G.K. Chesterton <a href="https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43811/stfrancisproblem.htm">wrote</a> of St. Francis of Assisi, “But after all, this man was a man and not half a dozen men. What seems inconsistency to you did not seem inconsistency to him.”
We should keep this same principle in mind today as we continue to pray for the repose of Pope Francis’s soul — and assess what we can learn from his legacy, both good and bad.
Much like the great saint whom he chose as his namesake and clearly intended to emulate, Pope Francis confounded caricature and was often misunderstood. In his life, and especially over the course of his pontificate, this quality often led to confusion for the faithful. No doubt, that pattern of confusion will be one hallmark of Francis’s papacy.
If we hope to learn from the life of Pope Francis, however, we must start by rejecting the mainstream media’s depiction of him as a “liberal” pope. Since his death, the New York Times has been filled with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/opinion/pope-francis-gay-muddle.html'" target="_blank" rel="noopener">headlines</a> regarding his perspective on “LGBTQ people,” women deacons, or the Church’s teaching on birth control. But while these may be important issues to the opinion writers of the New York Times, they were not central to Pope Francis’s work.
A much better place to begin is, well, the beginning: those early years of the pontificate when an energetic and vigorous Pope Francis set out to reform the Vatican’s bureaucracy and put an emphasis on serving the poor and taking care of the sick.
<div id="attachment_913279" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-913279" class="size-large wp-image-913279" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-864x576.jpg" alt="VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - MARCH 31: Pope Francis embraces a boy prior to his first 'Urbi et Orbi' blessing from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica during Easter Mass on March 31, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis delivered his message to the gathered faithful from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in St. Peter's Square after his first Holy week as Pontiff. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Franco Origlia/Getty Images</div>
I will never forget when the Pope, in 2013, reached down and kissed a man suffering from neurofibromatosis, a rare disease which had left him disfigured with boils all over his head. And this was far from the only example. In his first year in the seat of St. Peter, Pope Francis made a point of <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/26889/pope-francis-to-offer-hope-by-washing-young-inmates-feet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">washing the feet</a> of 12 young people at a juvenile detention center, <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/27588/pope-francis-invites-homeless-to-dine-at-vatican" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inviting</a> 200 homeless people to dine at the Vatican, and living in a modest guest house rather than the Apostolic Palace.
With this radical humility, Pope Francis — the first Pope from the global South, where the Church continues to grow — reminded the decadent old continent that the cultural inheritance of Christendom is not in attending U.N. Conferences, but the corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the prisoners, bury the dead, and give alms to the poor.
Yet as much as Pope Francis loved the poor, he was not a humble Franciscan friar but a savvy Jesuit political operator whose initial attention to the corporal works of mercy — though never entirely lost — soon gave way to practical considerations about what would secure his power over the Church. And unfortunately, as he aged and became more entangled in the politics of the Vatican, Pope Francis became vulnerable to manipulation by his advisers as well as the media and indeed made many missteps that confused and divided his flock.
Examples abound. One week he would promote the blessing of “unions of persons of the same sex.” The next he would say that marriage will always be the union of one man and one woman. On one occasion, he declared that abortion was akin to “hiring a hitman,” while nevertheless appointing a pro-abortion economist to the Pontifical Academy for Life.
And because of his excessive reliance on the likes of Cardinal Blase Cupich — the radical progressive archbishop of Chicago whom he appropriately dubbed “the little woman” — Pope Francis was especially misguided in his approach to more conservative segments of the Church. He imposed serious restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, which is growing rapidly in the United States. And despite his frequent denunciation of “clericalism,” he upended, for no apparent reason, the constitution of Opus Dei, a prelature distinguished for promoting the role of the laity in the Church’s mission.
In short, rather than working with the young, vibrant, and faithful segments of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis attacked them, choosing instead to champion progressive prelates and priests like Father James Martin, a Jesuit who pushes the Catholic church to abandon the traditional definition of marriage.
<div id="attachment_720181" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-720181" class="size-large wp-image-720181" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-864x576.jpg" alt="MALMO, SWEDEN - OCTOBER 31: Pope Francis gives a speech during the 'Together in Hope' event at Malmo Arena on October 31, 2016 in Malmo, Sweden. The Pope is on 2 days visit attending Catholic-Lutheran Commemoration in Lund and Malmo. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Michael Campanella/Getty Images</div>
In spite of his own opposition to these groups, however, Pope Francis’s pontificate witnessed a surge of conservative young people converting to Catholicism, in America and around the world. This Easter, dioceses across the United States <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/easter-converts-2024-by-the-numbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> 30%, 40%, 50%, and even 70% increases in the number of converts coming into the Church on Easter Vigil. Young people seeking stability and rootedness account for most of these conversions, and the same phenomenon is happening in <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263349/france-sees-record-10384-adult-baptisms-in-2025-45-percent-increase-as-young-catholics-lead-revival" target="_blank" rel="noopener">France</a> and <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263329/surge-in-adults-entering-church-in-england-this-easter-prompted-by-internet-tradition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">England</a>, where a <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263239/catholics-now-outnumber-anglicans-among-gen-z-in-the-uk-study-suggestshttps:/www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263239/catholics-now-outnumber-anglicans-among-gen-z-in-the-uk-study-suggests" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> shows that Gen Z Catholics now outnumber Anglicans two to one.
Amid this renewed interest in the Catholic Church, one of the great tragedies of Pope Francis’s papacy is that his misguided opposition to traditional religious communities and conservative political policies may have given many of these young Catholics the impression that a focus on serving the poor, feeding the hungry, and carrying out the other corporal works of mercy is somehow at odds with tradition and orthodoxy.
Let me be clear: this is not and never has been the case.
Christ tells his disciples in Matthew 25, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” The corporal works of mercy are essential for all Christians, regardless of denomination or political party. And beyond informing our personal faith, they also must guide our efforts to reclaim our institutions and restore our country.
Moreover, Pope Francis’s liberal posturing on things like the environment may obscure his urgent message to modernity. Consider the late Pope’s 2015 “global warming” encyclical, Laudato Si. While it did include entire sections on “pollution and climate change” which the liberal media fawned over and promoted, its deeper argument — that we have failed to “safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic human ecology” — was profoundly conservative and largely ignored.
In Laudato Si, Pope Francis beautifully lays out how a “technocratic paradigm” has led us to accept “every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings.” And in pursuit of this “unlimited human power,” he argues, we have undermined the various conditions that help us flourish: destroyed God’s majestic creation, contracepted our God-given gift to create life, and dishonored God’s plan for men and women to be different.
This message — not misguided one-off statements on airplane interviews or liberal media headlines about hot button political issues — is what we should take away from Pope Francis’s papacy.
Modernity, despite all its advances, has robbed us of many of the most basic spiritual and moral resources we need to flourish and be truly happy. To recover them, we don’t need complex coding or advanced AI, but rather, as Pope Francis sought to remind us, simply to follow the lessons Jesus taught us about serving our fellow man.
Much like the early parts of his pontificate, Pope Francis’s final days reflected this message.
On Sunday, the Pope’s last day on Earth, he met with Vice President JD Vance, squashing their public spat. He used his Easter message to make an appeal for peace in the world&#8217;s most war-torn regions. And finally, he made one last loop through St. Peter’s square, stopping several times to bless babies brought up to him and wish all his “brothers and sisters” a “Happy Easter.”
May he rest in peace, mixed legacy and all — and may his brother cardinals be inspired to choose a successor capable of combining Pope Francis’s initial emphasis on the corporal works with a steadfast commitment to tradition, both of which were sorely lacking in the final years of the Holy Father’s life.
* * *
Kevin Roberts is the President of The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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President Donald Trump has arrived in Rome, where he will attend Pope Francis&#8217; funeral Saturday morning in Vatican City, marking the first foreign trip of his second term.
The funeral comes six days after Francis passed away, the day after Easter, dying at age 88 of a stroke and heart failure after a battle with pneumonia. Since then, tens of thousands of people have come to pay their respects to the late pope as he lay in state at St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica.
The president and First Lady Melania Trump arrived in Rome late Friday night. They will depart early Saturday afternoon after attending the funeral.
Previous Papal Funerals
Trump is only the second sitting president to attend a papal funeral. The first was George W. Bush, who attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. President Joe Biden did not attend the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2023, despite <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/photos-and-video/photo/2011/06/vice-president-biden-pope" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meeting</a> the former pope as vice president years earlier. Benedict died nine years after resigning as pope in 2013, an unusual move for a modern pope. He was succeeded by Francis.
Photos from that visit show three presidents, Bush, his father, President George H.W. Bush, and President Bill Clinton kneeling in the first pew behind Pope John Paul II&#8217;s body lying in state. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush kneel near them.
<div id="attachment_912385" style="width: 446px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-912385" class=" wp-image-912385" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002-300x181.jpg" alt="" width="436" height="263" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002-300x181.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002-953x576.jpg 953w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002-768x464.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 436px) 100vw, 436px" />(TIM SLOAN/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Who Else Will Be There?
Trump met with Pope Francis at the Vatican during his first term in 2017.
Biden met Francis twice: first as vice president in 2016, and during his presidency in 2021. Biden and former first lady Jill Biden will also travel to the Vatican to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3389950/trump-biden-pope-francis-funeral/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attend</a> Francis&#8217; funeral.
<div id="attachment_912389" style="width: 408px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-912389" class=" wp-image-912389" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="398" height="265" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 398px) 100vw, 398px" />(TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
<div id="attachment_912391" style="width: 406px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-912391" class=" wp-image-912391" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="396" height="264" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 396px) 100vw, 396px" />(Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Neither former President Barack Obama nor former President George W. Bush will attend Pope Francis&#8217; funeral. Obama hosted Francis at the White House in 2015, marking the first papal visit to the United States since Pope Benedict in 2008. Francis was only the third pope ever to visit the White House.
Other world leaders who will attend the pope&#8217;s funeral include Javier Milei, president of Francis&#8217; birthplace, Argentina; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Prince William; French President Emmanuel Macron; and Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
As many as 200,000 people are expected to attend the funeral, the Italian government said.
How The Funeral Will Go
The funeral will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday morning local time, which is 4 a.m. Eastern time in the United States.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re will preside over the funeral Mass and deliver the homily, the Vatican said. He is the dean of the College of Cardinals, which will form a conclave next month to install the next pope.
On Friday night, Francis&#8217; coffin was <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis-coffin-rite-sealing-funeral-mass-novemdiales.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">set</a> to be sealed in a ceremony and closed to the public.
On Saturday morning, the funeral will begin with a procession in St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica, where the coffin will then be brought and set down. The funeral Mass will follow.
The cardinals who attend will be recognizable by their purple liturgical garments, the Vatican <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/the-funeral-celebration-of-pope-francis-on-saturday.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
After Mass, the funeral procession will slowly make its way to the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, a little over two miles away, where Francis frequently went to pray before an icon of Mary. Francis is the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican in over a century. Many popes are buried in the underground crypt beneath St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica.
&#8220;The coffin will be welcomed by &#8216;the last ones,&#8217; a group of poor and marginalized people who always had a special place in Pope Francis&#8217; heart,&#8221; the Vatican said. &#8220;They will be the ones to give the final tribute before the coffin is carried to the altar of Saint Mary Major.&#8221;
The burial will be private and is expected to end around 2:00 p.m. local time or 8:00 a.m. Eastern time.
The last funeral for a sitting pope, John Paul II, was three hours long. Francis&#8217; funeral looks like it will be even longer, around four hours.
The faithful may begin visiting Francis&#8217; tomb on Sunday, the day after the funeral, the Vatican said.
The funeral kicks off nine days of mourning for the late pope, with Mass each day before the cardinals begin their work to select a new occupant of the Chair of Peter.
How Is Francis&#8217; Funeral Different?
Francis&#8217; funeral will look different from his predecessors. That&#8217;s because he himself changed the rules for papal funerals.
Francis will be buried in just one wooden coffin lined with zinc rather than the three coffins some other popes were buried in, which were made of cypress, lead, and oak.
The late pontiff will also be <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5374984/pope-francis-funeral-how-to-watch">buried</a> at the Basilica of St. Mary Major instead of St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica, the first pope in more than 350 years to be buried there since Clement IX.
Francis said in his autobiography published last year that a pope should be buried &#8220;with dignity, but like any Christian, because the bishop of Rome is a pastor and a disciple, not a powerful man of this world.&#8221; He also asked that his tomb be &#8220;in the ground; simple, without particular decoration, and with the sole inscription: Franciscus.&#8221;
Where To Watch
The Vatican News&#8217; YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@VaticanNews" target="_blank" rel="noopener">channel</a> will livestream the funeral and procession to the burial place.
A number of other news outlets and streaming services also plan to livestream the funeral.

