not much has improved since Rousseau wrote his Confessions

Great article, really interesting to get that insider overview, brilliant!

“His [Francis’s] number one priority, overriding everything else, is that he should be inscrutable.” He’s not the Antichrist, he’s the Antiyoda!

Watch the film “Pope Francis a Man of his Word” directed by Wim Wenders (on Youtube). It tells more about Pope Francis.

Thank you for that. ‘The Two Popes’ is also a good account on film of the contrasts between the two men, Francis and Benedict. Humane rather than journalistic.

So Father Ted was really a documentary …