Sometimes there are cases of arrhythmia and collapse, but the heart of the Vatican usually functions according to the dialectic of systole and diastole. The contraction phase precedes the relaxation phase, so that the direction of the Church is identified with conservative and open-minded popes, not so much because one renounces the other, but because the ecclesiastical institution itself benefits from the dynamic of contrast.
John XXIII was the diastolic remedy to the “nineteenth-century” doctrine of Pius XII, just as the severity of Paul VI corrected the conciliar excesses of the Good Pope. And not because Monsignor Montini was a Bad one, but because the apostolic-systolic purpose of relativizing certain counterproductive or overly interpretable advances prevailed.
Other historical episodes can be mentioned in the same “antagonistic” logic. And not only because the extroversion of John Paul II gave rise to the introversion of Benedict XVI, but because the example of Francis predisposes a “corrective” alternative, regardless of the fact that 80% of the voting cardinals were appointed by Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
That is why it is not advisable to exaggerate the connotations of a College of Cardinals tailored to the deceased. Francis cannot exercise any influence. Because the mission belongs to the Holy Spirit (according to believers). And because the temptation of continuity involves a dangerous game of comparisons in the mind of the successor. This is even more so in the case of a pope, Francis, whose populist and demagogic notion of his office burns away the streetwise and gestural parody that his epigone could have fallen into. This is not the time to open, but to close. And to qualify so many unrestrained opinions that Bergoglio has improvised by breaking down the fourth wall.
The dynamic, in reality, is consistent with the perception of things. We have become accustomed to categorizing pontiffs not by what they are or what they do, but by what they appear to be and what they say. Francis himself had acquired such popularity among progressives that he was credited with miracles he never performed and feats he never accomplished.
The choice of patronymic is far from Franciscan modesty and piety. It adds to a covert megalomania that has allowed Bergoglio to distinguish himself in the revolution when he has not changed one iota in his tolerance towards homosexuals, women, or divorcees. Much less so on core issues such as gay marriage, euthanasia, or abortion. It is understandable that the Church considers these issues to be incorruptible taboos, but it is incomprehensible that the discourse of the left—from Madrid to Caracas, from Rome to Mexico—has condescended to the ultra-conservative positions of the pontiff it so idolizes.
We do not know who Francis II will be, assuming he chooses such a name and inertia (which is doubtful) but the Church’s coronation dynamics imply a period of fixation and reflection, among other reasons because Bergoglio has been more of a slum priest than a repository of doctrinal and liturgical obligations. The very trivialization of his “mandate” has degraded the aesthetic dimension of the Church and “desecrated” the conclusions of the distant Council of Trent, when Roman Christianity understood that the struggle against the Reformation had to be conceived from the stupor and suggestion of art. And from the pictorial, architectural, and musical splendor that led to the glory of the Baroque, this time allowing Borromini and Bernini to channel the flow of systolic and diastolic energy.
The Church has universalized itself with zeal since John Paul II became the ubiquitous shepherd of the flock. He was bored in Rome. Rome bored him. And it was Benedict XVI’s task to rebuild the roots of the capital of Christianity, carefully tending the shadow of the founding olive tree.
Such a perspective opens the way for the conclave to a papacy of “disagreement,” but it should be clarified that revolutionary pontiffs, such as Francis, have been very un-revolutionary. And that popes with a conservative reputation have been more convincing in stretching the seams of the Church. No one demonstrates this better than Joseph Ratzinger, more divine than anyone else when ritual connected the Church with heaven, and more human and weak than anyone else when his frailty led him to break the Fisherman’s Ring into pieces and surrender before St.