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As we lay to rest <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/pope-francis">Pope Francis</a>, a man entrusted with the astonishing task of leading <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/262883/worldwide-catholic-population-hits-14-billion#:~:text=Concretely%2C%20there%20has%20been%20a,to%20281%20million%20in%202023." target="_blank" rel="noopener">1.4 billion</a> Catholics worldwide, we must acknowledge that he was a pope who inspired devotion and yet also disillusionment.
The first non-European pope in over a millennium, the first Jesuit to hold the Chair of Peter, and the first to take the name Francis — after the saint of humility and radical poverty — he came to the papacy with the power of symbolism already at his side. But symbols alone do not make a legacy. His pontificate has been marked by deep paradoxes, extraordinary global events, and the unrelenting scrutiny of a digital age that magnifies every gesture, every silence, and every word into global significance.
Pope Francis led the Catholic Church at a time when questions of identity, history, and moral authority were being fiercely renegotiated across every sphere of public life. From the rise of “woke” ideology and the deconstruction of long-standing societal structures, to the counter currents of cultural revivalism and nationalist pushback, the world around the Church was changing — faster and more fundamentally than ever.
To that world, he showed incredible, compelling pastoral sensibility by embracing the very sick, the downtrodden, before the eyes of the world, making him a beloved figure among so many.
No moment captured the spiritual loneliness and universal leadership of Francis more than the evening of March 27, 2020. As the world reeled from the shock of a global pandemic, Francis <a href="https://catholicvote.org/when-pope-francis-became-a-solitary-beacon-of-hope-during-the-worst-days-of-the-covid-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stood utterly alone</a> in the rain-drenched emptiness of St. Peter’s Square. His solitary figure, small under the weight of a sodden white cassock, illuminated by the flickering torches before the Eucharist, became an icon of global grief — and hope. He did not thunder. He prayed. He did not offer a solution. He stood there in the silence of that unforgettable moment.
<div id="attachment_911243" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-911243" class="size-large wp-image-911243" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-1024x576.jpg" alt="Pope Francis gives an extraordianry urbi et orbi blessing in St. Peter's Square, March 27, 2020. | Credit: Vatican Media" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Credit: Vatican Media</div>
Yet while he insisted Church doctrine could not and would not be changed, many weary Catholics saw how he loosened the uniquely stalwart position of the Catholic church on issues related to marriage and family. 
On one hand, he condemned abortion, equating it to <a href="https://catholicvote.org/throughout-his-pontificate-a-look-at-pope-francis-statements-on-abortion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;hiring a hitman&#8221;</a> and <a href="https://catholicvote.org/pope-francis-strongly-warned-against-ideological-colonization-gender/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denounced gender ideology</a>; but more than once he gave a <a href="https://catholicvote.org/pope-francis-writes-preface-fr-james-martins-book-about-lazarus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">disturbing nod</a> to ministries aimed at changing Church doctrine over gay &#8220;marriage&#8221; and transgenderism, including his brief <a href="https://outreach.faith/2022/05/pope-francis-speaks-to-lgbtq-catholics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exchange</a> with Father James Martin, the founder of the LGBT Catholic ministry, Outreach.
Pope Francis’ handling of clerical sex abuse was also marked by troubling contradictions. On one hand, he <a href="https://www.usccb.org/news/2023/pope-issues-updated-vos-estis-text-handling-abuse-cases" target="_blank" rel="noopener">established clearer procedures</a> for investigating abuse and holding bishops accountable and publicly condemned the culture of cover-ups that protected abusers. On the other hand, his actions in high-profile cases like those of <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/father-marko-rupnik-accused-of-abuse-and-returned-to-ministry-a-timeline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fr. Marko Rupnik</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/argentine-catholic-bishop-gustavo-zanchetta-sentenced-sexual-abuse-pope-francis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta</a> raise serious questions about consistency and impartiality.
Perhaps more than any other pontiff before him, Pope Francis lived his entire papacy inside the glass house of modern social media. Every homily, every off-the-cuff remark, and even every carefully crafted document was instantly dissected by millions across ideological, religious, and national divides, though it was often his informality in communication that blurred clarity, allowing ideologues across the spectrum to weaponize his words.
In the echo chambers of the internet, he was often cast simultaneously as a reformer and a betrayer, a prophet and a populist, a revolutionary and a regressive. The speed with which opinions formed around his leadership was unprecedented — and sometimes uncharitable.
In his many interviews and press conferences that often required follow-ups or clarifications, it is clear that he perceived himself as a pope who stood at the crossroads of history amidst the noise of clashing narratives.
In many ways, his legacy will be as divided as his papacy. To his supporters, he will be the “Pope of the Peripheries,” to his critics, the Pope of Ambiguity, leaving behind a trail of confusion and even division that his successor in the papacy will have to deal with.
Francis reminded us that the Pope is both a man and a sign — fragile, flawed, and beloved. We now pray not only for his soul but for the Church he leaves behind: wounded in places and always in need of shepherds who speak with both his tenderness but also with the clarity of truth.
* * *
Kelsey Reinhardt is Director of Media and Evangelization for CatholicVote.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Vatican officials revealed Monday evening that Pope Francis died of a cerebral stroke followed by a coma and ultimately “irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse.”
Professor Andrea Arcangeli, Director of the Directorate of Health and Hygiene of the Vatican City State, issued the official certification per the Holy See Press Office late Monday.
Arcangeli confirmed the Pontiff’s death through electrocardiographic thanatography, <a href="https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2025/04/21/250421d.html">stating</a>, &#8220;I hereby declare that the causes of death, to the best of my knowledge and judgment, are as stated.&#8221;
The report <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis-death-due-to-stroke-and-irreversible-cardiocircula.html">listed</a> the time of death as 7:35 a.m. on Monday, with the causes of death listed as a “stroke,” leading to a “coma,” and eventually “irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse,” per Vatican News.
The brief report noted the Pope had a “previous episode of acute respiratory failure in the context of bilateral multimicrobial pneumonia” and suffered from “multiple bronchiectasis,” “Arterial hypertension,” and “Type II diabetes” before his death early Monday.
Professor Arcangeli&#8217;s certification follows standard Vatican protocol for documenting the death of a pontiff, with the use of electrocardiographic thanatography providing medically precise confirmation of the time of cardiac death.
The Pope had been in and out of the hospital for two months prior to his death, <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/21/world-news/pope-francis-cause-of-death-revealed-by-the-vatican/">battling</a> various respiratory illnesses necessitating a constant flow of supplemental oxygen and at least one emergency blood transfusion, per the New York Post.
Pope Francis&#8217; death marks a pivotal moment for the world&#8217;s 1.3 billion Catholics, who now await the selection of a new spiritual leader.

