Frontpage Magazine published "Is Francis Really the Pope?" (May 2, 2022).
It appears that the question is more motivated by Francis' "teaching" since taking the Chair of Peter rather than the still questionable events that brought him there. In other words: "Is Francis a bad pope?"
The history of the papacy is fraught with “bad popes.” Most famous were the Borgia and Medici popes, but several hundred years before them, around the turn of the First Millennium, there was what came to be known as “The Iron Age of the Papacy,” during which there were about 24 popes in 94 years because they kept assassinating each other. I’ll post a link to an article I wrote about it in the comments.
The good news about previous “bad popes” is they were too busy stealing, killing, and fornicating to teach anything. Not so Francis who oft appears to be rewriting the Catechism during off-the cuff rants on airplanes; which, other than a formal proclamation “ex cathedra,” would be official heresy and which would probably bring about the end of time since Jesus promised that “the gates of hell would not prevail,” which from one angle means that Jesus would show up before Satan prevailed over the Chair of Peter.
However, “who am I to judge?”
As a Christian, I am required to believe that nothing, good or evil, happens without God’s permission (see Book of Job). And if Francis is causing confusion and other not-so-good stuff, then his papacy has lots of biblical precedent where, in dealing with the waywardness of the “chosen people,” God gave said “chosen” the leaders they deserved...and usually asked for.
In other words, at best Francis is simply a Latin American Jesuit come to the big city, and at worst, he is God’s justice for the millions and millions of Catholics who for decades have long since turned back to the fleshpots of Egypt.
