Pope Francis

Pope Francis of Argentina is the current pope, elected by the cardinals on March 13, 2013. He inherited a Catholic church that is out of control in many ways, and to solve those problems, he'll have to work miracles. Only time will tell if this one is a miracle worker. Francis is a Jesuit which may be good or bad.



Good and bad
Francis rose through the ranks of the Roman Catholic Church to become Cardinal and later Pope. He's certainly a social conservative, but he's not completely crazy as he is a liberal  on economic  issues, like poverty. Did you expect anything better from any new Pope?

Poverty

 * 1) Less than 6 months into the new papacy Francis spoke many times exhorting sympathy for the poor and those who are suffering.
 * 2) Pope Francis criticised unbridled capitalism and claimed excessive respect for money has become Idolatry. Francis claims the economic crisis happened because we accept that money rules us, ethics are too frequently treated as inconvenient and disregarded.

Poverty and contraception
Francis opposes contraception, his opposition and Roman Catholic opposition generally to Contraception reduces the value of any help RC's give the poor. Among practising Catholic there are poor people with large families who can't easily afford to give all their children a good standard of living or educate all their children properly. Fortunately in Developed countries most Roman Catholics disregard Church teaching on contraception but in the Third World where poverty is most extreme opposition to contraception from Roman Catholics and others does a great deal of harm.

"'Pope Francis [met] with the ex-Pope, but not with President Obama who [skipped] the papal installation. (...) Is Francis planning to continue the ex-Pope’s anti-contraception insurance crusade to undercut President Obama’s health insurance plan that mainly helps the poor?"

Those who knew Francis in Argentina insist his concern for poor people is sincere but it's unclear if he actually will help poor people. The risk is that in the Third World large numbers of uneducated and partially educated poor people will support Francis and the Roman Catholic Church because they appear to be on the side of the poor.
 * 1) At first some poor people will do better with Roman Catholic help and the Church will look for good publicity over this.
 * 2) Later when the effect of Roman Catholic teaching on contraception works through the system there will be very many large Roman Catholic families in the Third World. Many of these families will be desperately poor and desperately miserable.

In Argentina the present government officially provides free contraception for all citizens and this benefits primarily poor people since better off people can afford contraception. Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis opposed this free contraception, the law is regularly disregarded and broken at least partly due to Roman Catholic opposition.
 * 1) What did Francis offer poor Argentinians where yet more children will plunge them even deeper into poverty?
 * 2) The best he and fellow Roman Catholics offered was exhortations to abstinence. Really? If exhortations to abstinence worked we wouldn't see one sex scandal after another involving supposedly celibate Roman Catholic priests.

Present and future
 * 1) Well discouraging contraception adds to Overpopulation and poverty. If Francis really cares about poor people his opposition to contraception is seriously misguided. See also Francis and poverty.
 * 2) In autumn 2013 Francis had been telling others in the Roman Catholic Church to stop obsessing over a few sins (including contraception) and to attend to a greater range of sins. Where this will lead is currently unclear but there could be less pressure on poor people in the Third World and in developed countries to have so many children they remain trapped in poverty. Let's hope things improve for poor people.

Francis and capitalism
Selfish capitalists will most likely respond to pious condemnation from the pope with 'Business as usual'.

Women
Francis may give women a more influential role within the church but will keep women subordinate to men. Francis cracked down on the LCWR who represent over 80% of Nuns in the USA. The LCWR are more liberal than the Vatican about issues like, Abortion, Birth control, homosexuality, women's ordination, so what should we expect? Well under Benedict XVI male supervisors were appointed but the women would not let the men pressure them to change their position. Pope Francis has also turned against the Liberal women and some Americans Feminists are turning against Pope Francis.

Women's choice
Francis is Pro-life and believes women should be forced to carry babies they don't want. Since Francis opposes Contraception many Roman Catholic women risk finding themselves pregnant when they don't want this. Joe Biden and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi both are Pro-choice and have problems with the new pope over his pro-life position.

Sexual sin and other sin
Francis believes Homosexuality is a sin, he accepts Civil unions but not Gay marriage or gay adoption. Francis sees gay marriage as the work of the devil. Many Christians prefer civil unions to full marriage. Francis accepts gays as priests because he says being tempted isn't sinful. Francis wants gays to be welcomed in Roman Catholic churches because he sees sinners as lost sheep to be saved, similarly Francis wants to encourage many who disagree with Roman Catholic doctrines accepted in the Church because he believes in hating the sin and loving the sinner. Basically Francis encourages many to rejoin the Church who were pressured to leave the Church under Benedict XVI. Still he sees them as sinful but believes other sins matter at least as much.

Media
Francis "urged the media to get to know the Church with its 'virtues and sins'" Does Francis really want people to know about how Pope Pius XII failed to take a stand against mass murder in Croatia during World War II although he knew many Roman Catholic clergy and laity were involved in those murders. This was one of many failures to act or take a stand against Genocide. That's just one load of sins by the Roman Catholic Church that aren't widely known, the Magdalene laundry scandal in Ireland is another.

What Francis seems to mean is, 'get to know the Church with its virtues and those sins that we can't prevent you knowing, overlook the ugliness and share what we claim is the Church's "focus on 'truth, goodness and beauty'."

Friends with dictators
There are accusations that Bergoglio was involved in the kidnapping and torture of two priests during the Dictatorship by the Argentinian Junta in the 1980's. There are further accusations that he was aware of the kidnapping of pregnant women whose children were later separated from their birth families and adopted by supporters of the Junta. These rumours have never been proved but don't go away. As of April 2013 the Roman Catholic church hasn't published Church archives that could show what really happened. Church archives could reveal more than the kidnappings described above. The grandmothers of missing children want to know what happened and one grandmother says the pope told her: "You can count on me. You can count on us." Well can the grandmothers count on the pope to open Vatican archives and help them find their grandchildren? Now that depends on what's in those archives and how embarrassing that could be for the Roman Catholic Church. Only Vatican insiders know the answer.

Child sex abuse
The Washington Post suggests Francis is tainted by the Priest Child Molestation Scandal but claims he mended his ways at least partly.

But during most of the 14 years that Bergoglio served as archbishop of Buenos Aires, rights advocates say, he did not take decisive action to protect children or act swiftly when molestation charges surfaced; nor did he extend apologies to the victims of abusive priests after their misconduct came to light.

Another source says something similar.

"It does not appear, however, that Pope Francis had earlier distinguished himself either as a senior Latin American bishop by condemning Fr. Maciel’s blatant abuses over many years, nor as a Jesuit has he seemingly to date clearly spoken out on the well reported extensive abuse of Native American children by some Jesuits."

Most/all clergy high up in the Roman Catholic hierarchy have done stuff they shouldn't in a big way so they couldn't easily find anyone better than Francis to become pope.

The Church tries to paint its popes whiter than white, we need to check carefully and research what they're really like.

Francis promised to see that perpetrators of child sex abuse are punished but at least one abuse survivors' group is unconvinced much will be done. Liberapedia advises readers to check how far words lead to action. A year from now we will know a great deal more. Will the pope punish himself for failing to take decisive action over child abuse during the early time that he was a senior Latin American bishop? If he doesn't that will be Hypocrisy and hypocrisy undermines the church.

Speculation
''As of 2013 we speculate and later we'll know how far speculation was accurate. ''

Just before the papal election at least one Roman Catholic source feared Cardinal Bergoglio as he then was might be too old to sort out Corruption in the Vatican, at 76 Francis is past the typical retiring age. Is that what corrupt cardinals want who elected him pope? About a month after the start of the papacy Francis formed and advisory panel to help sort out problems with the Vatican bureaucracy. The first formal meeting was in October 2013. We can assume the resolve of Francis was still firm when he founded the panel. Will the resolve of Francis remain firm over the months and years that Vatican bureaucrats can get to the elderly gentleman? Since Francis is living outside the traditional papal apartments his minders can't control who gets an audience with the pope and who gets to influence him the way they usually do with popes. In the guest rooms where Francis lives and eats many people can get to him and tell him what they feel he should know. Time will tell how far Vatican bureaucrats can still get to him.

Financial wrongdoing is something Francis specially hates and during summer 2013 Francis showed quite some resolve in trying to sort out the Vatican Bank where there is one scandal after another. He continued to give sorting out corruption high priority in the autumn of 2013. We wait to see how far Francis will succeed and what will happen over other problems with the Vatican bureaucracy.


 * 1) His purported links to a supposed anti-Marxist group may make him unpopular with the radical left.
 * 2) They say he criticises capitalism and the free market too which could make him unpopular with the Right as well.

Liberapedia doesn't know how far Roman Catholic concern over poverty is sincere or how far that is a cynical plan to get converts from the Third World and from poorer sections of the Developed world. After all more educated people in industrialised nations are turning against religion and Roman Catholicism. Most likely some in the Roman Catholic hierarchy are sincere but others are cynical.