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Pope Francis has died at 88, and speculation is already swirling around who will become the next pontiff to lead the Catholic Church.
Francis <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pope-francis-dies-at-the-age-of-88?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Pope+Francis+Dies+At+The+Age+Of+88">died in the early hours</a> of April 21, the day after Easter. He had been hospitalized in Rome recently and was diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs, but in recent days he had appeared in public. Francis was elected pope in March 2013 after Pope Benedict XVI made the unexpected decision to step down from the chair of Saint Peter, becoming the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years.
Francis&#8217; papacy often adopted a progressive tone, with the pope recently <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/pope-francis-vance-clash-over-ordo-amoris" target="_blank" rel="noopener">making</a> headlines for criticizing Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, and the Trump administration&#8217;s “program of mass deportations.”
However, Francis also upheld Catholic doctrine on <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/pope-doubles-down-on-abortion-in-new-years-day-message-calls-for-commitment-to-protect-life#:~:text=ROME%20(AP)%20—%20Pope%20Francis,from%20conception%20to%20natural%20death." target="_blank" rel="noopener">abortion</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pope-says-blessings-for-individuals-in-same-sex-relationships-cannot-resemble-marriage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gay marriage</a>, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/vatican-clarifies-opposition-to-radical-gender-theory-says-it-threatens-a-persons-unique-dignity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gender ideology</a>, although critics have complained that his wording in statements on these issues is sometimes confusing. Last year, Francis <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dntdUwbIaIA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">was</a> firm with an interviewer that women would not be ordained priests.
Several cardinals are considered potential successors to Francis — here are just a few.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, 76, is one of the few potential successors from the United States.
From Wisconsin, Burke has been outspoken in his criticism of the Church&#8217;s more liberal language under Francis, and he has strongly supported the Latin Mass, the older form of the Mass that is popular with many conservative Catholics. Burke has also said that Catholic politicians who support legal abortion, like former President Joe Biden, should not receive the Eucharist.
WATCH: MICHAEL KNOWLES EXPLAINS HOW THE NEXT POPE WILL BE CHOSEN
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Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 70, has served as the Vatican&#8217;s Secretary of State for nearly all of Francis&#8217; papacy. The Italian cardinal has been in the Holy See&#8217;s diplomatic service since 1986, when he was in his early 30s.
Considered a political moderate, Parolin has played a role in many political issues, including moderating 2014 talks between Cuban and American officials, asking the United States to find an &#8220;adequate humanitarian solution&#8221; for Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and urging countries to implement the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, 65, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has made headlines for his conservative stances. His papacy would be considered a referendum on Francis&#8217; more progressive one.
However, Besungu also <a href="https://thecatholicherald.com/papabili-the-cardinals-who-have-seen-their-prospects-in-the-next-conclave-harmed-and-improved-by-recent-news-events/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brought</a> critics and supporters of Francis together when he led African bishops in rejecting Francis&#8217; document explaining that people in same-sex relationships can be blessed, but did so with Francis&#8217; explicit blessing, which he got during an emergency trip to Rome.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, has been <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151124125431/http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/01/15/manila-cardinal-luis-tagle-the-asian-pope-francis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> the &#8220;Asian Pope Francis&#8221; and would likely continue Francis&#8217; more left-leaning stances.
He has defended the Church&#8217;s teachings on abortion and contraception, but he has also criticized the Church for using &#8220;harsh words&#8221; for LGBT people and divorced and remarried Catholics.
Cardinal Wim Eijk, 71, is also considered a conservative potential successor.
The former medical doctor from the Netherlands has been a sharp critic of Francis. He is one of the authors of a 2015 document opposing the pope&#8217;s approval of civil remarriages among people who have not received an annulment, <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/02/18/world-news/who-are-the-frontrunners-to-be-elected-next-pontiff-after-pope-francis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">calling</a> them “a form of structured and institutionalized adultery.”
Eijk also <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/blog/cardinal-eijk-pope-francis-needed-to-give-clarity-on-intercommunion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticized</a> Francis for giving what he called a “completely incomprehensible” response to a German Bishops&#8217; Conference proposal on allowing Protestants to receive the Eucharist.
Cardinal Peter Erdö, 72, is a Hungarian cardinal who is a devout Marian as well as a former president of the Council of Bishops Conferences of Europe.
He has expressed conservative views, including staunchly opposing allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion. In 2015 during the European migrant crisis, he said the Church would not <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/05/us-europe-migrants-hungary-divide-idUSKCN0R50F120150905/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">take</a> in refugees because it would be akin to human trafficking.

