What This Congenital Catholic Thinks About
Pope Francis and the Papacy
American Thinker,
by
Alicia Colon
Original Article
Posted By: Mercedes44,
4/30/2025 6:46:39 AM
Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome, and head of the Roman Catholic Church died Easter Monday morning and his funeral was attended by thousands of mourners and a few faux Catholics like the Bidens and Nancy Pelosi.
Almost immediately after his death was announced, the media was swarmed with responses from Hollywood stars and other celebrities expressing their sympathy for the passing of this ‘beloved’ pontiff. Many other Catholics, conservative and fundamentalist, more likely silently thought, Ding, Dong, the pope is dead.” I, myself, do not believe that Pope Francis was an evil man,
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
K620 4/30/2025 7:14:34 AM (No. 1942647)
(I think the article was written by Alicia Colon, not Monica Showalter).
11 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
philsner 4/30/2025 7:27:21 AM (No. 1942655)
At the end of the article, The Thinker corrected the error of attribution.
But I must say that the article is perfect. Many posters have claimed the Pope Francis has "destroyed" the Catholic Church. The author calmly explains that The Holy Spirit protects the Catholic Church, as so many leftists have discovered; men cannot destroy it.
21 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Venturer 4/30/2025 7:41:39 AM (No. 1942666)
Perhaps the Church cannot be destroyed, but Francis and some other Popes throughout history have put a hurt on it.
I don't consider Pope Francis as evil, I consider him as wrongheaded .After all Popes are humans and humans are not infallible. Despite what the Church doctrine is. Todays population is not your early 20th. century population. Many of today's Catholics are not frightened by the Church's historical rules into believing what they are told to believe.
22 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
5 handicap 4/30/2025 7:42:20 AM (No. 1942668)
As much as love Monica I must point out that she failed to mention the one thing about Frank that is unforgivable, He was involved with the "Coverup" of the 100+ rapes of Semenarians and untold Alter Boys by the Cardinal Of Washington DC Theodore McCarrick! That is why Frank is cozying up to Lucifer for the eternity to follow!
21 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Msquared112 4/30/2025 8:16:07 AM (No. 1942699)
The Holy Spirit does not, as Catholics believe, protect institutions such as the Catholic Church. He protects individual Christians who are saved by grace whether they belong to the Catholic Church or other valid Christian denominations. It is individual Christians who make up the "Church." The Church's foundation is Christ, not the Pope.
43 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Rather Read 4/30/2025 8:43:15 AM (No. 1942710)
Excellent article. I am 74 and a life long Catholic. I hope and pray for a good and holy Pope to follow Pope Francis. He will need to be a diplomat too.
21 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Jesuslover54 4/30/2025 8:57:45 AM (No. 1942718)
Thank you, Alicia, for an eye-opening and compassionate perspective.
13 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
mc squared 4/30/2025 9:37:58 AM (No. 1942732)
Far be it from me to argue with Ms Colon, but her laundry list of 'bad popes' didn't do anything to change my mind about the papacy.
12 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
udanja99 4/30/2025 10:02:13 AM (No. 1942741)
One of my many problems with Francis was his failure to excommunicate Biden and Pelosi, among others, for their steadfast support of the murder of unborn children. He should have made examples of them by doing that and doing it publicly. It made me wonder if he was really pro-life at all.
33 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Wetenschapper 4/30/2025 10:35:34 AM (No. 1942759)
I think that I probably share the opinion of some previous posters when I say the Fancis was a decemt man, but he was in over his head; sort of the Jimmy Carter of Catholicism.
10 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
cor-vet 4/30/2025 10:38:35 AM (No. 1942763)
While I agree wholly with Poster #9, I also remember a much better Pope, now a Saint, that failed to address Pelosi, Biden and the killer from Mass., Ted Kennedy.
9 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
ARKfamily 4/30/2025 10:46:36 AM (No. 1942769)
From the article: "I believe he was a very compassionate man who cared deeply for the disenfranchised and those people who are considered unworthy sinners by judgmental critics. He has been quoted as saying, “Who am I to judge?” when confronted by reporters after advocating that gay and lesbian couples be allowed to have their own families, allowed priests to bless gay couples, and cleared the way for transgender Catholics to be baptized and even serve as godparents."
I understand what was being said but I think Pope Francis was very misguided. He was placed in a leadership position and guided/influenced people away from God's ways. It isn't up to me to say if this person or that person is evil. Number one, I am not God and number two, I do not have the ability to clean up other people's hearts. I can only work on mine which leads me to my next point.
There are people who believe that Jesus died on the cross and it is like a "get out of jail free" card for them. They believe they can now live in ways alternative to God's ways. I firmly believe that there are less and less churches talking about repentance. Sure, they will talk about forgiveness but the repentance part of the message seems to get lost. We are all sinners but Jesus tells us we are to be repentant sinners and we are to set ourselves apart and do not live in the ways of the world.
I think this is a very interesting article and I never heard of a eucharistic miracle. Remember how dismissive people were of the Shroud of the Turin?
14 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
JimBob 4/30/2025 10:48:58 AM (No. 1942770)
I did not like the man, did not like his policies.
I believe that he did major damage to the Catholic Church.
Still, his passing brings me no joy.
I do hope (but I am not hopeful) that the Church bureaucrats will select a better, more traditional-Catholic-values person to be the next Pope.
