The Church of John Paul or of Francis

My friend Tim wonders about the clergy, bishops, cardinals of the future: will they follow John Paul or Francis? Great question! For me the answer is obvious: it will be both of course. Francis as a man, a Christian and a priest is dense, complex, admirable, probably holy, passionately in love with the poor. He is, for me, fascinating: a maverick and a mystic, a free man. But as Pope he is a catastrophe. In his appoinments and decisions he is the Anti-John-Paul. He will be known in church history as the Great Accomadationist: he is Chamberlain at Munick to John Paul's Churchill. He has an unconscious compulsion to befriend his enemies: the Chinese Communists and the Western Secular Elites. He has destroyed the John Paul Institute in Rome, reconfigued the death penalty from a prudential consideration to an incoherent "quasi-immutable" moral verity, elevated politial initiative (climate, immigration) into a Neo-Catholic Global Ideology, and abandoned defense of the powerless innocents and of the dignity of the sexual, gendered person. The Church of St. John Paul the Great will prevail because: the presence of the Holy Spirit and the Risen Christ in the efficacious, infallible and Eucharistic Body of Christ. Also, because the legacy of John Paul and Benedict is so deep, and true and good; and it has already possessed the hearts/souls/minds of the most generous and passionate of our younger priests, religious and lay leaders. But the Church of Francis will endure because the compulsion to comply, to collaborate, to befriend the hegemonic powers and principalities will be powerfully operative until Christ returns. But the Church of John Paul will be overwhelming as it surrenders not only to Truth, but to Love and to Holiness of Life. Paradoxically, however, the Church of Francis, even as it waters down our precious legacy, is not immune to the quiet movement of that same Spirit of Love and Holiness. So we pray for this complicated, conflicted Body of Christ, so filled with saints like John Paul and flawed-struggling-sincere leaders like Francis.