After Francis: what if they elect a pope under the banner “Make Church Great Again”?
After Pope Francis’s relatively “open” and “reformist” pontificate, will the Catholic Church face a traditionalist backlash, like American democracy in Trump’s second term?
The Catholic Church is, of course, an institution much older than modern divisions of right-left, liberalism-conservatism, and even traditionalism-progressivism. Nevertheless, global public opinion, at least in Western democracies, will await the results of the conclave, essentially asking themselves just one question: will the new pope be more “liberal” or “conservative”? Will the Church, after Francis’s relatively “open” and “reformist” pontificate, face a traditionalist backlash, the same fate as American democracy in Trump’s second term? Or, to put it in different terms: will the cardinals elect a pope under the banner of Make Church Great Again?
Conclave or The Young Pope
Referencing pop culture, we’ll soon find out whether we’ll see a scenario straight out of the film “Conclave” or rather from Paolo Sorrentino’s series “The Young Pope”.
In the first production, the dispute between liberals and conservatives paralyses the conclave, full of multi-layered intrigues and 5D political chess moves. Ultimately, a cardinal unknown to anyone, serving in Afghanistan, is elected, reminding the politicised purpurates of the “true meaning of Christianity” as a religion of radical love for one’s neighbour. At the same time, how the film—an adaptation of Richard Harris’s novel—understands the “true meaning of Christianity” is definitely closer to the more “liberal”, “open” currents of contemporary Catholicism than to the conservative ones. As we learn in a final plot twist, the new pope, due to his very identity, is someone suitable for the banners of woke Catholicism and a figure from the worst nightmares of groups like Ordo Iuris.
In Sorrentino’s series, the Church elects a young, telegenic American cardinal who perfectly understands contemporary media and pop culture. The new head of the Church takes the name Pius XIII and pushes the institution on a radically reactionary course. He dons the papal tiara again—a crown symbolising the monarchical nature of papal power—and also retrieves liturgical garments from church storage that were sent there over half a century ago, when after the Second Vatican Council, the Church attempted to adapt to the realities of the 20th century and modern industrial society.
The serial does not intend to adapt to anything. It is not the Church that must adapt to the world, but the world to the Church. For it is the Church that possesses the deposit of revealed, divine truth and has the right to demand that the world accept it: in thought, word, and deed. In the series, Pius XIII assumes the role of a severe prophet, a king-high priest at war against the modern world, waged with the help of the most modern means of communication, with pop-cultural and media proficiency that many a spin doctor might envy.
The Pope of Backlash
Of course, one could wonder whether it makes sense to speak of a backlash at all in the case of an institution as conservative and traditionalist as the Catholic Church. Contrary to the fears of conservative Catholics and the hopes of liberal-leftist public opinion, Francis has not fundamentally changed Catholic doctrine in its most problematic areas from the perspective of contemporary liberal values.
At the same time, in the case of institutions like the Catholic Church, seemingly small shifts in emphasis and priorities are significant. And here, credit must be given to Francis that the Church under his leadership was far less engaged in culture wars—on issues of “gender ideology”, “defence of life”, fighting “LGBT ideology”—than that of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, even if doctrinally nothing changed, and the former pope’s personal views were not particularly more progressive than his predecessors’.
Francis focused his message not on fighting the “liberal civilisation of death” but on issues such as climate change, ecology, migration, tensions between the global North and South. He spoke up for marginalised individuals, social groups, and areas of the globe—although his sensibility, shaped in the context of the Global South, led him to extremely naive, and sometimes simply outrageous, judgements on the war in Ukraine.
With all the limitations of Francis’s pontificate, we may miss him. Because it cannot be ruled out that soon we will see a pope who, instead of reminding us of the humanity of refugees, will call on Christian nations to defend themselves against “Muslim invasion”, and in domestic policy, instead of multiculturalism or reasonable tolerance towards different lifestyles, will focus on identity-Christian politics, forcing citizens who do not share Christian values to assimilate forcefully or reemigrate. Someone who will amplify the Church’s message hostile to the rights of women or LGBT+ people. A pope who will stop talking about poverty or inequalities, and will mention nature only in the context that people are to subdue it.
