On the Passing of Pope Francis

It is fitting that, following Easter Sunday, the Catholic Church has a chance for renewal: as young men return to worship, and Francis' Marxist progressivism grows more unpopular among the pews.

Pope Francis, the 266th to occupy the seat of St Peter as Bishop of Rome, passed away today, the 21st of April, 2025.

The Church has entered sede vacante — where the seat of the Bishop of Rome is vacant — and after a period of mourning (between fifteen and twenty days), the College of Cardinals will convene for a conclave to elect a new Pope. Of the 252 current cardinals, only 138 are eligible to participate in the vote, being younger than 80-years-old. Plumes of black smoke will probably appear from the Vatican — prompting David Lammy to probably tweet again that it is a “silly innuendo about the race of the next Pope” — before the white smoke appears and our next Pope is announced.

It is fitting that the Church is presented with a chance for rebirth after Easter Sunday, given, as I wrote for Courage Media, young men comprise a majority share of converts who joined the Church this last weekend in Britain and France:

It will come as a surprise to many that, this Easter, young men made up the majority of Britain’s catechumens: those receiving the sacrament of baptism and joining the Catholic Church. In France, 10,384 adult catechumens were baptized: the largest cohort since records began. This 45% annual rise is driven predominantly (42%) by 18-25-year-olds. New polling by YouGov and the Bible Society found church attendance was up from 4% in 2018 to 21% in 2024 among young men, compared to 3% to 12% for young women. Pessimists have suggested that this is solely attributable to large volumes of African migration into Europe over the last five years, but 18% of white Britons aged 18-34 are now attending church monthly, up from 3% in 2018. Anecdotally, this is the case: most of the young men I know in politics are turning to full-fat Christian denominations, like Catholicism or Orthodoxy. Catholics outnumber Anglicans among Zoomers 2-to-1; a disparity which will only grow, in accordance with birth-rate trends.

Source: the Bible Society (2025)

A continuity candidate could be elected, such as Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, nicknamed “the Asian Francis” for his progressive liberal leaning; or Cardinal Cardinal Peter Turkson, from Ghana, who contributed to many of Francis’ views on social justice and climate change. This would be unwelcome, since the primary drive for young men to return to the pews is what I call “an inverse Pascal’s Wager”:

I contend that the reason young men are returning to Orthodoxy and Catholicism rather than Anglicanism, or other denominations which have liberalized under the auspices of “modernizing”, is because they don’t want the same lessons in tolerance and equality that they already receive from ideologically captured secular institutions. Men want to be called to responsibility; to find their place in a natural hierarchy; to fulfill duties to their family; to find a woman to marry who is unsullied by the temptations of our libertine world — or, at least, seeking repentance and redemption for misspent youth. They want to be given purpose as men, not denigrated as avatars of patriarchal oppression, and told to “do the work” to cleanse themselves of racial original sin. They want discipline, and to ready themselves as if for an unknown hour of judgement (Matthew 24:36-39; Mark 13:32-33; Luke 17:26-30).

All of the manifest evils in the world today, brought about by Marxism and its Woke stepchildren, has created an inverse Pascal’s Wager: presenting Christianity as the only and forgotten bulwark against the excesses of modernity, and bringing them back to the pews. The promise to vanquish these evils in “the fiery lake of burning sulfur” (Revelation 21:7-8) appeals to them.

You can read this essay on Courage Media.

When young men are returning to Church as the last outpost of the traditions and moral substrate which built their formerly-flourishing civilisations, to push on with the poisoning of the source with contemporary progressivism would be to estrange all those new and eager converts.

I discussed Pope Francis’ legacy on Talk today with Peter Cardwell.

Francis himself made many mistakes: allowing the progressive spirit of the age to divorce him from conventional Catholic social teaching.

This should not surprise us, since Pope Francis was a devotee of Brazilian Marxist pedagogue, Paulo Freire. Francis gave his widow, Ana Maria (Nita) Araújo Freire, an audience at the Vatican in April 2015.

As a Jesuit, Francis’ focus on the global abolition of poverty was parasitised by South American liberation theology — a doctrine that Romanian spy chief Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa said was invented by the Kremlin to create a revolutionary movement on America’s doorstep:

“The movement was born in the KGB, and it had a KGB-invented name: Liberation Theology. During those years, the KGB had a penchant for "liberation" movements. The National Liberation Army of Columbia (FARC), created by the KGB with help from Fidel Castro; the "National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created by the KGB with help from "Che" Guevara; and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), created by the KGB with help from Yasser Arafat are just a few additional "liberation" movements born at the Lubyanka -- the headquarters of the KGB.

“The birth of Liberation Theology was the intent of a 1960 super-secret "Party-State Dezinformatsiya Program" approved by Aleksandr Shelepin, the chairman of the KGB, and by Politburo member Aleksey Kirichenko, who coordinated the Communist Party's international policies. This program demanded that the KGB take secret control of the World Council of Churches (WCC), based in Geneva, Switzerland, and use it as cover for converting Liberation Theology into a South American revolutionary tool. The WCC was the largest international ecumenical organization after the Vatican, representing some 550 million Christians of various denominations throughout 120 countries.”

As I wrote for Courage Media this Easter, Christianity bears no likeness to communism when you compare the history of socialism to scripture.

For doctrinaire Marxists to claim Christianity is compatible with their revolutionary historical materialism would also be absurd. Whereas Friedrich Engels believed human history reducible to “class struggles” between the haves and have-nots in “the economic conditions of their time”, Christ rebuked the temptations of Satan by saying “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4; Mark 1:11-13; Luke 4:1-13). Whereas communism promised that “such an abundance of goods will be able to satisfy the needs of all its members”, Christ told crowds that “Life does not depend upon an abundance of one’s possessions” (Luke 12:15) and that “No one can serve two masters … You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13-15). Whereas Marxists seek to consolidate power and property in a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, Christ refrains from lording over His earthly kingdom, acknowledging the only legitimate authority is God’s.

Marx not only called Christianity “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world … the opium of the people”, but also believed:

“The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.”

Marx saw it necessary to eradicate Christianity in order to introduce communism; hence why his formulation “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is an inversion of Matthew’s Parable of the Talents (25:28-30). Pursuing this heliocentric self-worship, Marx wrote poetry about wreaking revenge against “that enthroned Lord”, whose “Almighty’s lightning shall rebound” against his “throne [built] high overhead”; and making a deal with the Devil. In his personal life, Marx broke the 6th Commandment, fathering a son, possibly through rape, with his housemaid. He left that son to be raised by Engels; and, for his other children, left the family so destitute that two other sons died of disease and exposure. Marx’s father wrote that he believed his son was “governed by a demon” which prevented him from being “capable of truly human, domestic happiness”.

Marx had a particular hatred of Catholicism: with the Communist Manifesto intended as an inversion of the Catechism. In 1854, Marx praised the Protestant Reformation in the New York Tribune for allowing “the upper classes in every European nation [to begin to] unfasten themselves individually from all religious belief, and become so-called free-thinkers”. He admired Islam’s “hatred against Christians and the hope of an ultimate victory over these infidels”. No wonder, then, this denomination is seeing renewed interest from young men, rendered persona non grata by the Woke orthodoxy that is busily importing millions of immigrants from Muslim countries.

You can read the full essay on Courage Media, here.

During his papacy, Francis aligned himself with progressive, even Marxist causes, which put him at odds with his faithful flock.

• He pushed the COVID-19 vaccine as a “moral obligation” and “act of love,” despite its development involving the use of cells from aborted children.

• He apologised for the Catholic Church engaging in “cultural genocide” of indigenous Canadians, giving life to the lie of mass graves beneath residential schools — which turned out to be nothing but rocks, rather than bodies.

  Over a hundred churches were attacked and set alight because of the hoax spread by former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — who flew Canada’s flags at half-mast to commemorate “unmarked graves across the country” that never existed.

• He kissed and washed the feet of Muslim immigrants at the height of the European refugee crisis — without calling them to repent.

  

  

  Source: TIME Magazine (25 March 2016)

• He has demanded that the United States open its borders to millions who cross and claim refugee status for economic reasons.

  On President Trump’s immigration policy in his first term:

  “We know that the father of lies, the devil, prefers a community divided and bickering … This is the criteria to divide people: The builders of bridges and the builders of walls, those builders of walls sow fear and look to divide people. What do you want to be?” - 2019

  “Those who build walls will become prisoners of the walls they put up … This is history.” - 2019

  On an illegal immigrant being deported from El Paso, Texas:

  “That is madness. Sheer madness. To close the border and leave them there, that is madness. The migrant has to be received. Then you see how you are going to deal with him. Maybe you have to send him back, I don’t know, but each case ought to be considered humanely.” - 2024

  And, responding to Vice President JD Vance invoking ordo amoris as justification for the Trump administration’s immigration restricitons:

  “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” - 2025

• He invited a group of Italian trans-identifying male prostitutes to lunch in December 2023 — which prompted LGBT activist organisations GLAAD and DignityUSA to praise Francis’ “tone of inclusion [which would send a message to political and cultural leaders to end their persecution, exclusion and discrimination against transgender people.”

• He permitted same-sex marriages and “irregular” couples to receive blessings by Catholic priests (though not during matrimonial services) — and called his critics “hypocrites”, despite leaving the liturgical legitimacy of these blessings deliberately ambiguous.

“This is a blessing that, although not included in any liturgical rite,[23] unites intercessory prayer with the invocation of God’s help by those who humbly turn to him. God never turns away anyone who approaches him! Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God.”

But, in the spirit of charity — a subsidiary of the trinity of virtues listed in 1 Corinthians 13: