The View from the “Other Side”: The Pope of Disappointments

Meier, Michael, Der Papst der Enttäuschungen: Warum Franziskus kein Reformer ist (The Pope of Disapointments: Why Francis is no Reformer)

Verlag Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2024

What does the progressive establishment think of Francis? You would think their evaluation should be entirely favorable. After all, under the Woke Pope (Newsweek) there’s virtual identity now between the positions of the extreme left (those previously called by some “dissidents”), and that of the ecclesiastical establishment. However, that is not necessarily the case.  The Pope of Disappointments sums up the Francis papacy from the German perspective. The author, Michael Meier, is Swiss, but the Swiss and Austrian Catholic churches function as a kind of subgroup of the German Church. For many years Meier was religion editor for the Zürich Tages-Anzeiger, a left-leaning paper. (Of course, just as in the Catholic Church, previously middle-of-the-road and even conservative German media by now have been largely absorbed into the dominant progressive culture).

It is admittedly difficult for me to acclimatize myself to the Catholic progressive world view.  First, the norms of “modern” Western society are an absolute value for the German progressives. Second, their progressive faith is encapsulated in a set of specific demands, reiterated endlessly for decades now: liberty for contraception and divorce, married clergy, women clergy, full acceptance of the LGBTQ movement within the Church, and a relaxed attitude towards abortion. These demands – or “reforms” – are presented as self-evident axioms – they require no defense or explanation. Meier describes progressives as Reformkatholiken – an ideologically loaded concept from the 19^th century, Third, the focus of these reformers is relentlessly secular and political. Reforming the role of women in Church, for example, is defined as their obtaining ever more power in the institution. Finally, the entire doctrinal structure of the Church is assumed to be just a set of administrative rules, susceptible to immediate and summary change. 1)

Now what is Meier’s verdict on Francis? As the title of the book indicates,  he has not fulfilled the expectations of the Germans. Yes, Francis has opened a limited scope for divorce and the LGBTQ presence; he has advanced ecumenical relations with the non-European religions, especially Islam. But much of the liberal agenda remains unrealized. Why is this? The author attributes it to Francis’s lack of firm ideological grounding. Meier characterizes Francis a pastor, not as a principled leader or intellectual. His alleged real focus is “evangelization.”  Francis displays “mercy,” he does not change doctrine. As Meier puts it, “the two most important characteristics of the Roman Church – celibacy and the exclusion of women from ordination  – are not negotiable.” And synodality is really a meaningless concept. 

Beyond the failure of Francis to explicitly realize the “reform” agenda, the author has other specific and pointed criticisms of his papacy. Regarding sexual abuse, the author, like the progressive German establishment,  doesn’t cut the pope and the Church any slack. He is relentlessly critical of Francis’s management of this issue. Meier is also not at all pleased with the failure of Francis to assume a belligerent status with Ukraine against Russia. He further finds it dubious that Francis associates himself with other religious leaders of a more autocratic mind, such as the patriarch of Moscow or the Islamic authorities – while not immediately granting intercommunion with the Protestant churches,  It may surprise the reader to find out that, in making some of these criticisms, Meier cites authorities who view the world from a perspective entirely different from his own – like Sandro Magister. Meier does mention (citing Mosebach and Spaemann!) the authoritarian leadership of Francis: the Pope’s actions are characterized by turns and twists, by surprising initiatives and then sudden reversals.

But what is a traditionalist to make of this?

First, I think Meier s totally mistaken regarding the personal character and the method of government of Francis. Meier seems to have fallen victim to the myths created by the Vatican media machine and its affiliated secular reporters, even though he specifically criticizes their depictions of Francis! And Meier is not alone in this vision of Francis as a simple, John XXIII-like pastor. Does not Yves Chiron in his History of the Traditionalists, also describe the pope as “above all a pastor” ? Thomas Sternberg (a former  high official of the German Catholic Church) says the same in his 2019 debate with Martin Mosebach, gushing over the pope embracing disabled people in wheelchairs.

Yet this depiction is the very opposite of the truth. A cursory review of the last eleven years reveals that Francis is a man consumed by a relentless drive for control and by a radical commitment to ideology. The fact that Francis was unable to achieve at a German institution the scholastic attainments of German intellectuals, does not at all mean that he is not an ideologue. His system of thought may be crude, but it is simple, short, and can be relentlessly repeated: we must go forward, not back, cannot be rigid, doctrine evolves, the Church must welcome everyone as he is, dialogue is essential, the unity of the Church “under Peter” must be preserved. These are ideological positions –  an endlessly repeated litany that Francis hammers home on every occasion.

The author is unfair to treat Francis just as a failed implementer of the progressive vision. He has, after all, given them hitherto unimaginable forms of recognition of divorce and same-sex unions as well as a vastly expanded scope of ecumenism. Yes, Francis has not officially authorized intercommunion with Protestants, but recently he has given unprecedented, influential access within the Church to the Anglicans.  At this very moment he’s obviously working on introducing married clergy and female clergy. 

