The ‘Transitus’ of Francis
Ever since his selection of an unprecedented—and intimidating—papal name, Pope Francis has invited comparison to St. Francis of Assisi. Like fellow religious founder St. Benedict, St. Francis has in addition to his main feast day on October 4 a celebration the previous day of his transitus, or passing over from this life to the next. In the case of the poverello, this is particularly appropriate given his fondness for “Sister Death” and for the cross of Christ as evinced by his stigmata. It also coheres with an overall ethos in his spirituality—shown in the famous memento mori paintings by Zurbarán and Ribera—of the fragility of life and its constant closeness to death.
Recent weeks have seen Pope Francis undertake his own transitus of sorts. While at this writing he remains alive and headed in a positive direction health-wise, his age (eighty-eight) and increasingly fragile health certainly augur the last phase of his pontificate, whether measured in days, months, or years. Authors and cardinals alike have anticipated such a change for many years, but the prospect of an imminent papal transition seems more likely now than at any point since the waning days of John Paul II. The power vacuum that opened up within the Vatican (largely occupied by the Machiavellian Angelo Cardinal Sodano) during that period has served as a cautionary tale for his successors. Benedict XVI’s resignation was a clear reaction to his proximity to this situation (along with dynamics of his own pontificate, particularly the Vatileaks scandal), and Francis seems likely by temperament and his particular health issues to resign or die before carrying out the prolonged “witness of suffering” that John Paul did.
Francis’s health crisis has taken place at a fraught time for the Church and world. Dramatically, his last major teaching statement before entering the hospital was his unusually direct letter to the U.S. Catholic bishops rebuking in all but name Vice President J. D. Vance for his use of the ordo amoris to justify the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. Given Vance’s position as a darling (and mentee) of the Catholic intellectual right in the United States, particularly its “postliberal” wing, Francis could not have entered any more directly into the fray of U.S. Catholic politics. Clashes with American conservatives have not been unusual for Francis, but such an open rebuke gives a good picture of both his attitude toward the administration and his sense of having nothing to lose.
Perhaps more so than at any period since John Paul II’s height of admiration and influence in the early 1990s, Francis has restored—not without notable missteps—the papacy’s reputation for moral leadership on the international stage. This has been particularly crucial with the rise of right-wing populists exemplified by Trump and threats of democratic backsliding in the United States and elsewhere. Francis has recovered the strain of Catholic social teaching evinced by Jacques Maritain’s involvement in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Paul VI’s famous “Never again war!” speech at the UN General Assembly. Yet his pleas for peace in Ukraine and Gaza have fallen on deaf ears, echoing Benedict XV’s futile calls for an end to World War I; he has been less a power broker than a voice in the wilderness. This prophetic mode may seem like a reduction in power, but it is preferable to Pius XII’s diffident diplomatic posturing in the face of horrors.
Francis has thus been a strong pope in many ways, but also an embattled one. He has faced explicit internal opposition, including from bishops and cardinals, that would scarcely have been tolerated as patiently under John Paul II in particular. His immediate predecessor lived in the Vatican for almost the first decade of his pontificate and became a magnet for opposition to Francis. Yet Francis’s opponents have labeled him an autocrat or “dictator pope” precisely for charting his own course: for reopening (though in cases like women deacons, not moving forward with) conversations in the Church that had been shut down; advocating for synodality; and firmly establishing, against traditionalist opposition, that embracing Vatican II and its reforms are part and parcel of what it means to be Catholic in the twenty-first century.
Papal transitions are always treacherous periods, when the proverbial sharks come out to seek and wield influence. This is particularly so for a pope whose enemies have wanted him dead or otherwise out of the way practically since he arrived on the scene. The Red Hat Report, an effort by conservative American donors to produce exposés on all the cardinals, particularly strong candidates for the papacy, will re-emerge, given its funders’ interest in ecclesial as well as secular politics. Knowing those motivations and the increasing ruthlessness of right-wing forces in the Trump era, its findings should be taken with a grain of salt. Beyond a few examples, such as Luis Cardinal Tagle, the cardinals likely to be candidates have had lower profiles, before the press and among one another, than some of the well-known figures in recent conclaves. The transitus of the Church, like that faced by Francis himself—whether tomorrow, next week, or next year—moves into an unknown future. It is for this reason that Catholics facing such potentially frightening eventualities are taught to put trust not in princes—of this world or of the Church—but in the Holy Spirit.
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