There is no shortage of candidates to push the papacy in this direction. The right-wing portal X is already conducting something like an online election campaign for several of them. Particularly popular—also among the most radical politicians of PiS and Konfederacja—is the cardinal from Guinea, Robert Sarah. The first pope from Africa, the first black pope, pushing the Church towards a reactionary backlash, to the sound of praise from the European radical right, who otherwise are convinced that “blacks have on average lower IQ than whites” and frighten their supporters with an “invasion from Africa.”It would perfectly fit into the era of applied political postmodernism. As pope, Sarah would express the spirit of the times. The US president, supported by the American religious right, is a multiple divorcee known for an affair with a porn star, the British Tories are led by Nigerian-raised Kemi Badenoch, convinced of the superiority of Western culture, while the extremely anti-immigrant German radical right AfD co-leader is led by a lesbian financier living with her Sri Lankan born partner.
The Vatican-Washington Axis
Cardinal Sarah will turn 80 in June. He was seriously marginalised in the Church during Francis’s time, and is not a favourite for the election. However, there is no shortage of candidates similar to him, such as the Hungarian Primate Péter Erdő, close to Orbán’s government. When, in 2017, Erdő was asked in a television interview whether the language used by Orbán’s government about migrants and refugees is in line with Church teaching, principles of Christian compassion, and love for one’s neighbour, he interrupted the conversation, refusing to answer.
Any backlash pope would have an ally not only in Budapest but also in Washington. Francis’s pontificate divided American Catholics, leading to open opposition from some of the more traditionalist circles. The conflict was so sharp that the former pope directly accused American Catholics who were in conflict with him of a “reactionary approach”.
This group, although a minority of American Catholics, has gained significant political influence in the country thanks to Trump’s presidency. The current president, even in his first term, reached for traditionalist—and at the same time strongly pro-market—Catholics in his judicial nominations, including to the Supreme Court. Thanks to these nominations, it was possible to reverse the precedent in Roe vs. Wade and deprive American women of the right to abortion as a constitutional right.
Finally, Steve Bannon—one of the key ideologues of the MAGA movement—and Vice President Vance are associated with this group. As the Financial Times writes, conservative Catholics in the United States are now eagerly awaiting the results of the conclave and a pope who will “make the Church great again”.
What could a backlash bring?
What would be the political consequences of electing a pope under the MCGA (Make Church Great Again) banner? It would certainly bring great psychological reinforcement to the radical right across the Euro-Atlantic world, including Poland. This reinforcement would most likely not be strong enough to significantly influence election results in Poland—outside a small niche, figures such as Cardinal Sarah and other conservative pope candidates do not evoke any real social emotion. However, a pope under the MCGA banner would give the right hope that, even despite defeat in the presidential elections, global trends favour them and that they may soon return to power.
Traditionalist Catholics are convinced that the West is declining because it is losing its Christian character, and that it is losing its Christian character partly because the Catholic Church has become too “liberal”. Because instead of warning against sin and fall, and also standing guard over eternal, revealed laws, it has unnecessarily been trying to adapt to the contemporary world for several decades. Being unable to offer a real alternative to its spiritual “diseases” of late modernity—this argument continues—the Church condemns itself to irrelevance and loss of the faithful.
If a traditionalist wins in the conclave, the belief that a pope thundering against the sins of modern civilisation will convert the West and attract the faithful back to the Church would most likely soon be subjected to a rather painful empirical verification. A pope under the MCGA banner would accelerate the divorce from the Church of further groups of faithful in Europe. At the same time, it would integrate around the Church a determined, modernity-hostile group, often openly reactionary and ready to use political power to impose its values on the entire society. That may turn out to be a more problematic scenario than a socially broader but lukewarm Church.
Jakub Majmurek is a publicist and film critic
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