Francis, who died Monday morning at age 88, was certainly a reformer pope when contrasted with his successor, Benedict XVI. But, how much? Per the Associated Press's obituary, he really wasn't much of a reformer on the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal. He had a mix of defiance and diffidence for at least the first five years of his pontificate, and I'm not sure he ever really "got it."
On the broader picture, the way he distanced himself from liberation theology in his pre-bishopric days as Argentinian leader of the Jesuits, long before coming a cardinal, also means that "reformer" should be placed in context.
He was a critic of capitalism, yes. But, so too was not only Benedict but John Paul II; Benedict may not have been that vocal, but JPII was at times. Conservative Protestant fundagelicals in the US don't get how much this issue is woven into Catholic teaching. (For that matter, neither do conservative Catholic laity, or maybe the truth is more that they refuse to accept it rather than that they don't get it.)
As for his legacy? I don't think he really stanched the decline in attendance in Catholicism in the western world, either among more liberal or more conservative attendees. As for the ethical legacy? The sexual abuse scandal still has a degree of haze over the church. Women priests and abortion, though they will be no-go lines for any pope, are alienation for some of the laity.
And, while serving longer than Benedict, it's still an issue how much he reformed the curia and the College of Cardinals. His successor will be no more reforming than him even outside the bright lines on the priesthood and abortion. Don't forget that evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, who called god "the great abortionist," identifies as Catholic.
The real issue isn't Benedict.
There are two others.
One, per "Saint Acutis," whose canonization Francis now will not see, is that Francis doubled down on John Paul II's acceleration of the sainthood process, and, with people like Acutis — and Antoni Gaudi, who is in the pipeline, tried to modernize the church by looking for "saints of the gaps." Unless a future pope canonizes Francisco Ayala (joking), or more seriously, someone like the Belgian astrophysicist and diocesan priest Georges Lemaitre, the attempts of the church to straddle two stools on scientific issues will probably see those stools widening ever further.
The other is that, despite John XXIII's pronouncements absolving "the Jews" for the death of Jesus, the whiff of past papal antisemitism stands unaddressed.
"Cultural Catholicist" Tim O'Neill, who identifies as an atheist, but acts as a papal apologist on issues like this, refuses to read the likes of David Kertzer.
The reality is that Pius XI served 17 years, from 1922-39, and cozied up to Mussolini then Hitler. Pius XII served even longer, 1939-58, continued to cozy up to fascists, did minimal work in trying to save Jews, and helped with the "rat line" to let Nazis escape to Latin America after WWII.
Kerzer has written full books not only about Pius XI and Pius XII, but about papal antisemitism. Per the first, Pius XI looked ready to backtrack at least a bit, near his deathbed, but the future Pius XII, as his Vatican Secretary of State, destroyed that statement. In the second book, Kertzer actually calls Pius XII a fascist. In the third, from 1800 through at least 1945, Kertzer notes that Catholic antisemitism emanated, in many cases, from the Vatican itself.
Will a future pope fully and honestly address this? John XXIII's absolution for "good Friday" didn't go beyond that in specific. So, I doubt it.
On Francis? Many Zionists claim that he's led the Vatican backward from predecessor popes. Other Catholics, and the likes of Mondoweiss, say rather that it's overdue outreach to the Palestinian world. (Don't forget that Palestine still has Christians — even while taking note of Paula Fredriksen's warped take on why the Christian-Muslim ratio has declined, and that Palestinian Christianity is a mishmash of Catholicism, Lutheranism, Eastern Rite Catholic and Orthodox.)
As for jokes making the rounds of Shitter Monday that Bagger Vance was the antichrist for killing Francis?
That said, the conservative Lutheranism of my childhood — which still refuses to address the antisemitism of founder Martin Luther — thinks the office of the papacy, beyond any individual pope, is the biblical antichrist. John Calvin proclaimed the same.
Actually, it wasn't just Luther and Calvin and it didn't start there. Arnulf of Reims first made this claim in in the late 900s CE.
So, with Francis' death, per acclamations of new medieval kings? "Antichrist is dead; long live antichrist!"
Jokes aside, in reality, this is incorrect. I wrote in depth, long ago, about how "antichrist" is NOT "the beast" of the mark of such and number 666 in Revelation, and now also, neither of these is "the man of lawlessness" in 2 Thessalonians.
That said, if used generically, and really meaning "the man of lawlessness"? Luther and Calvin weren't all wet. More correct yet since another Pius, Pius X, proclaimed papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council. And, Pius IX was pontiff at the time of the Edgardo Mortara kidnapping. What is it with these Piuses?
As a secularist, it’s of one sense no mind to me if the pontiff still is the man of lawlessness in some way, shape or form. But, since the Christian Right tries to keep control of the United States, and since there are conservative Catholics nuttier than Opus Dei — Catholic versions of dominionists like Ted Cruz’s dad — it’s a political concern. A weird part of this is the fascination many Protestants in the U.S. have with the papacy, almost as weird as the fascination many Americans have with the British monarch.
That said, there’s little new on that. When St. Ronald of Reagan officially established diplomatic relations with Vatican City, he faced little pushback from fundagelical Protestants on either theological or First Amendment grounds. I was still religiously Lutheran then; I didn’t totally like it on the first basis. Today? I find it abhorrent on First Amendment grounds.
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Update, May 8: From my main blog, here's my take on the new pope.
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