Pope Francis attends his weekly general audience

Who Could Become Pontiff After Pope Francis?

Rome

The leader of the Satanic Grotto was led away in handcuffs at the Kansas Statehouse Friday morning after he scuffled with a protester who objected to his &#8220;black mass&#8221; ceremony there.
Michael Stewart, president of the Satanic Grotto, was tackled to the ground by police officers in the rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka as he attempted to hold the &#8220;black mass&#8221; ceremony.
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🚨BREAKING: The leader of the Satanic Grotto gets arrested at Kansas State Capitol for assaulting a Catholic during a &quot;Black Mass&quot; attempt. <a href="https://t.co/oo55sxO0SN">pic.twitter.com/oo55sxO0SN</a>
&mdash; CatholicVote (@CatholicVote) <a href="https://twitter.com/CatholicVote/status/1905673783416934437?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Just before his arrest, Stewart appeared to repeatedly punch a protester who came up to him and tried to grab something out of his hand that he was holding above his head as he called out to Satan.
He told officers he was not resisting arrest as he was handcuffed.
“Hail Satan! I dedicate this building to Satan!” Stewart could be heard shouting as he was led away.
Onlookers could be heard praying a &#8220;Hail Mary&#8221; as Stewart was led away.
The Satanic Grotto previously said Friday&#8217;s “black mass” event would “dedicate the grounds and our legislature to the glory of Satan.”
“God will fall and Kansas will be embraced by the black flame of Lucifer,” the group <a href="https://www.kwch.com/2025/03/12/gov-kelly-responds-plans-black-mass-event-kansas-statehouse/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
“I will be performing that black mass in our State Capitol,” Satanic Grotto President Michael Stewart previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kansas-gov-not-doing-enough-to-stop-satanists-from-performing-black-mass-at-capitol-critics-say">told</a> The Daily Wire. “If they have to arrest me, then they have to arrest me.”
A “black mass” is an explicit parody of the Catholic Mass that may use consecrated hosts, which Catholics believe to be the physical body, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.
“We have wafers,” Stewart said previously. “I don’t want to comment on whether they’re consecrated or not because that would ruin the mystery.”
Alarmed critics warned the controversial event is wildly offensive to Catholics and could be disruptive.
Kansas Governor Laura Kelly had warned the Satanic Grotto president to move his event outside, saying “no protests will be allowed inside the Statehouse” on that day.
As Stewart entered the statehouse building, an officer <a href="https://www.ksnt.com/capitol-bureau/satanic-grotto-leader-take-away-in-handcuffs-at-the-kansas-statehouse/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> him he was welcome to be inside, but that he would be arrested if he tried to hold an event or cause a disruption.
Earlier in the morning, police also apprehended a man who <a href="https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/government/2025/03/28/christians-and-satanists-hold-competing-rallies-at-kansas-statehouse/82704649007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tackled</a> Stewart and grabbed a communion wafer from him as he held the &#8220;black mass&#8221; on the steps of the Capitol building. Later, Stewart ventured inside.
The hundreds of Catholic and Christian protesters who showed up Friday morning to rally outside the Kansas Statehouse far <a href="https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/government/2025/03/28/christians-and-satanists-hold-competing-rallies-at-kansas-statehouse/82704649007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">outnumbered</a> the few dozen Satanists who held their own rally. Many officers with the Kansas Highway Patrol and Capitol Police were present as well.
Catholics also held masses at two nearby churches, one across the street and another a few blocks away.
It is not yet clear what, if any, charges Stewart will face.
The Satanic Grotto president has previously shown up outside Planned Parenthood and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thesatanicgrotto/reel/ChNz3tYJNSL/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">performed</a> lewd gestures to pro-life protesters outside.

US-NEWS-SATANIST-LEADER-ARRESTED-AFTER-PHYSICAL-1-KC

Satanist Arrested After Punching Protester At Black Mass In Kansas Statehouse

Kansas

satanic

U.S.

A prominent Catholic group is urging Kansas Governor Laura Kelly to stop a Satanist group from performing a &#8220;black mass&#8221; at the Statehouse.
The Satanic Grotto is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kansas-gov-not-doing-enough-to-stop-satanists-from-performing-black-mass-at-capitol-critics-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">planning</a> to hold a &#8220;black mass&#8221; on March 28 at the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka, causing alarm among critics who warned the controversial event is wildly offensive to Catholics and could be disruptive.
CatholicVote, one of the country’s largest Catholic advocacy groups, sent a letter to Kelly, a Democrat, on Wednesday urging her to prevent any religious desecration at the capitol building.
&#8220;While we recognize the constitutional protections for speech and expression, we also trust that your office understands the importance of maintaining law, order, and the integrity of government property against any attempts to disrupt its normal function,&#8221; wrote Logan Church, CatholicVote&#8217;s director of political operations in her letter to Kelly, which was provided to The Daily Wire.
The Satanic Grotto said the &#8220;black mass&#8221; event will &#8220;dedicate the grounds and our legislature to the glory of Satan.&#8221;
&#8220;God will fall and Kansas will be embraced by the black flame of Lucifer,&#8221; the group <a href="https://www.kwch.com/2025/03/12/gov-kelly-responds-plans-black-mass-event-kansas-statehouse/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
“I will be performing that black mass in our State Capitol,” Satanic Grotto President Michael Stewart previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kansas-gov-not-doing-enough-to-stop-satanists-from-performing-black-mass-at-capitol-critics-say">told</a> The Daily Wire. “If they have to arrest me, then they have to arrest me.”
A &#8220;black mass&#8221; is an explicit parody of the Catholic Mass that may use consecrated hosts, which Catholics believe to be the physical body, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.
“We have wafers,” Stewart said. “I don’t want to comment on whether they’re consecrated or not because that would ruin the mystery.”
CatholicVote said the &#8220;black mass&#8221; event &#8220;clearly violates building policies and established protocols&#8221; and is an &#8220;unauthorized use of the Statehouse.&#8221;
The group said it is &#8220;deeply concerned&#8221; about potential &#8220;illegal entry and disorder&#8221; at the capitol building and urged the governor to strictly enforce the policies governing the use of the capitol building
&#8220;The Statehouse belongs to the people, of all religious beliefs, and cannot be used for religious desecration,&#8221; the group wrote. &#8220;If Stewart or his group attempts to trespass or disrupt the Capitol’s function, law enforcement should be fully prepared to respond appropriately, including arrests if necessary,&#8221; CatholicVote wrote.
The group called on the governor to make sure security limits entry to those with official business and is prepared to prevent safety threats to members of the public, &#8220;including those peacefully praying outside.&#8221;
&#8220;The Kansas Capitol symbolizes law, order, and the values of the people it represents. Allowing a group that openly declares its intent to violate regulations and perform a blasphemous act inside a state building would set a dangerous precedent,&#8221; CatholicVote said.
Kelly has said that all events for March 28 will be moved outdoors, and &#8220;no protests will be allowed inside the Statehouse&#8221; on that day.
&#8220;Respect for constitutional rights must always be balanced with a commitment to preserving order, safety, and the integrity of public institutions,&#8221; Church said in a statement to The Daily Wire.
&#8220;When an individual or group openly challenges the laws that govern public spaces, it is not only a matter of policy enforcement, but of protecting the values that hold our community together,&#8221; she added. &#8220;Christians everywhere should unite, standing firm against such blasphemous actions from all angles — through peaceful protest, public dialogue, and unwavering support for the sanctity of our shared values.&#8221;
Stewart, the Satanic Grotto president has previously shown up outside Planned Parenthood and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thesatanicgrotto/reel/ChNz3tYJNSL/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">performed</a> lewd gestures to pro-life protesters outside.

