The Opinions - After Pope Francis: A Round Table With David French

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

In this episode, the Opinion columnist David French speaks with the writers and Catholics David Gibson and Leah Libresco Sargeant about the legacy of Pope Francis’ leadership in an age of sharp social division.Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail] episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Derek Arthur. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. The rest of the show's production team includes Vishakha Darbha and Jillian Weinberger. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The director of Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. I'm David French. I'm an opinion columnist at the Times where I write about law, politics, and religion. I'm not Catholic, but I've always admired Pope Francis. He was empathetic. He was compassionate. He cared for the most marginalized and vulnerable members of society. But I also knew that he'd become a bit of a lightning. rod within the church, both because of his own statements and decisions and because he was Pope during a particularly divisive time in world history. And of course, the church itself struggled with its own sharp divides over everything from gay rights to women's rights to the

traditional Latin Mass. Pope Francis came into office promising to make a mess to shake things up. To talk about how that played out in a fracture world, I'm here today with David Gibson and Leah Lebrezco Sergeant. David is the director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University. He once covered the Vatican as a journalist. Leah is a writer and author of the upcoming book, Dignity of Dependence. David and Leah, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me.

Great to be here. All right, let's just start with your own personal reflection. I'm very curious. How are each of you going to remember Pope Francis as a spiritual leader, as a person, Leah, let's start with you. You know, I think of him, first, as someone with such a gift for the personal and pastoral, that when he became Pope, I think a lot of us, including me, were really seized by particular details of him taking the bus like a normal person, settling his hotel bill, wanting to live simply and close to other people.

And I think we saw throughout his papacy that he was always at his best when he was confronted by an individual and had the opportunity almost to be an ordinary parish pastor to them alongside being the pope. And bringing that heart for an individual to the papacy was an enormous gift. At the same time, I think he really struggled as an institutionalist, both to reform some of the abuses, financial and sexual, within the church, and to leave a legacy that his following Pope can build upon. Yeah, I'd second much of that.

His real legacy and his identity, was as a pastor, as Leah said. And I think that's how he connected with people. That's how he connected with me to a degree. I mean, I was there in St. Peter Square and that March evening in 2013, when he was elected, he walks out on the balcony. And you're wondering, what's he going to be like?

Who is he? And he just says those simple words, Bonacetta, you know, is so affecting. It's just the vibe shift, I think, as we would say. But then, you know, he goes on. And then he said, before I bless you, He asked the crowd to bless him. And there's so many stories like that that went on in those initial days that I think cemented that feeling.

But I think that's what he did. He always asked you to pray for him. He said, I'll pray for you, but please pray for me. This is a hard job. And I think that it's, you know, very much who he was. But it's also, I think it's important to remember that vibe shift, if you will, that shift in the Catholic Church to the Pope as pastor. is something that's been going on for half a century, or more, since John the 23rd, and he accelerated that. You know, I'm evangelical Protestant. I did not grow up, to say the least, immersed in a Catholic world growing up in the South.

And the role of the Pope was always, I think, a little bit mysterious to non-Catholic listeners, to people who are on the outside looking in. How would you describe the role of the Pope right now? and the life of an ordinary Catholic. I think one of the challenges is that mass immediate media has changed the role of a pope, and I think in a way that's a real strain for ordinary Catholics. I personally, in my own media diet, try to get, if not all the way,

to the life of a medieval peasant, a little closer because a medieval peasant does not track which cardinals are entering into the conclave. They don't know who they are. It was actually a serious sin to bet on a conclave. And then at the same time, an ordinary Catholic doesn't usually get breaking news reporting of what the Pope said on a plane to an individual. And I think it's been a real challenge has been the flattening of the Pope's communications. So a pastoral comment to a particular individual in front of him goes around the globe in seconds,

often in kind of sketchy translations as guidance in a binding way for the whole church. And that's really shaking people's confidence in what is it that the Catholic Church teaches. And I think made it hard for Pope Francis to do what he does best, which is speak to individuals as individuals in their particular circumstances when everything he says is then picked up and reported as a teaching. Yeah, I think I'd pick up on a couple of things Leah said. One is, you know, it is important to realize that historically speaking, you've had 266 popes over almost 2,000 years. and for the vast majority of that time, nobody knew what the name of the current Pope was, literally. Yeah, absolutely.

And I grew up a Billy Graham evangelical, you know, and John Paul and Billy Graham got along together, which shocked my evangelical mother. First time I ever came to Madison Square Garden was for a Billy Graham crusade, as we called them back then. But, you know, the Pope started traveling around. Popes had never traveled around before, and they became the world's pastor.

And Catholics love that. And Catholics were so proud of that. And that's terrific. And it has real downsides. Because your actual parish and your actual pastor is where you live out your faith. And you can't live out your faith through any Pope, no matter how wonderful you think they are. So let me ask you this question. How much authority does the Pope have over church doctrine?

Because a lot of the debates from the outside appear to be that the selection of the Pope could potentially result in, say, changes in millennia of church teaching. But that is not necessarily the case that the Pope could, can just simply walk into the door and change church teaching. It's a bit more complicated than that as I understand it, and yet at the same time, you can't minimize the role of the Pope in the doctrine of the church. Help a non-Catholic listener understand the Pope's authority over church. and sort of how that plays into the theological and the cultural fights around the Pope.

You know, the Pope is a steward of what's been handed on to him. He's someone taking care of the deposit of faith and the faithful in a tender way at his best, right? But he is taking care of something that exists. He's not the author of the faith. And so, you know, what you see is not that the papacy works the way the presidency does, where someone comes in, signs executive of orders, flips things on, flips things off. There are things that can change, but the church has one truth all through the centuries. How do we share that truth with the world when there are different errors or different questions people are posing to us? You can think about the start of the church being a time of saying, who is God answering that question? And then after that,

tensions about who is Christ within the church? Today, a lot of the questions that the church speaks to in a relatively secular world where it comes into the most conflict with the world is who is man, who is woman, what does it mean to be a human being? And I think Pope Francis spoke well to questions about what he called the throwaway culture, where the world is often asking

the question, which people aren't people? Which people is it permissible to kill? In the womb, at the end of life, because of disability. Well, David, I think, you know, you really put your finger on the issue in you is an evangelical, David, you have understandable difficulty figuring out comprehending the role of the Pope, the authority of the Pope, what in the church can change, what cannot change. Well, you're

a good company because Catholics themselves don't understand that, so don't worry about it. And we get a lot of these things conflated, you know, and we have issues of dogma, doctrine, discipline. These things have various levels of authority. The Pope has supreme authority in the Catholic Church, and it's supremely limited. There are certain things that Pope can't do, he won't do. Unity is so important. No Pope wants to divide the church. A council that comes together, as in Vatican II, people might be most familiar with in the 1960s. That's when you're most likely to get actual changes happening. So it's a very slow process, but the whole question, David, that you put your finger on is, can the church change? You know, the old joke, how many Catholics

does it take to change a light bulb? And they're like, change? What do you mean change? We don't change. We tell the same joke about Presbyterians, so. Oh, really? I know. So many of us, more of us in various churches

than we'd like to admit, probably. But the question is really, and I think that's what, to my mind, that Pope Francis opened up the discussion on the church. Can the church change? Yes, it does. Let's be honest about it. How does the church change?

So let's move on to some of the divides and the controversies that are not just within the church, but also where the church is reflecting divides and controversies outside the church, because it's living in a culture. It's living in a national culture in the United States and a world culture around the globe. So I want to bring up something that my colleague, Ross Douth, that wrote. Ross has written a ton about Pope Francis. In fact, I sometimes feel like maybe I'm stepping on your beat a little bit here, Ross, sorry. But he wrote this week about how Hope Francis signaled in part of the, maybe the end or the decline of the imperial papacy was a phrase that he used,

that the institution of the church itself seems to be perhaps weakening, perhaps not. there have been elements where some divisions have spilled out into public life, such as when Pope Francis raised the possibility of blessing same-sex unions, there was strong pushback from bishops in Africa, for example. What do you make of this analysis that perhaps the institution itself or the authority of the papacy itself might be in the process of weakening? It is in the process of weakening, but it's been that way for centuries. especially in that institutional model, that monarchical model is deliberately going away and intentionally going away. But again, it gets back to a little bit

to what we were talking about at the opening part, which is this great visibility and this oversized presence of the Pope within the Catholic Church in this past century. And that has created an illusion that we have a command and control church where the Pope says this, And people do it. That's kind of the impression of Catholicism I grew up with. That's not really how it works, and that's not how it ought to work. Pope Benedict 16th was very good on the primacy of conscience. Even the church, he said, should not violate your conscience. You need to make these choices out of freedom. But again, I think the authority of the Pope, even over the centuries, has been exaggerated. There are, you know, kings and princes and paupers didn't do what the Pope said no matter what, no matter what.

how many bulls he issued. So I do think, you know, I think Ross is right, but I think it's sort of part of a process of the church shifting away from not just an institution, but also a kind of default culture and community. And that's the more troubling part, I think, is kind of losing that sense of culture and community that made people or led people to act organically in a sense of faith. That whole command and control thing of edicts coming down from on high is not a great way to operate and is always overrated. This is where I want to return to that tension moving Pope Francis's gifts for the individual and his struggles as an institutionalist. Because I think when we talk about how is Pope Francis doing as Pope as the person in charge,

we think about things like, when is he speaking in a way that people have to follow? And that really leaves out a lot of his role of kind of corraling. and managing and leading what is a large and complicated system of laws and banks and people and offices in a way where I think by his own measure he fell short of what he wanted to do, and there's been lasting harm and wounds as a result. When Pope Francis became Pope, he said he wanted to lead a poor church for the poor. And one thing I'd really highlight is it is the poor who benefit most from a system of rules and processes that are transparent and predictable.

When people lose their sense that they know the rules they're working under, it's harder to trust that you will be listened to if you don't have privilege access if you can't be in front of the Pope personally to plead your case. And I think in both the sexual abuse domain and the financial crimes domain, we really saw Pope Francis fail to offer a poor church for the poor in this sense. A church with clear, predictable rules applied transparently that someone who is poor, who is dispossessed, who is marginalized can come and ask. for justice and believe they will have it heard. I think we saw that very strongly in the case of Father Marco Rupnik, a repeated abuser of religious sisters who received kind of delayed consequences after delayed consequences remained in a position of influence in Rome. And the religious sisters who he hurt, they didn't get an audience with the Pope.

They didn't get that personal touch that he excels at, but they also didn't get the benefit of law. because Pope Francis liked to operate informally, and that left less room for the poor to appeal and expect their appeal would be heard. So, you know, I think we are living in a really interesting time here in the United States. You have a lot of alliance and a lot of unity

between theologically conservative Catholics and theologically conservative evangelicals, and this is something that has only kind of grown and deepened over the course of my lifetime. And so coming from that theological, conservative perspective in the evangelical world, I've been exposed to a lot of critiques of Pope Francis. It appears from my perspective that Pope Francis's leadership impacted American Catholic conservatives in a way that was perhaps particularly provocative. How do you see France's leadership

impacting the Catholic conservative community in the United States? I think this is where it's helpful to think about several different kind of gradations of what conservative means. Yeah, thank you for that. Yes, please. Pope Francis is sometimes lauded by the press as kind of a very liberal Pope because of his pastoral outreach to people who are gay or lesbian or transgender. He cares a great deal about the environment. And he also, when he talks about abortion, says this is like a mother hiring a hitman

to kill her child, right? So he does not fit neatly into the liberal or conservative boxes. of America. He can't be claimed or owned by either political party. However, the biggest tension is for folks who are deeply engaged in the church, love the church, and belong to more conservative parishes in the sense of the traditional Latin Mass in particular, which, to put my cards on the table, I've been to a number of times, but it wasn't really directly affected by his suspension of it in ordinary parish churches. But people who had found community who felt like they loved the church, were there for Jesus, didn't feel like they had any of the pastoral accompaniment that

he extends to other people, that people who are fully outside the church or doubting the church get the really warm personal Pope Francis who says, look, I want to walk with you, I want to explore your questions, your doubts, and bring you fully in. And the people who were there every Sunday loved their community also had some crazy people as part of their community. didn't get any of that. They said, you're the problem. And it didn't feel pastoral. It felt punitive and purely punitive. It didn't feel eternal either. David, I just want to get back to also the kind of taxonomy of conservative opposition, unrest, unease with Pope Francis. Part of it is this Latin right mass that the council and various popes since the 1960s have said, look, this is a dinosaur, that has to go away.

there are people who defend that mass are very passionate about it. They're very small, but there are other conservatives. There are just regular old political conservatives who think Pope Francis, like the media says, is a liberal. He talks too much about the poor. He talks too much about migrants, et cetera, et cetera. Just old-fashioned, you know, as a lot of Christians in America are. There are also, you know, a culture war conservatives who, for them, the main issues, abortion, contraception, gender issues, gay marriage, gay rights.

Those should be the main things, and they think Francis has not been good enough on those. I will say I just want to cite just for data is always nice with these things. And the Pew Research put out a comparative statistic said that when Pope Francis took office, 84% of right-leaning Catholics, however you want to describe them,

but right-leaning Catholics, had a favorable view of the Pope. 84%. In 2025, those numbers were down to, 69%. When he took office in 2013, 77% of left-leaning Catholics had a favorable view of the Pope in 2025, this year. That was up to 88%. Any president would envy those. The worst Pope's papal approval ratings are the best any president could ever hopeful. But it also goes to the fact that they do call him the Holy Father. He's seen as a very grandfatherly figure. You do look at, you know, this. outpouring when Pope Francis was sick going into the hospital in February. He's a spiritual leader above all, and people were united spiritually across the spectrum and people even outside the church, really. They had an affection for them. They had a good thought for him. In a sense,

everybody's like, oh, you know, what's going to happen if the Pope doesn't get back into the office and start running the church? That's not how it works, actually. There's like over 2,000 people who work in the Vatican and there are 1.4 billion Catholics around the world. Pretty hard to run it. Even Doge couldn't run the federal government with that few. The Pope is a symbol, but a potent symbol. Catholics believe symbols are really important. People love the Pope, for what he represents, but they don't always follow what he says.

That gives him almost a certain liberty to say, oh, I love the Pope, but yeah, I'm going to go use birth control or do whatever I want to do. They always love the singer, but they don't always like the song. So those kind of popularity numbers, but they still do tell something, David, of a significant degradation. Let's move on to the what now question.

So the conclave will commence. It's going to be a black box of mystery until the decision is revealed. But I want to hear from both of you on what are you hoping for and praying for in the next leader? And also, if you're paying close attention to this process, are there any individuals to sort of watch?

or any particular individuals who you think might emerge from the conclave? David, I do not bet on the papabile, and I don't prognosticate about the papabile, because, you know, for me, it's like for alcohol for some people. I can't touch it, not a drop. You know, I pray for all of them, and I know that God will raise whoever he needs to for the purposes he has, but I don't speculate on the horse race. What I pray for is just a man of great personal holiness and resilience, and with a certain amount of fearlessness to take on some of that sclerotic or informal law

to make it so that we do have a poor church for the poor that protects them through process as well as through pastoral accompaniment. And, you know, I also pray for someone who did one thing that Pope Francis did when he met with John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, and Boehner resigned the day after meeting him with tears in his eyes and a whole new outlook on life. I would like a Pope who is a little frightening for world leaders to meet with because they don't know what will happen. Will they meet with the Pope, go in for a photo op and come out crying

and with a whole new sense of how to live their life? So a little tension of when you go in for photo ops with the Pope that he might becking you into a new life. That's what I want. Well, J.D. Vance is still a vice president, and he met with Pope Francis the day before Francis died. So I don't know if that bane or magic was still enduring. But, David, I think you know, you can tell.

I think grade different levels of papal expertise by how willing a commentator is to pick the next pope. If you do, that's a fool's errand. And I empathize with Leah and what you want in a pope and the danger of picking the horse race. But the Cardinals don't have that luxury. This is their one job is to go in and vote for the next pope. And they've got to go in there and they've got to choose among their number. So they're about 135 of them. They're all gathering now, as we speak, in Rome.

and they're going to begin something called the general congregations. As they talk about different candidates, they don't know each other. This is the real, I think, key dynamic that people need to understand about the College of Cardinals. It's seen as an old boys club. But it's actually the opposite. They don't know each other. These next couple of weeks, David, they're critical for them to get a sense of who each other is. You're making the most important vote you could possibly make in the church.

and they need to get to know each other. So that's what's happening now. So there's about 1.3, 1.4 billion Catholics in the world. That's a lot of people, but there's still many more non-Catholics than there are Catholics. But the Pope's legacy goes well beyond the church. I have been deeply influenced by popes throughout my life and I'm not Catholic. What do you think Pope Francis's legacy is going to be? His legacy, I think, is going to be as a pastor, as a human, someone who could connect on a human level with so many people.

And that can seem like it's something that will die with him. But I don't think that's the case. I think this is set the bar, as John the 23rd did back in the early 1960s, a good Pope John, as he was called, or Hannah Arendt in her essay on him, called him a Christian on St. Peter's chair. That's really the process that we're talking about moving from this monarchical institutional church to a more pastoral church. And Pope Francis has supercharged that. I think his gift to the Christians of the world, not just the Catholics, is his profound witness against throwaway culture, which comes out, as David says, in his personal presence with people, people with disabilities, with prisoners, with babies, with the elderly. And I think what the church gives that not all Protestant denominations know how to give is it manages to pair that personal attention with the intellectual and theological foundations to support it.

So it's not just a matter of liking the person or having a positive feeling towards the person. We can ground our question of who is a person, who is it licit to kill, who is it illicit to throw away, both of that startling witness of his love and then the theological chops to back it up. I think Pope Francis's personal witness underlines the urgency of not treating people as trash, and that's only going to become more urgent as a question. He draws attention, and the church has the materials to back up his witness. If I could just add, his appeal is not just for believers, but he also had a great appeal to those outside the faith, outside the church,

maybe they have some vague belief, maybe they have no belief whatsoever. But I think that was also part of his genius and part of his legacy. And some of these things are life issues, climate change, human trafficking, all of these things that he was so strong about. In many ways, he was a prophet without honor in his own country, in his own church. Things that alienated many American Catholics attracted many people. outside the church to what he was preaching. Whether that has any effect in the pews,

that remains to be seen. It's probably doubtful. But it's an important aspect of his witness, which is fundamentally what the Pope is, is a witness to the faith. Well, David and Leah, this has been educational for me. I can guarantee you that. And I really, really appreciate the time you've taken

for this conversation. So thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. Thank you. It's been great. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Veshaka, Dharba, Christina Samuelski, and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Brusek, and Annie Rose Strasser.

Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabro, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amun Sahota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samuelski. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.