What neither Francis nor the cardinals who elected him anticipated was that massive political conflict over globalization was about to erupt in the West itself, just as progressives’ drive toward wokeism and gender ideology was about to give the right the upper hand in the culture war. In France, the church has just recorded a 45% increase over last year in conversions at Easter — leading to the largest number of converts entering the church this season in the 20 years the French Bishops’ Conference has been conducting its survey. But if Francis was the pope for a globalist era, what the Catholic Church needs now is a populist pope, one who understands that if the church renews its ties to the working class within the West, not just in the global South, it will find ready converts.
Author: Daniel McCarthy
Published at: 2025-04-21 21:59:23
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