US-CONVENTION-SATAN

EXCLUSIVE: Catholic Group Urges Kansas Governor To Block Satanic Black Mass At Capitol

Catholic Group Urges Kansas Governor To Block Satanic Black Mass At Capitol

The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast (NCPB) will partner with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/god-is-doing-something-pretty-incredible-catholic-app-passes-up-google-tiktok-on-ash-wednesday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hallow</a>, a popular Catholic meditation and prayer app, to lead a nationwide, 9-day novena ahead of its event, NCPB exclusively shared with The Daily Wire.
The 20th annual NCPB will be held in Washington, D.C., on February 28, about a month into the new presidential administration&#8217;s term. The breakfast is expected to draw around 1,200 of the nation&#8217;s most prominent Catholics to pray for the leadership and direction of the country.
The novena, which is a Catholic nine-day period of prayer for special petitions, is called &#8220;A Prayer for Our Nation.&#8221; It will be featured on Hallow starting on February 20, running through the day of the prayer breakfast, which will be held at the Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
“We are proud to partner with Hallow, and to join millions of Catholics across America in praying for our great nation,&#8221; NCPB Event Chairman Mark Randall said in a statement to The Daily Wire. &#8220;I hope our humble commitment to this novena will strengthen, unify and guide us as we prepare for the 20th National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.”
Hallow CEO Alex Jones called it &#8220;an honor&#8221; to partner with the NCPB &#8220;to pray for our country, our leaders, the armed forces and their families, and all our fellow citizens.&#8221;
<a href="http://dailywire.com/subscribe">PRESIDENTS’ DAY SALE! 40% Off DailyWire+ Annual Memberships With Code DW40</a>
&#8220;In a world filled with so much division, it’s a blessing to stand together as brothers and sisters in Christ,&#8221; Jones added. &#8220;Join us in praying the Litany of American Saints on Hallow in the days leading up to the event. Immaculate Mary, pray for us.”
Monsignor James P. Shea, President of the University of Mary, will keynote the prayer breakfast. His remarks will touch on the impact of the NCPB over the last two decades and the event&#8217;s theme, which is hope.
Hallow, as highlighted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-couple-more-people-in-heaven-would-be-nice-hallow-ceo-talks-success-of-catholic-app-rise-of-faith-based-content" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a>, was first launched in 2018 by Jones and fellow University of Notre Dame graduates Alessandro DiSanto and Erich Kerekes. The app has rocketed in popularity, garnering more than 23 million downloads across 150 countries.
During a previous interview with The Daily Wire, Jones was asked how he and his team would measure the app&#8217;s success, and he responded, “A couple more people in Heaven would be nice.”
“Maybe a couple more people who are in that really dark spot, who might be lost, who might feel like they’re all alone — maybe a couple of those people might experience the warmth of God’s love,” Jones added. “So it’s that for us, that’s really what we’re focused on.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-couple-more-people-in-heaven-would-be-nice-hallow-ceo-talks-success-of-catholic-app-rise-of-faith-based-content" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘A Couple More People In Heaven Would Be Nice’: Hallow CEO Talks Success Of Catholic App, Rise Of Faith-Based Content</a>

USA, New Jersey, Woman praying with rosary beads in hands

EXCLUSIVE: Hallow Partners With National Catholic Prayer Breakfast To Pray ‘For Our Great Nation’

Exclusive: Hallow Partners With National Catholic Prayer Breakfast To Pray ‘For Our Great Nation’

Prayer

Washington D.C.

A Chicago museum exhibit dedicated to Planned Parenthood featured rosaries, because Christianity is in the business of &#8220;controlling the bodies&#8221; of women, the exhibit&#8217;s plaque said.
The International Museum of Surgical Science&#8217;s &#8220;Unplanned Parenthood&#8221; exhibit featured letters women wrote to Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger in the 1920s asking for information about birth control.
Some of the letters were hung from crosses using rosary beads.
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NEW: Rosary beads represent Christianity &quot;controlling the bodies of birthing people&quot; in this Planned Parenthood museum exhibit
At Chicago&#39;s International Museum of Surgical Science <a href="https://t.co/n4CGmgSGcN">pic.twitter.com/n4CGmgSGcN</a>
&mdash; Mairead Elordi (@JohnsonHildy) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnsonHildy/status/1877079118769991760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;The rosary beads serve as a reminder of the enduring influence of christianity [sic] in the United States, symbolizing the ways religious institutions have played in shaping societal norms and controlling the bodies of birthing people,&#8221; <a href="https://imss.org/contemporaryart/michelle-hartney-unplanned-parenthood/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read</a> the plaque for the exhibit.
&#8220;Birthing people&#8221; is a gender neutral term often used in place of &#8220;women&#8221; by those who espouse gender ideology.
The letters were embroidered onto vintage wedding dress fabric by volunteers in sewing circles around the country, the plaque said. The wedding dress material symbolizes the &#8220;societal expectations placed on women in the early 1900s.&#8221;
The fabric letters were then hung from porcelain backings, &#8220;evoking the fragility of the rights of people with uteruses,&#8221; while the backings have imagery from wedding cakes, lingerie, and jewelry, &#8220;serving as a commentary on the societal pressure placed on women to embrace marriage, often masking the limitations it imposed, particularly during the times when birth control and autonomy were denied.&#8221;
Meat hooks symbolized &#8220;the patriarchy.&#8221;
&#8220;Vintage meat hooks were used as symbols of the brutality of the patriarchy and the way men have treated the bodies of people with uteruses like animals,&#8221; the plaque said.
Chicago is one of the most Catholic cities in the country, with about a <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/most-catholic-cities-in-us/2966577.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">third</a> of its residents identifying as Catholic.
One Catholic Chicago resident told The Daily Wire it was &#8220;heart-wrenchingly offensive&#8221; to think of his tax dollars going towards the display.
The museum has <a href="https://imss.org/2023/09/the-international-museum-of-surgical-science-to-offer-artist-stipends-in-2024-season-for-chicago-illinois-based-artists/?srsltid=AfmBOoqEraaOLaphC478hd7hBDoEB3NiBEP_DB-FsX8Uukmbc3T3KYW7&amp;utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">received</a> government grants, including pandemic relief money.
&#8220;Worse, the use of the Catholic rosary and Crucifixes in the exhibit is a mockery of the Lord&#8217;s Mother and all of the prayers from all those who hold life sacred from conception,&#8221; he said, &#8220;something [about] 1.3 billion Catholics universally hold to, and an issue the Church is unwavering on.&#8221;
&#8220;It’s despicable what the City is supporting. Wasting our tax dollars to mock Catholics, and the desecrate to rosary,&#8221; the Catholic Chicagoan said, adding that he encourages the city&#8217;s two million Catholics to &#8220;vote accordingly.&#8221;
The museum said in a statement to The Daily Wire that the &#8220;views, statements, and ideas expressed in this exhibition are solely those of the artist&#8221; and the museum &#8220;does not endorse or promote any political or social beliefs presented in this exhibit.&#8221;
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&#8220;The International Museum of Surgical Science supports a commitment to contemporary art and artists through exhibitions and programs that use the frame of contemporary artistic practice to examine new perspectives in medical and surgical science and our relationship to the body,&#8221; Director of Museum Operations Michelle Rinard said.
&#8220;We believe in the power of the arts to build community, inspire social change and bring fresh perspective to difficult and complex issues — including issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender identity and sexual orientation. IMSS seeks applications that address these issues,&#8221; Rinard said.
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Rosary Beads in Hands of Catholic Woman

Chicago Museum Hangs Pro-Birth Control Notes On Rosaries In Planned Parenthood Exhibit

Abortion

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Chicago

Contraception

Health Care

Margaret Sanger

Planned Parenthood

It is a truth universally acknowledged (by all right-thinking people, anyway) that Christmas comes too early. First you have the people who hoist up their wreaths and garlands at the first sign of falling leaves—a practice which should, in my opinion, be punishable by immediate deportation. I don’t care if you’re a legal citizen. The spirit of Project 2025 surely demands that we send October hall-deckers back to whichever country their ancestors most recently arrived from. Boughs of holly, gay apparel, and so forth become permissible at exactly the moment when Santa Claus reaches Herald Square in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. This was decided at the Council of Chalcedon.
But even then, December 25 is surely a demoralizing choice of dates for the pinnacle of all jollities. The excitement ramps up to a maximum just as the days are starting to droop into their coldest and darkest. This is a bright consolation for the feeling that you are looking at the sun from an increasingly unflattering angle. But then Boxing Day hits like a hangover on December 26 when, in the words of an extraordinarily depressing and mawkish poem by civil rights leader Howard Thurman, “the star in the sky is gone” and “the kings and princes are home.”
Thurman somehow meant this to be inspiring, but it’s obviously a galactic let-down. Here you are, your yearly allotment of cheer utterly spent, and there now stretch before you two months of slush and darkness with nothing to punctuate the tedium but New Year’s resolutions and Valentine’s Day. So the only activities scheduled to leaven the winter doldrums in our modern system are setting homework assignments for yourself and grappling with the crushing fear that you might die alone. Nice going, everyone.
Our ancestors knew better. What if I told you December 25 could be not the punishing end, but the gleeful start of the festivities? “The Twelve Days of Christmas” isn’t just the wish-list of an eccentric and high-maintenance wifejak. It’s a picture of how the season ought to be. Instead of dutifully pledging to obsess over hydration come January, you could be cavorting merrily among a retinue of milkmaids and an assortment of waterfowl. Or at least you could leave your Christmas lights up without remorse.
All this and more can be ours if we simply ditch the secular falderal and refer back to the liturgical calendar. Christmas would then last until January 6—which is not the Solemnity of the Insurrection but the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the wise men’s visit to the manger. The kings and princes are not home come New Year’s, thanks very much, they are just getting started—as we should be. By some accounts the Christmas season extends all the way to “Candlemas” on February 2, which commemorates the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple according to Jewish rite. That would make Christmas 40 days long, rivaling the 50 days of “Eastertide” to celebrate the resurrection.
But just as the exuberance of Easter is preceded by the 40 somber days of Lent, the 40 days of Christmas are preceded by days of preparation known as Advent. This is the key to understanding the rhythm of the whole liturgical calendar: it goes through successive periods of grief and joy, silence and music, death and resurrection. It takes the natural ebb and flow of the light throughout the year as raw material in a grand work of art, using the solar system itself to construct a symbolic picture of Jesus’ life. In Genesis, when God sets up the stars as “signs to mark the seasons,” the rhythm of the year becomes a language for conveying the order of creation. The Jewish calendar, pinned to the cycles of the moon, established the pattern. The Christian calendar, founded on the schedule of Jewish feasts that Christ observed, grows out of it.
The winter solstice, when the daylight becomes shortest, makes for a natural beginning to this yearly sequence. Unlike Easter, which took place firmly during the festival of Passover, Christmas isn’t identified with a specific date in the Bible. Many people now think Jesus was born sometime in the Spring. But the winter date was fixed already by the <a href="https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/EMCO/SIM-00726.xml?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4th century A.D</a>. St. Augustine of Hippo loved to <a href="http://dec25th.info/Augustine's%20Sermon%20192.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">preach</a> about the symbolic appropriateness of December 25th as an entry point for God into the world, precisely because of the dark and the cold: “He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase.” As the day wanes to its lowest ebb and the year rolls into its most brooding silence, the light of the world slips in and begins to grow.
This is deep and ancient magic. Every people and tribe has long since recognized that the earth wheels through a cycle of death and rebirth. Christians saw in their lord and savior the answer to a promise whispered through the very structure of creation, written in the very bones of the year. This is why it remains hilarious when detractors, as they have done since antiquity, accuse Christians of “appropriating” or imitating pagan rituals. The obvious answer to this is that yes, of course—in Christ we behold the fullness of a reality only dimly glimpsed in the nature worship of old. All the pageantry of myth and legend points at last to the greatest story ever told, and told again each year.
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Hence the season of Advent, a period of waiting and watching as the world grows dark. It covers the four weeks before Christmas, each one of which is dedicated to a different element of the story—the hope of the prophets, the peace of Bethlehem, the joy of the shepherds, the love of the angels. Shortly after <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3501.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">St. Martin of Tours</a> ripped his cloak and gave half to a beggar on a cold winter day, the season became associated in France with alms and fasting. Now most churches keep some form of the ritual. Creation itself holds its breath, and mankind awaits the adventus, the arrival, of a transforming light.
Not that you can’t play Christmas music in December. But you’ll get more out of the season if you spend part of it in contemplation, reading, and prayer. The world winds down this month in anticipation of a rebirth that comes just when creation feels most exhausted, its natural powers and energies spent. At that moment an all but invisible gap opens in the machinery of things, and there enters—unseen by the government sentries prowling the city streets, undreamt of in the palaces of emperors—the light and the lord of the world. At which point, the party’s on.
* * *
Spencer A. Klavan is host of the Young Heretics podcast and author, most recently, of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Light-Mind-World-Science-Illuminating/dp/1684515335" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith</a>. The associate editor of the <a href="https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Claremont Review of Books</a>, he has written for many outlets, including The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, City Journal, Newsweek, The Federalist, The American Mind, and The Daily Wire. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/SpencerKlavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@SpencerKlavan</a>. You find his daily Advent posts on Substack at and read further theological reflections at <a href="https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New Jerusalem</a>, where he writes alongside his father, novelist Andrew Klavan.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