14 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
FormerDem 4/30/2025 11:02:04 AM (No. 1942782)
Thank you, Alicia. perfecto.
4 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Kate318 4/30/2025 11:11:00 AM (No. 1942797)
#5, you are entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts. The Catholic Church is indeed protected by the Holy Spirit. I realize this does not sit well with non-Catholic Christians, but that is a YP, not an OP.
10 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
NotaBene 4/30/2025 12:54:11 PM (No. 1942898)
Francis brought the taste of Peronism to the World. My Mass, and many more, was closed because of his Traditiones Custodes edict. His hostility to Latin led to the FBI infiltrating Latin Mass communities. The Jesuits are not naïve, they are the main promoters of the LGBTSJ scourge.
13 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
RayLRiv 4/30/2025 1:08:31 PM (No. 1942907)
Liberation theology is a theological movement that emerged in the 1960s, particularly in Latin America, which emphasizes the Church's role in addressing social and political injustices, especially poverty and oppression.
This might explain the liberal bent of that Papal movie (not Conclave) made in 1968 starring Anthony Quinn, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier and David Janssen - The Shoes Of The Fisherman. It was a box office failure - but by the end of the movie the elected Pope (Quinn) was ready to give all the Catholic Church's riches to a starving China (like the Catholic Church would REALLY surrender its wealth)
5 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Timber Queen 4/30/2025 1:17:09 PM (No. 1942911)
Thank you, Alicia, for writing about the Eucharistic Miracles. No Protestant congregation has such evidence that their "communion" is truly the Body and Blood of Christ. The oldest is from the 8th century and the newest from the 20th, yet all of them are the AB blood type and test as cardiac tissue - the Sacred Heart of Jesus - long before human beings had any idea of blood types or the ability to identify which part of the body a particular piece of flesh originated. It is also believed that Jesus's heart was pieced by the Roman soldier's spear.
Jesus warned His believers that "the smoke of Satan" would infiltrate His Church, but would not prevail. In the history of the Catholic Church we've had worse popes than Francis. We've even had schisms where there were two or three men claiming the Chair of Peter. The central point is that the core teaching of the Catholic Faith, the True Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist, have never been disputed. I pray we get another St. John Paul II, but that decision is up to the Holy Spirit. No matter who is elevated to the position, the Catholic Church will survive until the Second Coming of Our Lord. I was born, baptized and raised a Catholic. I fell away from Christ and his Church for twenty years. This year is my thirtieth anniversary back, and active, in my Faith. I will never deny His True Presence in the Eucharist again.
God bless our cardinals with discernment, inspiration and guidance.
AMDG.
10 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
swarfer 4/30/2025 3:38:44 PM (No. 1943024)
Francis’ slipped into relativism. Pope Paul VI warned the Church about the desire to please everyone by blurring the lines of absolute truth in the process. Francis’ justification for opposing capital punishment under any circumstances is classic relativism, we have the ability to keep dangerous people incarcerated so we don’t need the death penalty. His “Who am I to judge” is another classic case of relativism. All Catholics are supposed to recognize sin and avoid it, not deciding how sinners should be punished
8 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
bighambone 4/30/2025 7:14:02 PM (No. 1943124)
Well should Popes stick to religious dogma or involve themselves in secular politics? It’s a pretty sure thing that the late Pope advised Biden, who did not really know which way was up, and who portrayed himself as being the most devout Catholic politician of the modern era, while supporting abortion; to regardless of the US Immigration laws, to “open” the US borders to all so-called irregular migrants from the Third World, who are illegal aliens in accordance with the US Immigration laws, and as we can see a unlawful migration that included all sorts of foreign criminals, so that they could supposedly make “better lives” for themselves. Of course that initiative was wholeheartedly supported by the leftist and progressive Democrats who now do not support any illegal aliens being removed (deported) from the USA, and instead intend to pass so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” legislation that would amount to a massive amnesty for just about all illegal aliens now in the USA, and place them on a Democrat designed “path to citizenship” with the intention to transform as many millions as possible into future leftist and progressive Democrat supporters and voters in the years ahead. Common sense will tell you that if the leftist and progressive Democrats get their way, that it will encourage and invite more mass uncontrolled illegal immigration into the USA on into the future.
2 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
The Remnants 4/30/2025 9:39:06 PM (No. 1943196)
I heard someone say that he was not a good Shepherd. I think that is true.
3 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
dovestar 4/30/2025 11:24:55 PM (No. 1943226)
While it is true that Pope Francis sounded very prolife, even describing abortionists as like mafia hitmen, he also praised pro abortion advocate , Emma Bonino and appointed pro abortion economist Mariana Mazzucato, to the Pontifical Academy for Life! The man was a true Peronist, switching from left to (occasional) right. No, he did not destroy the Church but he sure knew how to as he would say, -Make a mess-. I still pray that he converted in time.
2 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
dovestar 4/30/2025 11:31:00 PM (No. 1943230)
I would also like to add for anyone interested, there's an excellent book, Eucharistic Miracles by Joan Carroll Cruz. Yes, our Lord and Savior DID establish not just a religion or faith but founded a Church with the authority to teach and provide God's Grace through the Sacraments. And yes, the Holy Spirit does and WILL protect it, if even just a remnant, until He returns. Laudem Dei!
3 people like this.
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