Is Pope Francis a lamppost to perdition?

At the moment of death, he faced God

By Mary Ann Mueller

VOL Special Correspondent

www.virtueonline.org

April 22, 2025

Pope Francis has died. Watching the secular news coverage, you would think that they were covering the death of a saint such as Pope John Paul II or Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

In fact, in September 1997 the media was shamed into covering Mother Teresa’s simple burial which followed on the heels of Princess Diana's opulent funeral. The contrast between the two was stark and sobering.

Now as the Pope’s Saturday (April 26) funeral looms the talking heads focus only on the “progressive” aspects of Francis' papal ministry – his meek and humble stature such as carrying his own briefcase, paying his hotel bill in person, and rejecting the splendor of the papal palace for a simple room at Domus Sanctae Marthae (St. Martha's House) which is basically a guest house for visiting clergy.

Then, of course, there was the continued breaking of Catholic social tradition (small t) with the open embrace of the LGBTQ agenda signaled by his “Who am I to judge?” comment; the washing of prisoners’ feet – male or female; the encouragement of the modernist aspects of the German Synodal Way of Church reform …

As the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics – there were 1.2 billion Catholics in 2013 when Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio became Pope Francis – and as a recognized worldwide spiritual leader the now dead pope went out of his way to cradle the fringe element of society – the marginalized, the oppressed, and the displaced to the expense of the welfare and deeply spiritual needs of his Catholic core.

This is the other aspect of Francis' meek and mild pontificate – his cracking down on the conservative Catholics who recoil at the thought that gays are allowed to be blessed in their sinfulness, his attempt to stamp out the traditional Latin Mass which brings solace and joy to many, and his allowing the ritual blessing of a statue of the Pachamama (the Mother Earth goddess) at a Amazon Synod event in Rome where even Franciscan friars bowed in homage to her. This riled the sensibility of traditionally-minded Catholics.

He has ignored or, even worse, put his foot on the neck of a whole swath of Catholics who have been left in the dirt as Francis lead the Catholic Church down the Primrose Path to perdition.

I was initially thrilled when Jorge Bergoglio the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina was elected the Bishop of Rome a dozen years ago. But the bloom has fallen off that flower and decayed.

Jesus was meek and mild, too. But, by thunder, when He saw the Temple being desecrated He swung into action. He was protecting what is holy.

“It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of thieves.” He thundered in Matthew 21:13.

In fact the action Christ took to protect the integrity of the Temple was so dramatic that it appears in all four Gospels: Matthew 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-19; Luke 19:45-48 and John 2:13-16.

In contrast Pope Francis failed to protect the holy. He failed to meet the spiritual needs of his conservative Catholics. He failed to defend “the Faith once for all delivered to the saints.” He failed to authentically teach what the Catholic Church believes by muddying the doctrinal waters. He failed to spiritually lead his flock into a deeper love and greater knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Pope Francis failed!

St. John Chrysostom is quoted as once saying: “The road to hell is paved with the bones of priests and monks, and the skulls of bishops are the lampposts that light the path."

Has Jorge Bergoglio been such a lamppost? Is the Catholic Church better off because he was Pope?

History is not the judge of such questions. Only God is.

Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline.