The obituary superlatives helped tell the tale of the late Pontiff. A search of the most common words or themes used to describe Pope Francis testifies to a “pontificate of the heart” characterized by “personal warmth,” “mercy,” “fraternity,” “humility,” “compassion,” and an emphasis on “inclusion,” the suspension of judgment, and peace. These characteristics often served his mission well. His embrace of Vinicio Riva, the then-53-year-old Italian who had suffered from neurofibromatosis 1 since childhood rightly touched the world. Riva, covered head-to-toe in tumorous growths and lesions unsurprisingly found himself often reviled by those around him, described the moment Francis embraced and blessed him: “He drew me close and hugged me tightly; he gave me a kiss on the face. My head was against his chest, and he welcomed me…and while he did it, I felt only love.” Nothing negative can be said against this. It was a profound, defining, and deeply moving pastoral moment. It should never be forgotten.
On other occasions, however, this pontificate of the heart was less effective, and much must be said against it. When Francis began his reign in the spring of 2013, the Vatican had a reputation for moral clarity manifest in the forceful defense of human rights, world order, and persecuted Christians, and in spiritual and exhortatory resistance against political and religious tyranny. When he was a young man, John Paul II cut his anti-totalitarian teeth resisting Nazism in his native Poland. As pontiff, he would be credited with helping to inspire the Polish Solidarity movement and the defeat of communism. He successfully advocated for democracy in illiberal nations, stood against communism in Central America, and supported resistance movements against authoritarianism worldwide, most memorably in the Philippines. I do not see such political action as contrary to his spiritual duties, but rather as a manifestation of them. The Gospel is good news for all creation—including the widow and the orphan and the oppressed. More than merely (merely?!?!) the good news of personal salvation, the Gospel involves the restoration of all things. Humanity, especially Christ-followers, have a responsibility in this, not an ultimate or primary one, but a pen-ultimate and delegated one.
In a similar way, Francis’ immediate predecessor, Benedict XVI, spoke forcibly against Islamist intolerance of other religions, including the commitment to the spread of Islam by the sword. While his wording might sometimes have invited misunderstanding, his focus was clearly aimed at opposing violent ideology and to supporting the necessary separation of religious and political authority.
On such issues, Pope Francis leaves behind no such similar legacy. Instead, Francis too often offered only confusion and simplistic thinking where moral clarity was already in short supply. Among much else, I think especially of comments regarding Ukraine and Israel. In 2022, when the world needed wise direction, Francis blamed NATO expansionism rather than Kremlin aggression for fueling the Russian attack. Even after the massacres at Bucha, the devastation of Mariupol, and the continued targeting of Ukrainian civilians, Francis could not disabuse himself of false moral equivalence. Instead, he continued to condemn both the distribution of weapons to Ukraine and the economic sanctions on Russia.
This moral equivalence appeared to metastasize cruelly with Francis’ response to Israel’s war against Hamas. While he was quick to condemn the October 7th crimes and to support Israel’s right to defend itself, Francis pivoted quickly to regular criticism of the way Israel did so. He insisted IDF tactics had escalated “beyond war” and had become “terrorism.” Later, he would call for an investigation into Israeli strikes by couching his own criticisms in a veiled gesture to “some experts” who believed that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”
Behind Francis’ muddled thinking on particular cases was his larger inability to think clearly about war in general. A decade ago, Francis pilloried weapons manufacturing as an “industry of death” and declared those who produce arms to be “merchants of death.” He grouped them with slavers and human traffickers who will have a hard time accounting for their actions before God. He would later direct his fire to the just war tradition itself, insisting that “At one time we also spoke in our churches of holy war or just war. Today we cannot speak like that.” Instead, he insists “we can no longer think of war as a solution, because its risks will probably always be greater than its supposed benefits.” He opined: “every war leaves our world worse than it was before.”
This would have been news to John Paul II—to say nothing of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church itself. While wary of even a just war’s ability to grow disproportionate or indiscriminate, JPII recognized that sometimes nothing else will rescue the threatened innocent quite like good men with guns. He understood that the evil regimes that defined the middle of the 20th century ended only when those good men had sufficiently destroyed them. It is, simply, empirically untrue that war always leaves the world worse than it was before.
Francis’ views of war were not simply nonsense. They were uncharitably reckless because they left those he was supposed to shepherd without a clear understanding of how to contend with evil in the world or how some might square their martial vocation with their Christian commitments.
I haven’t found any concrete declarations from Francis’ successor, Leo XIV, regarding his views on war and just war responsibilities against evil. I do not know what he will say to the Roman Catholic warfighter—indeed, to any Christian warfighter or, by extension, any warfighter standing in the Hebraic tradition or another moral-theological tradition—to help them square martial responsibility and theological piety. I do know the world needs moral clarity. A glance at the horizon suggests we may need that clarity rather urgently.
There need be no contradiction—even if there is tension—between Christian love and Christian commitment to fighting right fights rightly. A good pastor can care for his flock—even when a part of his flock stands on a perimeter between the innocent and the beasts. My hope is that Leo XIV serves both the Lamb of God even as he lives up to his own name and stands alongside the Lion of Judah.