The shepherd of tradition turned away from the sacred archive. Latin masses were restricted. The baroque shadows of incense and guilt dispersed. In their place fluttered rainbow flags in St. Peter’s Square. He made speeches about “inclusion,” preached “tolerance,” insisted the Church “welcome” those who would unmake her. His words on climate resembled those of bureaucrats from Brussels. His views on capitalism echoed union leaders in Buenos Aires. On borders, he spoke as if locks and thresholds had never existed. His encyclicals mirrored UN white papers. In his encyclical Fratelli Tutti (“All Brothers”), every brother was rendered the same, every soul squeezed into sameness. The divine became equity. The Body of Christ was dissected into NGOs and migrant quotas.
Fratelli Tutti was his love letter to the world, not the bruised world of saints and martyrs but the borderless blur of smirking and corrupt bureaucrats. No blood, only brotherhood as envisioned by the French Revolution. The text bled empathy, disarmed every defense, baptized the stranger in syrup and theory. There were no nations anymore, just “neighbors” stretched across deserts and oceans like a prayer gone feral. Sovereignty? A heresy. Identity? An inconvenience. War was sin, hierarchy was sin, capitalism was sin — but the dilution of the sacred? That was mercy. Pope Francis mumbled unity and erased the name of every people who had once knelt before crosses carved by their ancestors. He called it fraternity but it smelled like surrender.
Illegal immigration became his crusade. He described walls as un-Christian. Yet the Vatican is encircled by them. The gates of Heaven remain shut to the impure. Were those teachings meant to be metaphors now? Were boundaries no longer sacred? He washed the feet of migrants, yet never of the forgotten faithful. His chastisements fell on Western nations — those who built the cathedrals he inherited. He aligned with the forces unraveling Europe. Where others saw invasion, he imagined pilgrimage. Where others warned of lawlessness, he praised yearning. This was the creed of universalism, stripped of judgment. Discernment abandoned, chaos embraced.
He smiled at the men who wore lipstick and lace, welcomed them not as sinners seeking redemption but as misunderstood prophets of a new “inclusivity.” Pope Francis — who once asked, “Who am I to judge?” — became the confessor of the degenerate modern world — instead of hearing sins, deleting them. Under his reign, civil unions of same-sex couples were praised, not just tolerated, and the sacred institution of marriage blurred into bureaucratic recognition of emotional convenience. He met with transgender activists, blessed their journeys, and with each gesture, chipped away at the old stone altar. The catechism still spoke of disorder, yet his tone drowned it out, soft and merciful, the tone of a shepherd who led his sheep straight into the fog of decadence and decline.
Online, his defenders multiplied like mold in a cathedral crypt. Memes hailed papal kindness, papal humility, papal tweets. He became a brand, a “progressive” pontiff fluent in slogans. He honored Greta Thunberg like a saint. Mystery gave way to spectacle. The digital liturgy replaced the ancient one. Hashtags drifted where incense once rose. He trended for bending the creed. The algorithm sanctified him. Cameras loved him. Atheists received his interviews with delight. He questioned dogma and never ideology. When he spoke of the Devil, he named racism, sexism, capitalism — never the rot that crept under the robes of the Church.
When a pope embraces the world, the Church becomes its puppet. This was his legacy. He proclaimed inclusion while discarding the gospel. His papacy unfolded as surrender. Armor gone. Sword rusted. Fire extinguished. He offered apologies and compromises. While he wept for the wind, the cathedral crumbled. Now that he is gone, smoke rises still — uncertain, heavy. The throne remains occupied yet desecrated. The Church must awaken from delirium. She must recall that love detached from truth is betrayal. And those who still believe must lift the standard again — facing the world not as it demands to be seen but as it hungers to be saved.
