God our Father, Send Us a Holy Pope

God our Father, send us a Holy Pope, all for the sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, all for the Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart of Mary, in union with St Joseph. Amen. 

I felt safe with Pope Francis on the throne of Peter. 

I believed he was a caring and loving man who had no inclination to bring the letter of the law down on people’s heads to control and diminish us. Hubris was not in him. 

He had seen what happens when fascists take over a government and begin disappearing people. He knew, because he’d hidden the refugees, and buried the victims, what a lawless government could and would do to its citizens. 

That’s why Pope Francis once remarked about Donald Trump, “This man is no Christian.” It’s why he immediately and very publicly corrected JD Vance’s fascist-empowering misinterpretation of Christian teaching. It’s also why, sadly, he had to do this correction in a letter to our American bishops, so many of whom are fascist-empowerers themselves. 

I felt safe when Pope Francis was pope. I felt safe from the cruelty and self-righteousness of Pharisaical, cross-denying clergy who use a couple of sentences in Paul’s Epistles to set aside the Gospels and impose a moral reign of terror on more than half of humanity. 

Pope Francis was gaffe-prone and emotional. He was fearless and deeply moral on the fundamental level of love and care for the least of these. He was accessible and unpretentious. He was a true representative of Jesus Who said “let the little children come to me” when he opened the arms of the Church to those who so many people feel it’s righteousness to hate. 

Pope Francis didn’t turn away the hapless sinners of this world. He invited them to come to the Cross and be healed. 

He reserved his condemnation for the high and the mighty; for the men of power and money who use that power and money to subjugate and destroy. He was ceaselessly attacked for doing that. 

From the beginning of his papacy to the end, the money interests attacked and excoriated Pope Francis. He had barely been elected pope when the late and mostly forgotten Rush Limbaugh leveled the asinine accusation at him that he — the Pope — was a “communist.” 

That line of attack has been used by fascists since Mussolini and Hitler. Hitler used claims that his opponents were Communists to justify everything from the first concentration camps, to World War II itself. Trump’s media claimed that both Vice President Harris and President Biden were “Communists.” 

So, it’s no surprise that fascist talking heads would do the same to a pope who spoke out against the exploitation and economic enslavement of whole populations of people around the globe at the behest of a handful of billionaires and their politicians whose only god is their greed.

Pope Francis had lived under a murderous fascist regime that destroyed the rule of law, disappeared people and imposed a murderous reign of terror on the whole country. While he did undercover work to get people out of the country, he failed to stand up against the regime in a public way. 

I have often thought that this failure was a wound on his soul that he sought to heal when he was pope. It is certain that he did not fail as pope. He removed an entire nation of bishops who had covered up sex abuse of children. He spoke out clearly against MAGA’s evils, and adamantly refused to become one of Donald Trump’s whore clergy. 

I felt safe with Pope Francis on the throne of Peter because I thought that he honestly believed in Jesus Christ and would follow the Gospels rather than the siren call of personal power. 

He lectured the bishops, reminding them that they were not CEOs of corporations, but ministers of the Gospels. He called them to come down out of their insulated little worlds of self-congratulation and flattering toadies and acquire a bit of the “smell of the sheep.” He told them to mingle with us little people and minister to us directly and with love. 

Quite a few bishops, including a number of our American bishops, hated him for this. Some of our most powerful bishops here in America spurned Pope Francis and taught their priests to do the same. They were supported in this by the billionaire-funded right-wing Catholic media, which was, of course, singing from the same hymnbook as the rest of right wing media. 

Christians in America have been blighted with some very vocal fallen “shepherds” — both in our American Catholic Church, and in the Protestant world. They have sold out Christ for bribes in the forms of “donations” and “grants” to ministries, tax credits and government monies of all sorts. 

They have personally enjoyed the bennies of being next to power; the dinners, junkets, flattery, and back-slapping bonhomie of yucking it up with the billionaire class. And for these things they have become whores for right wing fascism and used their moral and prophetic voice to persuade their followers to empower fascists and fascism, to enable the creation of a police state here in America. 

They were our shepherds, and they have fed us to the wolves. 

The only thing standing between us and these rapacious “shepherds” was Pope Francis, consistently speaking the Gospel Truth to Power that it is the least of these who are Christ crucified, standing among us. 

Jesus never said, what you have done for a tax credit, you have done for me. Jesus didn’t teach that empathy and caring are weakness, lying is ok, greed is good and rape is what real men do to women and children. 

But if you examined the underlying meaning of the “guidance” many of our American bishops have been giving us, you would be drawn to the conclusion that the Sermon on the Mount is liberal twaddle, the Beatitudes are saccharine pre-school poetry, and that extortion, bribes, lying, rape, sadistic cruelty, and greed without limits are the keys to salvation. 

Of course these bishops hated Pope Francis. Of course right wing media attacked him. Of course the powerless and the disenfranchised loved him. 

It was the same way with Jesus. It has been that way with His sincere followers ever since. It will be that way until He comes again. 

A servant is not greater than his Master, Jesus said. If they hate Me, they will hate you. 

Pope Francis suffered the slings and arrows of the rich and powerful and all their servants. He also had the love of many of us who saw in him a sincere servant of the Carpenter from Nazareth. 

Pope Francis has finished his race. He is in the arms of the God Who loves Him. 

I felt safe with Pope Francis. 

Now, I am a little anxious. I hope the Conclave doesn’t elect a rule-meister who hates much. I am especially concerned that they not give us a pope who teaches that righteousness lies in hating and oppressing whole groups of people. When that happens,  those who are targeted for hatred can vary, but women are always at the top of the list. 

Right wing money is going to try to influence this vote. Controlling the Church’s voice is real power in this world. The Catholic Church, if it bends its knee to the Caesar of the growing right wing fascism, can do almost unlimited harm. 

For that reason, those who seek power and money to the exclusion of all else — and that is the sole operating purpose that drives today’s fascist right – will use all their money and all their power to influence the upcoming selection of Pope. 

There is precedent. I do not doubt that the Catholic Church is the Church that was founded by Christ. But it is a simple historical fact that this Church of ours has had more than one debauched political pope. 

So, I am a bit anxious. I am praying for a holy pope, a Jesus pope, a Sermon on the Mount, Beatitudes, Great Commission pope. I am praying for a pope who will seek to convert the world to the Way that leads to eternal life. 

I felt safe with Pope Francis. Now, I am anxiously awaiting his successor. 

I am praying for a holy pope.