Con-clave

The New Right and the battle for the Vatican

Barely had Christ risen from the dead than his vicar on earth joined them. The good mourned and the wicked suggested that the visit to the Vatican hours earlier of the world’s most influential Catholic convert, J.D. Vance, had finally convinced the ailing Francis that it was past time to depart. The long-prepared obituaries hit the online editions. The New York Times opened with this summary:

Pope Francis, who rose from modest means in Argentina to become the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff, who clashed bitterly with traditionalists in his push for a more inclusive Roman Catholic Church, and who spoke out tirelessly for migrants, the marginalized and the health of the planet, died on Monday at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. He was 88.

And – pretty much unnoticed by those of us whose knowledge of church politics is informed more by Robert Harris than by the Catholic Herald – Pope Francis was heartily loathed by the conservatives inside and outside the church, some for doctrinal reasons and others as an extension of their politics. I only became aware of it when covering the National Conservative movement, with its melding of ethnonationalism, illiberalism and anti-feminism. It took me by surprise; who knew that the Latin mass was an issue?

A small flavour of this rancour was immediately offered underneath the X post announcing the Pope’s death by an American with 612,000 followers who wrote “Pope Francis was the worst Pope we had in years. Hopefully we can get a pro-Trump, conservative Pope in now”.

In this country the secular campaign against Francis has been most prominently (and far more elegantly) waged in the Spectator magazine by its Catholic commentator Damian Thompson. Thompson is a fine polemical writer and his recent guide to the runners and riders to succeed Francis is a fascinating read. But he can be sententious and intolerant. For example, he recently described Nancy Pelosi’s view on abortion – one shared by most Britons and a plurality of Americans - as “disgusting”, where “mistaken” might have served his Christian purpose better. Thompson is also a campaigner for the Latin mass to be permitted in Catholic churches and used his social media account to promote a petition against Francis’s prohibition of a return to such services. It gained a tad over 15000 signatures. It’s fair to say that the yearning for the Latin mass tends to go together with a desire to return to the good old days of Catholic conservatism and Catholic rulers. Which is not to say that Francisco Franco is about to be rehabilitated. God forbid.