Beyond Francis: Will His Controversial Legacy Be Continued?

The film Conclave (2024), directed by Swiss filmmaker Edward Berger and nominated for eight Oscars, depicts a “secret” Church with atheist, libertine, and homosexual cardinals who must elect the next pope after the death of the predecessor, a liberal Catholic with the highly improbable name of Gregory XVII. The race for the papacy addresses many themes that are not exclusive to the progressive fantasies of the director but are indeed topics that keep the pre-conclave debate alive: female ordinations, the end of clerical celibacy and the overcoming of male-female dichotomy, the queer agenda, and transgenderism ideology. The film ends with the revelation of the intersexual identity of the newly elected Pope, who is forced to undergo a surgical removal of the uterus. What an unexpected twist. Here we are beyond the feminist dream of Pope Joan; we have directly Pope Androgynous.

The film is unsettling because, by exaggerating reality, it describes (and normalizes) the dreams of a now not-so-insignificant portion of the contemporary Catholic clergy, which is preparing—this time for real—for the election of Francis’s successor. The last twelve years of the pontificate have been characterized by an agenda radically opposed to traditional Catholic values. To understand Francis’s agenda, one must look at the speech given by the ultra-modernist Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini (1927-2012), the ‘antepapa’ (‘the one before the Pope’), as he liked to call himself, who sought to promote Bergoglio’s election during the 2005 conclave. In 1999, during the Synod of European Bishops, the former Archbishop of Milan identified four “knots to untie”:

• The knot of the “dramatic shortage of ordained ministers” (to be resolved with the introduction of viri probati, i.e., married priests who are not necessarily ordained);
• The knot of the “role of women in the Church” (to be resolved with gender equality in roles of formation and decision-making, with the ultimate goal of introducing female ordination as in historic Protestant churches); 
• The knot of “sexuality” (to be resolved with the overcoming of Humanae Vitae);
• The knot of “marriage discipline” (to be resolved with the normalization of civilly remarried divorced couples, with the ultimate goal of also normalizing LGBT couples).

These four knots have been central to Pope Francis’s governance, even though they have not been fully “resolved” as hoped. Regarding the first knot, the Amazon Synod (2018) turned out to be a fiasco, and the introduction of viri probati faded away. Regarding the second knot, rather than issuing striking and divisive magisterial documents, it was decided to act directly by placing women from the Bergoglian entourage in more or less important positions in the Curia (for example, in 2025, the case of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life, or the case of the Vatican Governorate, going against the Fundamental Law of the Vatican State promulgated by Francis himself). Regarding the third knot, the publication by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith of the controversial document Fiducia supplicans (2023) opened the possibility of blessing LGBT couples “as couples,” thus paving the way for their normalization within the Catholic Church. Regarding the fourth knot, the publication of Amoris Laetitia (2016) effectively initiated a revolution in traditional theology concerning not only Marriage but also two other sacraments fundamental to every Catholic’s life, namely Confession and the Eucharist.

Another very important document, to be understood as a “necessary corollary” of this entire agenda, is certainly Traditionis custodes (2021), which, by prohibiting the Traditional form of the Roman liturgy, has effectively sought to block any attempt to restore Catholic doctrine and morality. Progressives, indeed, know well, just as conservatives and traditionalists do, that the liturgy reflects and transmits a precise way of understanding the deposit of faith. In short, the reign of Francis (which now seems to be coming to an end, but is in fact a long sunset that has been ongoing since at least 2023) has meant, following an hermeneutic of rupture from the Second Vatican Council, the relativization of morality after a previous phase of relativizing ecumenical relations. A necessary step to arrive at the relativization of doctrine. A new phase, therefore, of the “revolutionary pastoral” initiated, more or less consciously, by Paul VI and interrupted—but not resolved—during the reigns of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. 

