Pope Bergoglio had been ill for some time. His "miraculous recovery" (see "Is Pope Francis compos or non compos?", WWW 25/3/25), appears to have been the result of the intervention of the Vatican's doctors, to the end that there should be no disruption of Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the on the Church calendar. And now the poor old man is at rest. May God have mercy on his soul.
Much will be written in the coming days about the decline of the Church -- not just my opinion but a visible and established fact -- which occurred on Francis' watch. God only knows how much of the crisis in which the Church now finds Herself is attributable directly or indirectly to the actions or neglect of Pope Bergoglio. What we must now watch for and pray for is the healing and recovery of Holy Mother Church from the ills of the decades since Vatican II.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.
I don't believe Pope Francis tried hard enough to be civil or conciliatory or understanding. But in saying this I'm a little nervous, as I also believe, on principle, that the Holy Spirit is always the one behind the choices made by papal conclaves. So it's also possible that Francis was chosen because of a modern example of "it is what it is" - the mainstream media modus operandi. News, like entertainment, has to be delivered with more and more shock value to capture the attention of a more and more unshockable world. Pope Francis and President Trump have something in common, the (only?) kind of personality that can manage to be noticed enough to accomplish much of anything - good, bad, or indifferent. It seems that even the Holy Spirit has been working with this dynamic of late.
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