“How do you Solve a Problem Like Francis?”

That’s the title of a fiery new essay by John Zmirak in Chronicles magazine. Obviously, in a secular magazine the opportunity for frank, even provocative, speech is far greater than in a Catholic publication, e.g.,

An atheist pope is destroying the Church.

Mr. Zmirak explicitly compares the current post-Vatican II regime with twentieth century totalitarianism (“papal Stalinism”):

Vatican II itself, in the document Lumen Gentium, demanded that every Catholic on earth offer “religious submission” to papal opinions, even those offered with no infallible guarantee. There’s no other way to describe such a demand but as papal Stalinism, with each Catholic bound, like the poor Communist Party members in Arthur Koestler’s Darkness At Noon, to conform their consciences to every new adjustment of the party line, since the party alone was the “voice of History.”  Only a firm papal Stalinist like that would in 2023 still regard Pope Francis as a worthy pope, and his teachings as reliable. Sadly, countless bishops, priests, and public Catholics still affirm that stance, either explicitly or by their silence and acquiescence.

What follows is a very full – but still not exhaustive – catalogue of the papal iniquities of the last eleven years. My reservation regarding this excellent essay would be that Mr. Zmirak seems attracted to the “infiltration” explanation of the Church’s problems. I respectfully disagree – the anti-Christian forces both within and outside the Church are very public in their affiliations, ideology and tactics.

As for a solution, in the past that was easier to bring about:

[I}n centuries past, a Catholic emperor or council on rare occasions deposed an unworthy pope, that option was foreclosed by the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806—not to mention the hyper-papalist rulings of the First Vatican Council in 1870. That Council made the papacy absolutely supreme, but also impossible to correct. No one on earth may now judge or remove a pope. Historians of the Romanovs might have something to say about whether such an elevation was really a great advantage.

The loss of the Holy Roman Empire (as well as that of the other Christian kingdoms) still leaves a painful void.

Zmirak, John, “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Francis?” in Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture (1/2024)