A phase that will not end with the death or abdication of Francis because it remains incomplete, and has been effectively countered from several fronts, not only by those ecclesiastics presented by the media as ‘enemies’ of Bergoglio but also by many who initially, out of naivety, conviction, or convenience, appeared to be ‘friends’ of Francis. An example of this is the revolt of the high-ranking African prelates against Fiducia supplicans. Who will take the reins of this Revolution after Francis?

Many names of potential popes have been mentioned in recent days. Remembering the well-known Roman adage that says, “He who enters the conclave as pope, leaves it as a cardinal” (and hoping it applies in this case as well), we must recall what happened during the 2013 Conclave, which saw the election of the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires, to try to hypothesize what might happen during the next one. 

At that historical moment, the conservatives proposed the Italian Angelo Scola (behind suggestions and hopes of the abdicated Benedict XVI), while the progressives proposed, more skillfully, the Brazilian Odilo Scherer. I say skillfully because Scherer was actually a ‘decoy name,’ a diversion to be exposed in the media to conceal the real candidate, namely Bergoglio. Scherer appeared, all in all, as a moderate, enough to attract the sympathies of Bertone and Sodano, but some hidden sympathies were also known, which then suddenly emerged after the Amazon Synod. Scherer soon took a back seat, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio was proposed as a ‘compromise pope,’ known at the time for being a centrist, if not even a conservative, given his pro-Peronist and officially anti-Marxist past. The media played a very important role, spreading insinuations and false news that found credibility among many cardinal electors.

A similar strategy could be implemented during the next Conclave. In the media, for example, much is said about the Filipino Tagle and the Italian Zuppi, two extremely progressive cardinals very close to Francis, who, however, are unlikely to gather the necessary votes for election, given the widespread discontent after twelve years of authoritarian, repressive governance that disregards the laws governing the Church. The media exaltation of their (real) neo-modernist positions could frighten conservative cardinals and, in general, those disappointed by Bergoglio. Tagle and Zuppi, therefore, could be the new ‘decoy names,’ behind which the real candidates of the heirs of the St. Gallen Group could be hiding. 

We can propose two hypotheses: the Italian Pietro Parolin, current Secretary of State, and the influential Portuguese José Tolentino de Mendonça. Both have been presented as centrists or even close to the ‘conservative cause’ (let’s not forget the decisive role apparently played by Parolin in stopping the blasphemous exhibition in Carpi, Italy, promoted by the local bishop). The problem is that these prelates are anything but centrists, certainly not moderates.

Let’s start with Pietro Parolin. A skilled diplomat and man of power, he was trained at a young age under the wing of Achille Silvestrini (the true mastermind behind the St. Gallen Group) and was recommended by him to Bergoglio as the ideal man for the governance of the Secretariat of State. He is the heir and continuer of the Ostpolitik implemented by Casaroli with the Soviet Union, now with Communist China. Parolin is, in fact, the true architect of the still-secret agreements between the Vatican and Beijing. He is also one of the minds behind Traditionis Custodes and—significantly—participated in the secret meetings of the Bilderberg Group in 2018, a globalist lobby known for its ‘woke’ and socialist agendas. One of the main themes of that year was the “alarming rise of populism worldwide.”

As for Mendonça he has expressed favorable positions towards the inclusion of various realities in the Church, including remarried divorcees and homosexuals. Praising Amoris Laetitia, he said, “We live in the midst of the city, in this space full of borders, full of invisible walls and existential blocks […]. Whether it is remarried Christians, wounded by failed marital experiences or the reality of new families, or homosexuals, they must find in the Church a place of listening, welcome, and mercy.” He is also the author of the preface to the book La théologie féministe dans l’histoire (Fragmenta Editorial, 2007) by his friend, the French feminist nun Teresa Forcades. He enjoys great influence among South American prelates, especially Brazilians, as well as within the Sant’Egidio Community (to which the aforementioned Zuppi belongs) and the Society of Jesus, from which Bergoglio himself comes, and which could push him as an alternative to another great favorite of the Jesuits, the Maltese Mario Grech.