Know Your Enemy
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The Meaning of Pope Francis
🕑 Added 2025-04-25 11:01:11 +0000 UTCThe passing of Pope Francis on April 21, 2025 marked not just the end of a papacy but the end of an era in global politics. The moment in which Francis spoke before Congress a decade ago and identified Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King as models of Christian moral witness feels like another universe — far from the cruel, cramped, suspicious, and selfish world we are living in. What was the Francis era? Where did he come from, and how did he become pope? And what are we losing — besides a pretty good pope — with his passing from the mortal realm? Matt and Sam discuss the passing of Pope Francis and what his papacy meant (to us and to the world), why he scandalized the Catholic right, and why his message feels so necessary and yet so far away.
Further Reading:
Vinson Cunningham, "Many and One," Commonweal, Dec 14, 2020.
Dorothy Fortenberry, "The climate apocalypse is also a religious crisis," Vox, April 12, 2023.
Abeer Salman and Oren Liebermann, "The pope called them every night until his final hours. Now, Gaza’s Christians cling to the hope he left behind," CNN, April 23, 2025.
Matthew Sitman, "No, Pope Francis is Nothing Like Donald Trump," Commonweal, Feb. 26, 2016.
— "Pope Francis and Civil Unions: We Need Clarity, Not a Media Blackout," Commonweal, Oct. 27, 2020.
Pope Francis, Laudato si’ (“On Care for Our Common Home”), May 2015.
Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, Oct. 3, 2020.
Ross Douthat, "Francis and the End of the Imperial Papacy," New York Times, April 21, 2025.
Comments
JimJim5122
Speaking of Conclave… https://www.politico.eu/article/cardinals-watch-conclave-movie-for-real-life-guidance/
Joseph
I knew I was going to miss Pope Francis, but I didn't know how much until after your conversation about Fratelli Tutti. His calling out the same problems with the modern world as postliberals do, but to speak of a dire need to solve them through intimate encounter with one another on a deeply human level is so perfect, and I'm afraid that his passing means that any chance there was of that actually happening is gone.
Brian Gumm
I was somewhat fresh out of an Anabaptist-Mennonite seminary when he became Pope Francis and always had an affinity for him despite some pretty large theological gaps. This episode was a beautiful reflection of his life and tenure as Pope in the inimitable KYE fashion. Peace, mercy, & gratitude to you both!
Charlotte
I recall he talks about it in one of the two 100th episode / Matt's birthday mailbag episodes!
Alex Alvarez
Does anyone know if there’s a KYE episode in which Sam goes in depth about his conversion? Curious what it was about Catholicism specifically vs other branches Christianity. Thanks to men like JD Vance and Sohrab Ahmari, the intellectual who converts to Catholicism late in life is a type I’m now wary of, and I’d love to hear someone whom I really admire give their take on Catholicism’s appeal.
TSF
Thank you for this.
Charlotte
I think "I want to read a line from Hannah Arendt about John the 23rd that will lead me to a line about Pope Francis that I think will set us up nicely for what we want to discuss" might be the single most Know Your Enemy sentence I've ever heard
