Pope Francis was More Pius XII than John Paul II. That’s a Tragedy

Pope Francis is dead, and the obituaries are rolling in. The Vatican praises his “life of service.” Others praised his advocacy for economic and social justice, and still others his embrace of the latest environmentalist causes. Many privately cheered his snub of JD Vance late last week, foisting the U.S. vice president onto his deputy.

But how will history place the self-declared reformer? 

Pope Francis and a Place in History

Here, Francis may not shine. His embrace of liberation theology shook the Vatican and forced some modernization, but freedom often took a back seat.

Francis, at times, seemed more intent on ensuring his legacy by purging intellectual opponents than by winning arguments. While outwardly a liberal and progressive, within the church he acted with an authoritarian touch. To be fair to Francis, however, all popes are authoritarian by the nature of the position.

Perhaps the biggest failing in Francis’ legacy, however, was his aloofness, if not hostility, toward freedom. Pope John Paul II, who rose to Vatican leadership after a career of service to the Polish church, understood Communism for all its rhetoric was less about equality and more about freedom. He stood to assert his religiosity in societies hostile to religion. He showed all those behind the Iron Curtain that the tyranny under which they labored could not defeat freedom when men, women, and children stood together in defiance. Historians credit Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev for winning the Cold War. The Soviet embrace of reform that enabled Gorbachev’s rise, however, was a natural reaction to the power of the Polish pope. 

Without Pope John Paul II, the Cold War might have persisted for decades longer.

Alas, Francis was no John Paul II. 

Too often, he put access and money above principle and values.

The China Question

Consider China: China is home to perhaps 10 million Catholics and Francis repeatedly expressed an interest in becoming the first pope to step foot in mainland China. He removed Vatican representatives from Taiwan and Hong Kong as he sought to curry favor with Beijing and remained silent as Communist authorities sought to approve if not appoint their own proxies as church leaders.

He broke with his predecessors and cut off support for the “underground church” which sought to maintain independence from the Chinese government. Put another way, had John Paul II embraced the Francis method, he would have urged Eastern bloc Catholics to subordinate themselves to Communist authorities rather than defy them. Francis’ silence when China decimated Hong Kong’s freedoms and incarcerated millions of Uyghurs put his Vatican on the side of cowardice if not tyranny. 

Turning Away from John Paul II

In his later years, however, Francis turned even further away from the legacy of John Paul II and instead pivoted toward the legacy of Pope Pius XII, the pontiff whose tenure began shortly before World War II and continued for almost two decades until his death in 1958.

As war erupted in Europe, the Rome-born Pius XII sought to walk a tightrope. He sympathized with the Allies, maintained ties with Germany’s resistance, unsuccessfully lobbied Benito Mussolini to eschew alliance with Adolf Hitler, and condemned Communism. During the Holocaust, however, he vacillated in the face of silence. While the Chief Rabbi of Rome eulogized Pius XII positively upon his death, many historians and the broader Jewish community believe Pius might have used his bully pulpit more forcefully to shine light on an ongoing genocide that Hitler preferred to keep in the dark. For Pius XII, realpolitik interests appear to trump moral clarity.

Back to Francis: In the last weeks of his papacy, Armenian Catholics were shocked to find that the Vatican hosted a conference laundering Azerbaijan and its treatment of the Christian community less than two years after it ethnically cleansed 120,000 Armenian Christians from their homes, ending one of the world’s largest contiguous Christian communities. As the Vatican lauded dictator Ilham Aliyev, the son of a central committee member of the Soviet Union who himself grew up in elite Communist circles, Aliyev continued to denounce the legitimacy of Armenia—the world’s oldest Christian state—as an artificial implant on Turkish territory. Just as Pius XII and his supporters justified his silence toward the Holocaust, so too do Francis’ cheerleaders ignore or excuse away his silence in the face of tyranny and genocide.

Progressives may embrace Pope Francis for his virtue signaling, but if historians focus on actions rather than words, then Francis’ legacy will be more Pius XII than John Paul II. The world should hope Francis’ successor will choose differently and realize the battle against evil cannot be won by words alone.