Meier is distressed by a whole series of Vatican reproofs and criticisms of the German synodal path meted out during the Francis pontificate – but haven’t developments like Fiducia Supplicans shown that these admonitions were merely tactical?  I think our author is projecting onto the entire Church a state of quasi-totalitarian control and alignment with the secular power that outside of Germany does not (yet) exist. Only in Germany and adjacent areas could the controlling powers of the Church simply decree the “reforms” that the author wants. 

Elsewhere in the Church,  Francis must contend with the fact that many Catholics believe that certain positions that have been accepted previously are articles of faith. It takes a while to bring these Catholics around to discarding that which they had only a few years ago held to be certain and holy. This explains the torturous preparation of Francis before he makes each of his moves: the synod on the family, the Amazonian synod,  the Churchwide synodal path, the questionnaires regarding the status of traditionalism in the Church. These things may seem to an objective observer transparently dishonest, which is true, but Francis judges them necessary first steps in implementing progressive reform.  Admittedly there have been reverses,  some things have been blocked or stalled, such as – so far – the introduction of married clergy and a female clergy of sorts. 

The author makes much of the confusion under the pope, and the endless discussions he has initiated, which do not immediately lead to a conclusion. But Meier does not understand that this is a technique of introducing change. By opening up to discussion so many things that recently were considered fixed and immutable, Francis softens up the Church establishment for the acceptance of change. The creation by Francis of a state of confusion does not show lack of sympathy with progressive innovations. It is a way to achieve them without triggering massive schism.

Throughout this book we read an endless series of official statements, and  commentary of German theologians on them. Outside of those holding office in the German Catholic administrative or educational establishment, the Catholic laity do not figure in this book at all. There is no mention of the deterioration in the practice of the faith among them in the last 10 years. Meier talks of the exclusion of the laity from the governance of the Church but it’s obvious what he means by “laity” are the lay bureaucrats and associates of the Church. 

I found particularly offensive  a remark, not of the author, but of Massimo Faggioli, who writes:

“It’s clear that Francis is the first truly global pope, a non-Western pope, who has freed Catholicism from the idea of a moralistic, bourgeois middle- class Catholicism, which still defined what Catholicism is.” 2)

The message from the Catholic progressives is that if you do all the Church instructs you to do,  if you sacrifice to carry on a Catholic family life in this challenging world as best you can,  you will be denounced by your priests as a conformist, a Pharisee, and a hypocrite. The contempt of the Conciliar Church establishment for the ordinary laity has rarely been so blatantly displayed. 

For Meier, liturgical questions are not even worth discussing.  He grotesquely (and incorrectly) summarizes Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum as merely reintroducing anti-Semitic language in the Church. Benedict himself is caricatured as a lover of golden vestments,  a remote  authoritarian figure, and indifferent or hostile to ecumenism. 

There are many other things Meier treats only superficially or not at all. He talks of the failure of the Amazonian synod to achieve its policy objectives but does not mention the role of Cardinal Sarah and Pope Benedict.  Regarding Ukraine, does Meier really expect the pope to bless uncritically the positions of Zelensky?  For Meier to talk (citing Hubert Wolf) of pacifism not being part of the Church tradition seems audacious, to say the least, after decades of pacifist propaganda from Meier’s end of the ecclesiastical spectrum. Meier mentions Cardinal Tagle as a papal contender and a “personal favorite” of Francis  – although this gentleman had already been sidelined for unexplained reasons. 

The Pope of Disappointments witnesses to the dissatisfaction of the progressive establishment in the German-speaking world with the incomplete reform of the Church under Francis. The author predicts that things are unlikely to change, because those cardinals and bishops from the periphery that Francis has advanced are, in fact, not at all aligned with the progressive churches on many, perhaps even most issues. Indeed, the author concludes by writing that the Catholic Church may be irreformable (by that he means incapable of completely imposing progressive “reforms”). What Meier considers the deadweight of tradition will block the liberal dream from ever coming to fruition. His conclusions are quite a contrast to the relentless publicity in favor of Francis and of the church establishment that one reads every day in the Vatican and English-language Catholic media and the complicit secular media as well.

I myself had earlier described the situation of the Catholic Church after the Council  – and still, after more than ten years of Francis – as one of deadlock. In the Council the Church had institutionalized within its own bureaucratic structures a progressive movement that aims at the complete repudiation of the prior teaching of the Catholic Church on liturgy, morality, and theology. But the force of tradition, the natural reluctance of any institution to commit suicide and the residual faith of some of the hierarchy have prevented the immediate and total implementation of the progressive program. I agree with Meier that this conflict, analyzed in purely secular terms,  is most likely to continue indefinitely. 

1. A distinguishing feature of the German Church is its reliance for leadership upon professors and theologians, often associated with secular teaching institutions. Quoted throughout his book, it is they, not bishops or celebrity priests, who are the main authorities for Meier. The German church establishment further disposes of significant media assets; the author refers constantly to katholisch.de, the website of the Catholic Church in Germany (and sometimes to kath.ch, its Swiss equivalent). Much of what he writes would already be familiar to followers of these sites. 
2. Admittedly a translation of a (presumed) translation.