Four lit candles for Advent

The Case For Advent-Maxxing

Advent

Christians

Christmas

Church

History

Jesus Christ

Liturgical

The following is part three of a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dante-and-the-redemption-of-politics-part-i-understanding-dantes-vision">four-part series</a> taken from a <a class="c-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b9wODrWwQo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b9wODrWwQo" data-sk="tooltip_parent">speech</a> delivered by <a class="c-link" href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" data-sk="tooltip_parent">Michael Knowles</a> at the National Intercollegiate Studies Institute Honors Conference.
* * *
So does this mean Dante hates freedom? Nothing could be further from the truth. We hear in “Paradiso” V that “the greatest gift that ever in his bountifulness God gave in creating, and the most conformed to his goodness, the one that is most prized, was the freedom of the will, with which the creatures with intelligence, all of them and only they, were and are endowed.” Dante tells us in “Monarchia” that “the human race is in its ideal state when it is completely free” and that “the first principle of our freedom is free will, which many people talk about but few understand.”
Here Dante seems to be speaking directly into our own time, when so many people are confused about the true meaning of “freedom.” 
Dante distinguishes between true and false freedom: “If judgment controls desire completely and is in no way pre-empted by it, it is free; but if judgment is in any way at all pre-empted and thus controlled by desire, it cannot be free, because it does not act under its own power, but is dragged along in the power of something else.” Lord Acton summarizes this view in the pithy statement that freedom is not the ability to do what we wish but the right to do what we ought. 
Dante loves freedom. And it is because he loves freedom that he demands universal monarchy. Because, as he tells us in “Monarchia,” “The activity proper to mankind considered as a whole is constantly to actualize the full intellectual potential of humanity, primarily through thought and secondarily through action (as a function and extension of thought).” He adds that “mankind most readily attends to this activity … in the calm or tranquility of peace.” Therefore, “universal peace is the best of those things which are ordained for our human happiness.” And the only way to get universal peace is through a universal ruler.
But then doesn’t this therefore imply a merger of Church and State under one single ruler? Not for Dante. But Dante’s enemy Pope Boniface VIII thought it did, as the pope argued in 1302 in his papal bull “Unam Sanctam.”
Boniface argued that all power on earth lies ultimately with the pope — that even the emperor is subordinate to the pope. To defend his claim, Boniface made a couple of dubious scriptural arguments. Boniface also relied on the Donation of Constantine — a document later proven to be a forgery — in which the Emperor purportedly transferred authority over the western Roman Empire to the pope.
Dante says no. Even if Boniface’s questionable readings of scripture were accurate, even if Constantine had really attempted to transfer political authority to the pope, nevertheless it would not be possible. Because on earth, everything has limits. Even the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, which our Lord gives to St. Peter — the power “to loose and to bind” — cannot be absolute because Peter could not do things that God himself cannot do.
Peter could, for instance, absolve an unrepentant sinner. He could not “loosen a wife from her husband and bind her to another while the first was still alive.” There are limits not only to the power of the emperor but also of the pope. Those limits derive from the nature of their respective offices, and the distinction between the offices derives from the fact that man himself has two natures: corruptible body and incorruptible mind. Mankind therefore, having two natures, necessarily has two ends: happiness in this life and happiness in eternity. The political order — the Empire — is meant to serve man’s temporal happiness; the spiritual order — the Church — should conduce to man’s eternal happiness.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h4>
And yet Dante does not call, as later political thinkers will, for a “firm separation of church and state.” On the contrary, he concludes by warning that his argument “should not be taken so literally as to mean that the Roman Prince is not in some sense subject to the Roman Pontiff, since this earthly happiness is in some sense ordered towards immortal happiness. Let Caesar therefore show that reverence towards Peter which a firstborn son should show his father, so that, illumined by the light of paternal grace, he may the more effectively light up the world, over which he has been placed by Him alone who is ruler over all things spiritual and temporal.” 
The pope and the emperor have distinct realms of action. But we cannot totally separate the temporal and the spiritual just as we cannot separate the literal from the allegorical or the particular from the universal.
Now, having digressed for all that context, let’s move on to the pre-political canto, Canto V of “Inferno.” Here Dante encounters Francesca da Rimini, who had an affair with her brother-in-law Paolo, both of whom are killed by her jilted husband when he discovers them.
Paolo and Francesca fall in love, she tells us, while reading. They read the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. And here Dante makes an important point about language. When read in Italian, it is most important to listen to the language.
<blockquote>Amor, ch&#8217;al cor gentil ratto s&#8217;apprende,
prese costui de la bella persona
che mi fu tolta; e &#8216;l modo ancor m&#8217;offende.
&nbsp;
Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona,
mi prese del costui piacer sì forte,
che, come vedi, ancor non m’abbandona.
&nbsp;
Amor condusse noi ad una morte.
Caina attende chi a vita ci spense&#8221;.
Queste parole da lor ci fuor porte.</blockquote>
“Love, which is quickly kindled in the gentle heart,” “love, which does not pardon any beloved from loving,” “love led us to one death.” That last phrase: “amor condusse noi ad una morte.” “Amor” — love — is precisely in the middle of “una morte” — “one death.”
It’s untranslatable. It is possible to gist in translation, but it only really works in Italian. Dante is showing, as he tells explicitly in his essay on language, “De Vulgari Eloquentia,” that particular languages are appropriate for particular works and particular writers. Not only do different circumstances call for different forms of language — the high grammatica of Latin versus the vulgar vernacular — but writers have a special obligation to their own native vernaculars simply by virtue of those vernaculars’ being their own. Dante writes in “The Banquet” of “the perpetual shame and mortification of the wicked men of Italy who praise the vernacular of others and disparage their own.”
Dante condemns his own teacher Brunetto Latini in part for betraying his vernacular. The point is that language is particular. There’s an old expression, “traduttore, traditore” — the translator is a traitor. Individual experiences are not interchangeable.
This is more evident in Canto XXXI of Inferno when Dante meets Nimrod, who builds the Tower of Babel. When Dante meets him, Nimrod says, “Raphèl maì amècche zabì almì,” which is untranslatable, not because of some pun, but more basically because no one knows what language it is. It seems the phrase is nonsense. Which in itself is meaningful.
Observing the Babel builders, the Lord says, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” So he confused their language and scattered them over the face of the earth.
The combination of political and linguistic unity would have unleashed invincible evil on the world. So God disrupted — temporarily — their political unity and permanently severed their linguistic unity. Now we see a chasm between what is said and what is understood — a chasm which is itself merely an exaggeration of the gap that appeared between word and meaning at the Fall.
Nimrod attempted to short-circuit the particularity of politics and history. He transgressed the limits placed on man at the Fall. We learn more about this fact in “Paradiso” XXVI, when Dante meets Adam, who explains that ”the tasting of the tree in itself” did not cause “so long an exile, but only going beyond the sign.” A crucial word: “sign.” Adam in disobedience figuratively “goes beyond the sign,” and as a result there emerges a distance between literal signs — that is, words — and the meanings that they signify.
In “Paradiso” XXVI, Adam corrects Dante’s earlier belief, articulated in “De Vulgari Eloquentia,” that Hebrew alone survived the confusion of languages at Babel — that Hebrew is in fact the original language created by God — “so that our redeemer, who was to descend from them (in so far as He was human), should not speak the language of confusion, but that of grace.”
Adam says no. “The language that I spoke was all extinct before Nimrod’s people became intent on the unfinishable work.” This is because “no rational effect, because of human preference, which changes following the heavens, has ever been enduring.” Nothing is immune from history. God himself enters into history, and the Word himself speaks a language that is contingent, particular, and constantly changing.
Even the names we call God change: first it was “I,” then “El,” and so on. “This is necessary,” Adam explains, “for the usage of mortals is like a leaf on the branch, which departs and another comes.” The usage of mortals changes because, as Dante writes in “De Vulgari Eloquentia,” “Nothing can be conveyed from one reasoning mind to another except by means perceptible to the sense.” And percepts are always changing. God does not change, but everything else does, including the names we call him.
This is one reason Dante chose to write the “Comedy” in the vernacular. For some of his minor works, he chose the high grammatica of Latin. For his magnum opus, he chose the low vernacular. To go up, we must go down.
* * *
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dante-and-the-redemption-of-politics-part-i-understanding-dantes-vision" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: Dante And The Redemption Of Politics, Part I: Understanding Dante’s Vision</a></h3>
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The Florence Cathedral – Santa Maria del Fiore in an orange sunset.

