For a diverse religion with 1.4 billion followers and centuries of history, the Catholic Church left by Pope Francis has a clear identity in the West as a default protest movement in the vacuum left by the retreat of moderate “compassionate” conservatism.

Within hours of Francis’ death, the decade-long attack on his papacy was renewed. MAGA congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, flung from the far right into the centre by today’s reverse political centrifuge, tweeted: “Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.” Seriously.

Illustration by Dionne Gain

Australia’s MAGA-be George Christensen wrote that Francis’ was “one of the most divisive and destructive papacies in modern history”, radically “modern” for statements such as his 2018 interview, when reportedly he said: “There is no hell; sinful souls simply disappear.” Seriously? (The Vatican later claimed the pontiff had been misquoted.)

Francis’ heresies included calling for action to save the planet; for priests to baptise the children of single mothers; for accepting the fact of homosexuality; for calling Christians “hypocrites” if they turn their backs on refugees. He supported innocent victims in Gaza and he called repeatedly for a ceasefire. As for racial inclusivity, see if the church could last five minutes without diversity. The only common ground he held with the ascendant right was his opposition to abortion. One of his last sufferings was to tolerate an Easter visit from J.D. Vance, characteristically resembling an entitled Ivy League student, bristling with ignorance and arrogance, coming back to lecture Europe for failing to follow the shining light of the MAGA faith.

The church had spent centuries fighting rationalism, but those who attack Francis as the “woke Pope” are believers in newer religion, personality cults calling for blind belief in their infallible messiahs. In........

© The Sydney Morning Herald