I Despised Pope Francis, but His Death Changed Me
We publish the reflection of the young blogger Alfredo Salata: his journey from hatred of Pope Bergoglio to a change of heart after his death.
by
Alfredo Salata*
*blogger and newly converted
On April 21, 2025, the news of Pope Francis‘s death reached my parish community.
It was unexpected news for me, arriving at a particular moment in my story of faith and which certainly marked my path.
I remember that in those weeks I was already immersed in a serious reappraisal of his figure.
Contempt for Pope Francis
I confess that I never admired him.
More honestly, it would be to say that for a long time I even despised Pope Francis.
Before my conversion to Catholicism, I even considered him a kind of “progressive extremist”, an antipope, a convenient ecclesial crutch for that liberal cultural power which is the antithesis of everything Christian and which for two decades has dominated every sphere of secular culture.
For a long time I even entertained the idea that Pope Francis might not really be the Pope, but some sort of usurper of the Petrine throne.
Only when my reflection led me to truly recognize in the Catholic Church the true Church of Christ — in historical continuity with what the Lord had founded and entrusted to the apostles — did I understand that I had to give up these ideas and repent of having entertained them.
This, however, did not certainly cause an automatic and complete reassessment of Francis’s figure.
While recognizing him as the legitimate Pope and, consequently, worthy of the respect and obedience due to the Pontiff, I continued to consider Francis too progressive, too casual in doctrine, a creator of confusion rather than a guardian of tradition.
When I began to change my perspective
Only shortly before his passing had I begun to read his writings, starting with Amoris laetitia. This text too has been widely criticized, the subject of rather critical Dubia and even accusations of heresy.
When I read it in full, however, it seemed to me instead rich with a profound pastoral realism, a realism that did not stand in contrast to the Church’s Tradition but, on the contrary, rested on a mature and deep moral theology.
Reading his direct words I began to discover — and understand — how Pope Francis was a much more complex figure than the media simplifications about him.
I realized that behind his apparent pastoral casualness there was real wisdom and, above all, a deep trust in the power of the Gospel and in its ability to defend itself.
The image of the “field hospital”
A few days before his death I came across his famous image of the Church as a «field hospital».
Today I think that labelling a Pope who could propose such an image as modernist is honestly paradoxical.
Reflected in the image of the field hospital is the image of war, of the wounded: and it is war that moves against the Word the Prince of the World. Satan, the Accuser: a real enemy, whose existence is reduced to a concept by the most progressive Christians, but whom Francis never tired of warning against.
The wounded whom the Church heals, as a «field hospital», are men struck by sin.
They are the families destroyed by selfishness, greed and lack of fidelity; they are the marginalized by blind financial capitalism and the idolatry of the market and profit; they are the people who lose themselves in the confused and mortifying sexuality of gender ideology; they are the victims of a politics more worried about power arrangements than about peace.
They are the children of Gaza scourged by bombs, but they are also the confused children, scattered and emptied of a West that has lost faith.
It is not true, as some have sometimes claimed, that this image puts the good and morality in the background, or that it makes one forget that the source of all this pain is sin, the distance from God.
Exactly the opposite is true: the tragedy inherent in it clearly indicates the reality of evil, recognizing the spiritual war that is underway and the nature of the wounds that the Church has been sent to heal.
Pope Francis, lights and shadows
I was immersed in these reflections as I was preparing to study the Dilexit nos – his encyclical on the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – when Pope Francis passed away.
He left suddenly, leaving me with a tide of doubts, at the mercy of the storm of positions that developed around his name.
Yet reading the opinions about him – some totally praising, others deeply critical – I felt that my doubts were not so illegitimate. Pope Francis was a man of paradoxes. Humble in gestures, in manners, in his approach to the faithful – especially the smallest and weakest – and yet often very severe, almost authoritarian, in responding to criticism.
