He’s trying to stave off a schism or a disastrous collapse of the Catholic Church. Is he good? I think he’s much better than predecessors. But it’s important to keep some things in mind. He ascended after Benedict abdicated as what is generally regarded as a bad pope. Benedict was the far right pope that some Catholics had wanted after Vatican II liberalized the church. Under his papacy the pedo problem blew up, and attendance plummeted. There were serious questions of how long the Catholic Church would remain relevant. Not only that, but that’s the environment that the Vatican ecumenical counsels had sought to resolve (and they seriously did help)

In comes Pope Francis I. After the Vatican II eras of John, Paul, and both John Pauls had been effective and Benedict hadn’t been Francis was seen as a further reformer. Not only was he a liberal bishop, but he was also the first non European pope, an acknowledgement of the fact that the Catholic Church’s real base of power had become Latin America. From the start of his papacy rather than decrying sins of lust, he was decrying sins of greed. He was speaking on topics like global warming and wealth gaps and basically acknowledging that Jesus talked a bell of a lot more about caring for the vulnerable than about gay marriage and abortion.

That said not all was great from the start. Francis decried Ireland legalizing gay marriage and abortion and he compared trans people to nuclear weapons about a decade ago. But he’s clearly trying to adapt to the times. The Catholic Church can’t about face on a lot of this (though trans people I actually think they absolutely can theologically justify trans inclusion). But he can justify increasing lay involvement and increasing the power of women in the church. And it’s clearly necessary to do this. Including lgbt people is needed as well in order to protect the church from schism.

Now for the schism bit. The right wing American Catholic Church has a large movement of what can be considered heretics. Rejection of an ecumenical council is far and away more heretical than rejection of a papal decree. Papal infallibility only applies to interpretation of tradition and scripture. Ecumenical councils can override it. Things they’ve done include deciding what all is contained in the Bible, deciding the basic statements of what Christians believe, and other big deal things. It’s a whole ass ordeal. Shedding Latin mass for local language, increasing lay involvement, having the priest face the congregation, and all the other Vatican II changes weren’t made lightly. If Vatican II decided that the letters from Paul weren’t actually divinely inspired every Catholic would need a new Bible. American Catholic conservatives have been spitting in the face of Vatican II for about a generation and they’ve been increasingly challenging papal authority. Francis has to stop them because if he doesn’t they will eventually schism.

This pope is less awful than your average cardinal… the catholic church is so fucking conservative that the pope is still extremely conservative when measured against normal people.

I am a Gen-Xer who was raised Catholic in America. The old-school church values of my childhood in the 1970s were mostly liberal democratic, promoting humility, circumspection, and Golden Rule, love-thy-neighbor attitudes. (Setting aside the entire organization’s liability for the systematic raping of children, that is, which is a lot to ask.)

But with the more extreme politics of groups like Opus Dei, the modern Catholic Church in America, by contrast, has become a right-wing propaganda machine. It promotes a noxious brand of pseudo-religious pomposity and holier-than-thou windbaggery, practiced by preening, empty-headed bigots and jackasses who couldn’t find real spirituality if it bit them in the ass.*

*Just my opinion, but I’m fucking right.

They seem to flip between hard liners and reformers. Francis is from South America where the church is more Christian, for lack of a better word, more concerned with lifting up the poor and nonviolence. They are just an awfully big ship to turn and never going to align with a truly progressive movement. But yes I think both John Paul II and Francis could be considered forces for good working within the system.

I knew they were vampires!

Living in any era, to some extent, comes with a handful of pressures to uphold ideals considered becoming of that era. For better or worse, that includes spiritual leaders from thousands of years ago who lived in what they considered more fertile norms.

During the early Roman empire, the pope and infamously even Jesus had to watch his step with the officers. Today the EU exists where Rome once stood (if we’re not arguing the EU is in fact Rome’s new manifestation) and the pope again must bend or be broken.