There is no office in the world that is in any way comparable to the pope of the Catholic Church.
It is an office that is primarily spiritual, yet carries with it significant secular responsibilities. It demands that its occupant be both a teacher and a diplomat. It carries with it the duties and trappings of the monarchical head of state it is, yet its occupant is most seen more as a pastor and spiritual leader than a political one.
He is the absolute monarch of the Vatican City State, a tiny plot of land in the middle of the city of Rome, but is most known as the global leader of the Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion adherents from every corner of the planet.
Amid this backdrop, the Catholic Church, and indeed the world, is waiting with bated breath as Pope Francis battles bilateral pneumonia and continues a now three-week hospital stay. Such infections are serious for anyone, but for the pope, an 88-year-old man who has visibly deteriorated for several years, the infection and lengthy hospital stay have raised serious fears that the pontiff is dying.
On Thursday, the Vatican released an audio recording of the Pope thanking all who have been praying for him during this illness. The message, delivered in the pope’s native Spanish, gave the world the first public words from Pope Francis since his hospitalization. It came following several days of medical updates that his condition had stabilized, though his prognosis remained “guarded.” The pope’s labored breathing and weak voice in that 30-second recording served as a grim reminder that the pontiff is still very ill and his condition remains quite serious.
The Catholic Church has not had a pope die in office since 2005, when Pope John Paul II died at the age of 84 after one of the longest pontificates in history. Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected after the death of John Paul II, shocked the world when he became the first pope to resign in 600 years in 2013, paving the way for the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who took the name Francis.
Whether Pope Francis dies tomorrow or in five years, his place in history as the 266th leader of the Catholic church is assured. What is less certain is what his legacy will be, especially in light of the two men who preceded him.
He has sought to carve out a legacy of a humble reformer. But the problem with reforming an institution as an absolute monarch is that any action you take can be undone by your successor. Pope Francis himself reversed a signature reform of Pope Benedict XVI by restricting the availability of the traditional Latin Mass in 2021, 14 years after Benedict liberalized its use in 2007. The next pope could conceivably reverse Pope Francis’s directive and restore its use again.
Throughout his 12 years leading the church, Pope Francis has largely departed from the legacy of his immediate predecessors in the ways that he has governed the church, embracing a softer tone on contentious social issues and eschewing the ornate trappings that come with the office.
But as much as he has attempted to represent a change in course from the two men who preceded him, the modern papacy was, in many ways, built by John Paul II, who redefined the office and became a global celebrity after centuries of Italian dominance in the role. It is a legacy that still casts a large shadow over the Catholic Church and the papacy.
The Polish John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope in centuries, became a titan of history in no small part because he was an avowed anti-communist who hailed from a nation that was, at the time, controlled by communists. He was as much an international diplomat and political celebrity as he was a spiritual and intellectual leader. His visit to his native Poland in 1979, and the crowds of millions that turned out to see him celebrate Mass, was as much a political demonstration as it was an act of devotion to the Catholic Church. Many have argued that it helped start the cascade of events that led to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
The Cold War diplomacy of John Paul II may have given the papacy a high degree of visibility in international affairs, but in the years since and through the papacies of Benedict and Francis, the pope’s place as a diplomat, head of state, and political actor on the global stage is often forgotten or overlooked. Meanwhile, his role as the most senior pastor, teacher, and bishop within the Catholic Church has seen greater emphasis. And with it has come greater scrutiny.
In another era and time, it was far more difficult to separate the pope’s two unique roles as both a political leader and a spiritual leader. Until the end of the war for Italian unification in 1870, the pope was as much the leader of the Catholic Church as he was the king of the Papal States, a country in central Italy that included the entire city of Rome and the surrounding country.
The Lateran Treaty of 1929 codified the current diplomatic and political status of the Vatican, formally establishing the sovereign nation of the Vatican City State. But the political power of the papacy was forever diminished. Fnding a new way to lead the global Catholic Church would take another 50 years.
While John Paul II was a Cold Warrior, he was also an electrifying figure for Catholics all over the world. He visited every corner of the globe, established World Youth Day, a global gathering of young Catholics every four years, gave a series of talks on Catholic teaching on human sexuality that collectively became known as the “Theology of the Body,” and was ultimately declared a saint by Pope Francis in 2014.
Benedict XVI, who was far less of a diplomatic figure, instead distinguished himself as an intellectual giant, authoring world-renowned works of theological commentary while continuing John Paul II’s sharp and clear defenses of Catholic moral teaching.
Pope Francis has at times sought to play the role of a diplomat, repeatedly pleading for peace in Ukraine and in Gaza, but the lasting image of his change-minded papacy will be his deliberate efforts to soften the Church’s approach, if not its teachings, to issues such as homosexuality and divorce. At the same time, he has placed a greater emphasis on combating poverty, embraced environmentalism, and repeatedly denounced hardline positions on immigration and refugees, establishing himself as a champion of social justice causes more than political or ecclesiastical causes.
POPE FRANCIS RELEASES FIRST AUDIO MESSAGE SINCE HOSPITALIZATION: ‘I ACCOMPANY YOU FROM HERE’
Much like John Paul II, Francis has traveled the globe, but more as a priest than a head of state. He has visited Catholics in Philadelphia and New York, the war-torn cities of Iraq, and even in Mongolia, the most sparsely populated country in the world and whose Christian population is a tiny minority. His appointments to the College of Cardinals have seen him elevate cardinals from places that had never had one before, including the aforementioned Mongolia. This came with a new geographic and cultural diversity to a body that has long been dominated by Europeans and Westerners.
The shadow of John Paul II as a political figure and Benedict XVI as a theologian were never legacies that Pope Francis had any intention of standing next to. Instead, he has carved out a legacy of pastoral change and emphasis on social justice that will reverberate for many years after his death, and it is a legacy that will stand independently of the two men who preceded him.
