Jason Horowitz, the Rome bureau chief of The New York Times and a passionate fan of the late Pope Francis (he loved to cast opponents of the late pontiff’s political proclamations into the outer darkness as “archconservatives” or “ultraconservatives”) made Wednesday’s front page off-lead slot with another story to accompany his official obituary for Pope Francis: “As Ears Closed, Pope Amplified Those Unheard Lonely Moral Message in a Changing World.”
While Horowitz admitted in his obituary of Pope Francis that the pontiff stumbled in his attempt to confront sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, back in August 2018 Horowitz penned a hostile story on a Vatican whistleblower, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who called on Francis to resign for helping to coverup sexual assault, as "an ideologically motivated opposition" member who "weaponized" the church’s sex abuse crisis.
The online headline deck to Horowitz's latest story provided the flavor: “Francis’ Death Silences a Voice for the Voiceless -- As democratic values and alliances were being turned upside down, the pope was a consistent moral guidepost. Who can play that role now?”
The paper’s traditional hostility toward traditional religion was set aside to celebrate Pope Francis and his leftist political viewpoint. In Horowitz’s telling, the world lost not only a pontiff but a powerful activist, leaving the world worse for the meek.
As the world Pope Francis consistently called for -- one that cared for migrants, safeguarded the health of the planet and protected human rights -- collapsed around him in recent years, Francis would react to the newest setback by going quiet.
Horowitz saw a darker world after voters began to wake up to the consequences of untrammeled immigration, which often turns deadly both in Europe and America
That silence is now permanent. The death of Pope Francis on Monday morning has now deprived the world of a persistent advocate for the downtrodden. As mass deportations become the norm, authoritarianism expands and the alliances that governed the post-World War II era are turned upside down, it is clear that Francis has left behind a world quite unlike the one he joined as pope in 2013.
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Francis didn’t speak up only in support of those he considered vulnerable. He used his enormous platform as the spiritual leader of an estimated 1.3 billion Catholics to push back against world leaders who he and his supporters worried demonized migrants, the poor and the marginalized for political gain.
Horowitz again and again cast Francis, who encouraged left-wing interpretations of church doctrine during his term (without making many actual changes) as the last hope for humanity’s downtrodden.
....In his last public appearance, during the Urbi et Orbi Easter address from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday, Francis lacked the strength to speak, but a prelate reiterated his concerns for migrants, victims of violence and conflict across the world and a growing climate of anti-Semitism.
But Francis’ warnings had a tendency to go unheeded.
Meanwhile, the late Pope’s opponents, and conservatives in general, were described in inflammatory terms.
During his pontificate, which began with his visits to migrant camps in southern Italy, Europe became increasingly reluctant to accept migrants, and nationalist parties -- feeding off the economic frustration, populist politics and xenophobia of voters -- have steadily risen.
Francis repeatedly warned of a return of authoritarianism, and nationalism’s tendency to reintroduce history’s horrors. By the end of his pontificate, right-wing parties had scored major victories throughout Europe, and President Trump, whose Christianity Francis had once questioned, was back in power.
But Cardinal Czerny said Francis was never motivated by the desire to make alliances among leaders, but instead by looking out, and speaking up, for the world’s meek.
