Dr. Nsungbemo Ezung
The world awaits a new Pope to lead the most powerful religious institution in the world – the Roman Catholic following the death of the reigning Pope Francis on April 21, 2025. Nevertheless, the new Pope and his incoming reign will not only affect the Catholic world but the world-wide Christian community as well as the world at large giving the fact the enormous influence the Papacy commands.
The world had witnessed very many new traits during the 12 years reign of Pope Francis (2013-2025) as a result of which the Pope had left a disputed legacy for the world to ponder. Pope Francis was the first Pope from Latin America and the first non-European Pope since Pope Gregory III, a Syrian Catholic, who served as the head of the Catholic Church in 731-741 AD. He was also the first Pope to succeed a living Pope in nearly six hundred years following the unprecedented resignation of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio by his birth name, Pope Francis was the first pontiff to bear the name ‘Francis’ which according to him was to honor St. Francis of Assisi, a 13th-century Italian Catholic monk, renowned for his love and care for animals, his advocacy for the poor and needy and his dedication to environmental stewardship. Taking the legacy of St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis took the path of modesty in his papal reign and his call for combating poverty, compassion towards poor, refugees and marginalized sections of the world, even taking a bold step of criticizing President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies and promoting religious freedom and inter-religious harmony would make him remember as a truly modern-day social and religious reformer.
Pope Francis’s social reform program was in line with the popular leftward drift Christian theology that is highly popular in his native region – the liberation theology that gained widespread acceptance in Latin America. Pope Francis’s theological views aligned with liberation theology which emphasizes the need for the liberation of socially, politically and economically oppressed segments of society. After Pope Benedict XVI, a German Pope, had led the Catholic Church to doctrinal clarity and further affirmation of the traditional doctrinal foundation of the Catholic Church to be the basis while confronting social and political issues, Pope Francis’ papacy’s marked a shift in the approach of the Church while addressing the different complex issues in the world today, opening up to new perspectives encouraging the Church to view world’s problems and challenges in a fresh and innovative way, looking beyond traditional approaches.
One of Pope Francis’ most notable and controversial views was his declaration allowing the priest to bless same-sex unions albeit outside of formal liturgical procedures which was denounced by several high-profile Catholic priests from across the world. This however had emboldened many Christians, both Catholics and Protestants alike, to take their religion to further Left. The call for compassion for those struggling with their gender orientation and confusion over marriage does not mean blindly endorsing their current lives borne out of choice or struggle. A more compassionate approach to those people is by taking care of their emotional, mental and psychological well-being and engaging them with a non-judgmental and empathetic attitude and offering guidance based on truth and Christian foundational values to bring them back to the fold of a normal human life and relationship. The Pope’s views on blessing same-sex unions were read as an endorsement to those Christians who support the dilution of the sacredness of human lives and marriage.
And if this was what the legacy left behind by Pope Francis, to what direction would the new Pope take the Church which would not only affect the Catholic Church but would have its own share of influence in the Christendom at large. On the status of the Christianity/religious movement in the United States, Martin Riesebrodt et al. stated that “the religious landscape in the contemporary US has been restructured: a cleavage between liberal and conservative religionists have replaced denominationalism as the primary source of identification and religio-political engagement” [The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, Edited by John R. Hinnells, Routledge 2005]. What is true for Christianity in America is true for the Christian community worldwide. It means after five centuries since the reformation that had split the all-powerful Christendom empire, the dominant religious discourse that divides the Christian world today is not between Catholicism and Protestantism but between those Christians who subscribe to conservative values, who unapologetically defend the Bible as the ultimate authority from God and demand total obedience to that Holy Book and those liberals who seek to place human reason above the need of obedience to the Word of God and to freely interpret the texts of the Bible to fit their social, political and personal agendas.
As a central figure in the Christian world, the new Pope will be playing a pivotal role in shaping today’s great and controversial Christian debate, navigating the divide between the liberal and conservative perspectives of Christianity. The Pope’s position on the divide between liberalism and conservatism within Christianity will be crucial in shaping the trajectory of the Christian faith in the 21st century. Christians worldwide are looking to the new Pope for clear guidance and direction on contentious and critical moral issues such as abortion, gender affirmation and the traditional institution of marriage. As the institution of Pope commands trans-national, trans-cultural and trans-social and political influence with more than a billion population worldwide adhering to his leadership, his position on some pressing social and political issues in the world too would have far-reaching consequences.
Will the new Pope succumb to the pressure of the Left and compromise the core tenets and traditional principles of the Christian faith, which has historically shaped the great Western Civilization? Or will he be the messiah for defending the great Christian faith, taking the Christian community worldwide to the historical and doctrinal foundation of Christianity? The new Pope needs to provide moral clarity by combating the Left’s culture of confusion and help the faithful discern right from wrong, providing a moral compass for navigating modern challenges.
As a Conservative Protestant, I will be vouching for a European conservative to become the new Pope to prevent the Christendom from drifting further Left. A Pope with conservative roots in Europe would be the best bet to revitalize the Christian faith by connecting with its historical foundations. And there won’t be a better time for the Christians, who want to return to the traditional and doctrinal roots, to have a Conservative European Pope when Europe itself is witnessing an encouragingly rightward drift.