Francis Among the Wolves

Pope Francis in Krakow, 2016 (CNS/Paul Haring)

Although Pope Francis espoused political positions that were the opposite of President Trump's--against border enforcement and fossil fuels, and for "social justice"--both leaders had similar obstacles to overcome.

Both were outsiders who tried to turn their organizations in a drastic new direction (according to their critics);

Both insisted that they were just trying to return to founding principles (the Gospels, the Constitution);

Both met resistance from an entrenched bureaucracy.

To make lasting change in an institution, you need institutional skills. Francis’ disposition was pastoral, not administrative.

In the Catholic Church, political power is concentrated in the Roman curia—the practically invisible coterie of busybodies, many of them high-ranking clergy, who administer the vast Vatican bureaucracy. The curia is staffed largely by Italians. Francis was an outsider from faraway Argentina, which put him at a disadvantage in his own house. He had no interest in the material trappings of power, forswearing the famous bling of the papacy. He preferred to live not in the luxurious papal apartments but in a simple room in the hotel on the Vatican grounds.

Francis was a shepherd. He had the smell of his sheep about him. The manipulators and inside players of the Roman curia ate him for lunch. He didn’t reform them; they reformed him.

Pope Francis eschewed the trappings of office and walked the walk. R.I.P.