Dante And The Redemption Of Politics, Part III: Distinguishing Between True And False Freedom

Dante

Florence

Italy

Michael Knowles

Politics

speech

The following is part two of a four-part series taken from a <a class="c-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b9wODrWwQo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b9wODrWwQo" data-sk="tooltip_parent">speech</a> delivered by <a class="c-link" href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" data-sk="tooltip_parent">Michael Knowles</a> at the National Intercollegiate Studies Institute Honors Conference.
* * *
In “Inferno” VI, Dante calls his political party “the party of the woods” — “la parte selvaggia” — because its central family, the Cerchi, came from a rural area. It seems to me — though I’ve never seen this in any commentaries on the poem — that this explains the repetition in the first lines. Especially when we consider the timing of Dante’s arrival in the dark wood just before his ascent to the Priorate, it seems to me Dante is calling our attention immediately to the political cause of his losing the straight way.
Some additional evidence for this view comes from Dante himself, in a letter preserved by the historian Leonardo Bruni, in which he says, “All my woes and all my misfortunes had their cause and origin in my ill-omened election to the Priorate.” So, if my interpretation is correct, this means even the vaguest and more general scene in the poem, “Inferno” I, is rooted in highly particular historical experience.
Dante then encounters three beasts at the foot of a “desert slope”: a leopard, a lion, and a lupa — a “she-wolf.”And the she-wolf scares him the most. Why? Lions and leopards seem scarier to me. What is it about the she-wolf?
We know that later on Dante will connect the she-wolf with avarice. Beyond that, we really don’t know Dante’s precise meaning. And I suspect we’re not supposed to know because we usually don’t understand the meaning of events as they occur. This isn’t “Pilgrim’s Progress.” In Dante’s journey, just as in real life, we don’t encounter giant, talking allegories. We encounter literal events and figures — with allegorical significance, no doubt, but allegorical significance that often eludes us, at least at first.
In the fallen world, there is a distance between sign and signified, between symbol and symbolized. It is a distance present in language itself. Angels don’t need language. Angels’ knowledge is directly infused. Humans need language because we’re incarnate. So we communicate in perceptible sounds and scribbles. But there’s a problem with our language. As a consequence of the Fall, a chasm has opened between what we say and what we mean. This distance — this desert, we might say — constitutes another kind of exile between word and meaning. We don’t quite say what we want to say, and we don’t immediately grasp the meaning of symbols.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
So politics is the particular things that happen, the full meaning of which we cannot know as they occur. And history is the record of politics, the significance of which we later interpret. But if we can interpret history, that means that history is not merely literal. Every particular thing evinces some universal truth, and the universal is made manifest to us only through the particular.
So what does the she-wolf mean? It seems to me the clearest connotation is political. The she-wolf nurses Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. What strikes the most fear into Dante’s heart — what most obstructs his path — is a political beast, a beast, we’ll read 40 lines later, which “lets no one pass by her way, but so much impedes him that she kills him.”
We learn this from the first character that Dante meets: Virgil, the poet of empire and history, whose “Aeneid” tells the story of the founding of Rome, the universal empire, transferred west from Troy to Italy through Aeneas, ancestor to Romulus and Remus.
Dante’s journey is not a straight-shot to God. It’s a journey incited by a particular individual, Virgil, whom we later learn was sent by another individual, Dante’s beloved Beatrice — not even a public figure — who will then introduce Dante to another individual, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who will serve as the final guide on the pilgrim’s journey, which is mediated at all times by real and specific people.
<div id="attachment_805345" style="width: 922px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-805345" class="wp-image-805345 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/10/GettyImages-171101483-912x576.jpg" alt="Dante Alighieri and Beatrice in Florence. 20th century illustration. Italian poet, 1265-1321. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)" width="912" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/10/GettyImages-171101483-912x576.jpg 912w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/10/GettyImages-171101483-300x190.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/10/GettyImages-171101483-768x485.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/10/GettyImages-171101483.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 912px) 100vw, 912px" />Dante Alighieri and Beatrice in Florence. 20th century illustration. Italian poet, 1265-1321. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)</div>
When Dante sees Virgil “in the great desert,” he cries, “‘Miserere di me,’ whatever you may be, whether shade or true man.” Dante doesn’t quite meet “Virgil.” He meets the “shade” of Virgil.
“Not a man — I was once a man,” Virgil explains. “My parents were Lombards, both Mantuans by birth. I was born under Julius, though it was late, and I lived in Rome under the good Augustus in the time of the false and lying gods.” Virgil is not a man because men are irreducibly historic beings. We are not souls flitting through eternity. We are incarnate creatures — composites of body and soul — and we can only ever be men by virtue of our place in history.
Therefore, Virgil identifies himself by his political circumstances: geographic in that he is Mantuan, and temporal in that he was “born under Julius.” Which isn’t even true, by the way. Virgil was born in 70 B.C. He was 21-years-old when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. But Dante is connecting Virgil with the Empire, the perfection of political order.
Virgil speaks of the journey that they are about to undertake — even of God himself — in imperial terms. He refers to “that Emperor who reigns on high,” and he informs Dante that they will not exit the wood by going up. Dante will not retrieve the straight path by virtue of his own intellect and will. To go up, he must go down.
Dante is skeptical. He says, “I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul.” Why invoke Aeneas and Paul? What do they have in common? Two things. They both travel to the “immortal realm” — Aeneas to the land of the dead, Paul to the third heaven. And they both go to Rome. 
Dante writes of Aeneas: 
<blockquote>He in the Empyrean heaven had been chosen to 
be father of mother Rome and her empire: 
and Rome and her empire, to tell the truth, were 
established to be the holy place where the successor 
of great Peter is enthroned.
Through this journey that you claim for him, he 
understood things that were the cause of his victory
and of the papal mantle.
Later the chosen Vessel [Paul] went there, to bring back 
strengthening for that faith which is the beginning of 
the way of salvation.</blockquote>
Virgil tells Dante that he must venture into the pit of Hell, and the first thing Dante thinks of is politics. And it’s not a frivolous obsession. For Dante, Rome is divinely imbued with authority. God the Father sent his only begotten Son to be incarnate in the fullness of time into the Roman Empire. For Dante, Rome has a divine mandate to govern the whole world attested to in the Gospel of St. Luke: “There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed,” which for Dante signifies, as he explains in his political tract “Monarchia,” “that at that time the Romans exercised jurisdiction over the whole world.”
For Dante, it’s appropriate that the Romans governed the world because they were not only the noblest people but also providentially formed, as we see in the marriages of Aeneas, who had three wives: Creusa in Troy, then Dido in Carthage, and finally Lavinia in Italy — Asia, Africa, and Europe, all brought under the headship of one man. “Who will fail,” Dante asks, “to recognize divine predestination in that double confluence of blood from every part of the world into a single man?”
The Roman Empire’s divine mandate to govern is not only apparent but necessary, according to Dante, if Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is to redeem all of mankind. As Dante explains in “Monarchia,” “If the Roman empire was not based on right, Adam’s sin was not punished in Christ.” That is, “If Christ had not suffered under an authorized judge, that penalty would not have been a punishment. And no judge could be authorized unless he had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind, since the whole of mankind was punished in that flesh of Christ.”
So Rome had the special right to govern the world. And this is good, Dante believes, because “mankind most closely resembles God when it is most a unity.” Today we worship “diversity” for diversity’s sake. Dante does not. Mankind, he writes, “is in its ideal state when it follows the footsteps of heaven, insofar as its nature allows. And since the whole sphere of heaven is guided by a single movement … and by a single source of motion (who is God) … mankind is in its ideal state when it is guided by a single ruler.”
In other words, we ought to imitate the heavens, and the kingdom of heaven is not a democracy — or an oligarchy, or a tyranny, or any form of government other than universal monarchy, which Dante concludes “is necessary to the world.”
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<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dante-and-the-redemption-of-politics-part-i-understanding-dantes-vision" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: Dante And The Redemption Of Politics, Part I: Understanding Dante’s Vision</a></h3>

Divine Comedy. Journey of Dante through the Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. By Dore.

Dante And The Redemption Of Politics, Part II: The Pilgrim’s Journey

Dante And The Redemption Of Politics, Part II: The Pilgrim's Journey

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