The Ten-Year Learning Curve of Pope Francis


Pope Francis originally planned to remain as pope for three or four years. Now, ten years later, he says he is Pope for life. During his ten years he has discovered corruption and nasty deeds inside the clergy which keeps him soldiering on. 

Five years in he defended clergy in South America against accusations of widespread child sexual abuse. He got his education in blunt news that abuse was widespread. He has tried without total success to root out abuse of children. Now, however, abuse of adults by clergy, especially adult women, has become an issue he has to battle. He knows the next Pope could be a person like Benedict who simply turns away from these internal evils and hides them from those in the pews. He sees Benedict's fans circling overhead like vultures waiting for him to die so the corruption can resume. No wonder he now vows to be Pople for life. 

He has recognized bashing homosexual people is not a good strategy for keeping members. Gays leave the church but they are joined by extended family and friends. It is better, he has learned, to not mention the churches phobia with this issue. If it is not raised people will think it does not exist.

Francis recognized there is no good reason to block divorced and remarried couples from belonging to the church. He can count and knows people blocked from membership have children and millions of divorced and remarried couples can drive off the generations the church needs. While each year there are converts coming into the Catholic Church, the number leaving is larger.

The place the Pope lags behind is with women. If the church's philosophy prevents him from allowing them to be clergy, he could bend further than he has in putting women in other powerful positions. He doesn't seem to instinctively recognize the worth of women and has made unfortunate offhand remarks about them. 

Conservatives in the church were alarmed from Francis' first appearance as Pope. He refused to wear the red cape and red shoes. The story is he said, "This is not Las Vegos anymore." He wanted the Pope to be perceived as approachable and not royalty. Conservatives like top-down authorities and have not liked him since that day. 

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