(RNS) — Like every other Catholic and people of other faiths around the world, I’ve been following the speculation on who will be the next pope, but I’ll admit to doing so with some sadness at how fast we’ve left the old pope behind: Pope Francis has been an enormously consequential pope, and the meaning of his pontificate for the church and world needs more than the few days we’ve been given to process it. Indeed, we will likely require centuries.
Before our fast-moving culture moves on, and understanding that any full reckoning of Francis’ pontificate is still unformed, I want to highlight three things that I as a Catholic theologian owe to Francis.
The explanatory and inspirational power of “resisting throwaway culture”
I grew up in a pro-life movement that took its cues from what St. John Paul II described as a “culture of death.” While he wasn’t wrong to do so (especially coming out of his formative experiences in Poland during World War II, the rise of abortion and the threat of a global nuclear winter), Francis’ perception that ours is a “throwaway culture” expands our sphere of concern and better captures a wider range of practices that the pro-life movements need to address.
Going back to the beginning of the church, the “way of life” was contrasted with the “way of death” — not only when it came to direct killing (such as what happens in abortion) — but also the discarding of disabled and female infants like trash.
Inspired by Francis’ vision, I wrote a book on this topic, in which I tried to show that an orthodox and consistent ethic of life must go beyond direct killing to the discarded human beings, especially those who bear the face of Christ among us in a special way — those who are disabled or otherwise different, who our consumer culture sees as unproductive and burdensome. The antidote to this throwaway culture, which I also take from Francis’ vision, is a counterculture of encounter and hospitality that not only welcomes these vulnerable populations but allows them to transform us to be more like Christ.
The courage to resist radical gender ideology
In one of my RNS columns back in 2023, I asked, “Who will take Pope Francis seriously on gender ideology?” Traditional Catholics were abandoning the Holy Father in droves, while his ostensible allies largely ignored his teaching that gender ideology is an example of Western secular colonization and, as such, evil. In progressive circles that lifted up Francis’ teachings, speaking out against radical gender ideology remains anathema. For about the first decade of my career as an academic, frankly, I was simply too afraid to speak about this issue.
But then Francis’ courageous (and non-Western) example inspired me to speak for the droves of children being manipulated by colonialist, consumerist throwaway culture that had tricked them into believing evil and false things about themselves.
Francis has always been concerned with responding pastorally to people hurting from gender dysphoria and effects of radical gender ideology, and was concerned first with the church showing mercy and being “a field hospital” after battle, as he preached. Many of his allies confused this with squishiness on the underlying truths involved, but a year ago, the Holy Father referred to gender ideology as “an ugly danger of our time.” There is no way I could sit on the sidelines while the Holy Father fought so boldly for the truth of an authentic human ecology and for the right of our vulnerable kids to be told true stories about who they are. I needed to follow his lead and stand up and be counted.
Devotion to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots
Going back to the second century A.D., St. Irenaeus taught that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. Francis, inspired by an 18th-century painting, “Our Lady, Undoer of Knots” by the German Baroque artist Johann Georg Melchior Schmidtner, developed a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother, and his papacy led to an explosion of interest in this particular devotion, including for the spiritual life of yours truly.
It was in the context of my devotion to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots that I came to see my work as an effort to create reconciliation, dialogue and healing across thorny and knotty problems within the church, especially in bioethics. Beyond my academic and activist work in these spaces, the devotion I have had to the Undoer of Knots has had dramatic implications and positive resolutions for very difficult problems in my personal and family life.
I thank Pope Francis for turning me on to this particular devotion. What I owe to it, personally and professionally, cannot be calculated.