While he repeated the importance of synodality, he responded only indirectly to the Dubia of conservatives. On several occasions he allowed himself controversial statements, participated in religious celebrations of other faiths, or attacked traditionalists rather harshly, then appearing almost unconcerned about the fractures these attitudes caused in the Church.
Yet Francis was much more precise and subtle in his writings, so much so that it is always possible, if one only tries, to read his teaching in full continuity with tradition.
His reflections on human responsibility towards Creation, on conjugal love and on human failures in that area, as well as his more theological thoughts around the Sacred Heart of Jesus, are precious teachings and more necessary than ever in our particular age.
Despite this, he was indisputably very casual in his pastoral preaching. On occasions when some particularly rash reflection was instrumentalized by the mass media and caused scandal, Francis was often slow to publish any clarifying word – so much so that it seemed he did not like to contradict himself.
It is this characteristic of his that earned him, from many faithful, clerics and even some bishops – who are all too easily labelled disobedient and schismatic – the accusation of creating confusion and even of supporting, perhaps unintentionally, heretical doctrines, such as forms of religious indifferentism or universalism, or errors related to Eucharistic discipline.
He was extremely loved by the world – which is not necessarily positive for a Pope – but also by
And yet he was also detested by many, seen as an aid to the powerful, a source of confusion, a man harmful to the Church.
Those who had the opportunity to meet him in person, however, almost always respected and loved him deeply. Among those who spoke of Francis with great affection are also public figures strongly critical of laissez-faire Catholicism, such as the apologist Trent Horn, Bishop Robert Barron, Cardinal Robert Sarah and countless others.
Who Pope Francis was, even now, six months after his death, I find it hard to understand. Whether he left Leo XIV a Church in better or worse condition than he received it from Pope Benedict XVI, I think that it is not for me to judge.
Why Was Bergoglio So Loved by Those Far Away?
One thing, however, I feel compelled to observe, and to offer as a reflection. An idea that was suggested to me a few days after his death, while praying for him and for our Church, and which has since continued to linger in my mind.
What drew so many around Pope Francis?
What fascinated so deeply so many people, especially those who are afflicted by situations of suffering and above all by sin?
People historically marginalized by the Church, such as the divorced, or those who live in irregular family situations, the homosexual, but also young people who reject the faith, and who are passionate about topics contrary to Christian morality such as abortion, or gender theories?
A man at the opposite extreme from Francis would say something like: “The world wants to see its damned perversions justified”.
Even today, I think that man would not be entirely wrong. Perhaps the world truly desires that whoever has the task of reminding it of its iniquity conform to it and fall silent forever.
However, I believe this is not merely the search for validation — at least not on the part of all or the majority of those who loved Francis. I think that this alone would not be enough to justify his attractiveness.
The image of the field hospital returns to mind: those wounded by sin, the spiritual war, the fear of dying forever — not only in the body, but also in the spirit. I believe that Pope Francis understood and intercepted this fear. A fear that underlies a huge hunger for mercy.
I believe there is a desire in the heart of every modern man. Not always conscious, not always well directed, but nonetheless authentic: that of knowing their life redeemed — a hunger for salvation, for redemption.
This is the same hunger that, still lacking authentic repentance, drives the prodigal son to return to the Father (Luke 15:11–32). A void that is today more present than ever.
“Neither Do I Judge You”
Here, with his limits and contradictions, perhaps Pope Francis in his pastoral approach managed to convey the idea of being able, like Christ, to say to those afflicted by sin: “Neither do I judge you”.
Perhaps he was not always able to add, with the precision that some of us would like, “now go, and sin no more”. Maybe. I understand, and partially still share, the thoughts of those who would have wanted greater clarity in this.
On the other hand, I am led to say that whoever among us is able to be fully like Christ, let them cast the first stone.
Pope Francis had a deep devotion to Mary, and now comes to mind the private revelation of a mystic who claimed that Jesus, speaking to her about his mother, had said something like: “I am love and justice. My mother, however, is only love”.
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