Francis’ time as pope has come to an end and already many are attempting to define his legacy. Was he a reformer? Was he a progressive? Was he an apostate? Perspectives are wildly varied with some honoring him as the greatest pope of modern times and some dishonoring him as a disgrace to the office.
As I read various columns, several words seem to come up repeatedly, though none so often as humility.1 From his earliest days he was described as “the humble pope.”2 It was said to be humility that compelled him to take the name “Francis” and evidence of his humility that he asked the faithful to pray for him rather than the other way around. He declined some of the more ostentatious benefits of the papacy and chose to live a simpler and less pretentious life. In these ways and many others, he seemed to show exemplary humility.
Yet before we concur with such an assessment, we ought to consider this: What is humility? Humility, in the words of Wayne Mack, “consists in an attitude wherein we recognize our own insignificance and unworthiness before God and attribute to Him the supreme honor, praise, prerogatives, rights, privileges, worship, devotion, authority, submission, and obedience that He alone deserves. It also involves a natural, habitual tendency to think and behave in a manner that appropriately expresses this attitude.” Mack gets straight to the heart of humility when he shows that it is expressed before God before it is expressed before man. If we are proud before God, we cannot be humble before man.
Like any of us, Pope Francis could only be humble—truly humble—if he first attributed to God “the supreme honor, praise, prerogatives, rights, privileges, worship, devotion, authority, submission, and obedience that He alone deserves.” Yet Roman Catholic doctrine, and especially doctrine related to the papacy, steals from the honor, rights, prerogatives, and authority of Jesus Christ and attributes them instead to the pope. By definition and by Catholic dogma, Francis was no humble pope. He couldn’t be unless he rejected the office of pope and the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
The Vicar of Christ
According to the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, the most fundamental claim about the pope is that he is the Vicar of Christ. “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.” A vicar is a substitute (as we see in the word vicarious), which means, according to James White, that the pope “functions in the place of Christ as the earthly head of the Church as Christ is the heavenly leader.” The pope claims to be Christ’s representative on earth, left here to rule the Church. Yet this claim demeans the role of the Holy Spirit, for it is the Spirit to whom Christ has entrusted his church. As White says, “The truth of the matter is that the Holy Spirit’s role has been taken over by the hierarchy of the Church, and the individual Christian is subject to that authority as a matter of his eternal salvation.”
Pope Francis proclaimed that he was Christ’s Vicar on earth and that he, like Christ, had supreme and unhindered authority on earth. Yet for a pope to be truly humble, he would have to revoke his blasphemous claim to supremacy and instead direct people to the care of the Holy Spirit.
Infallibility
The Roman Catholic Church attributes infallibility, the impossibility of error, to the pope “when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.” Essentially, this doctrine teaches that God has given humanity a spokesman on earth who can authoritatively and infallibly address the most difficult questions related to life and doctrine. While the specifics of papal infallibility are complex and debated, in any form it infringes upon the authority of the Bible. Again, James White explains: “Papal infallibility is really the capstone of the entire denial of sola scriptura. We are told we can find an infallible guide in the person of the pope, one who can speak for the Church without question on matters of faith and morals. It is impossible not to point out the simple fact that in this doctrine one finds the final step in a process that began with the first addition of a human tradition to the Scriptures: the process of replacing the Holy Spirit of God with a structure of man’s making.” The claim of infallibility simply cannot be reconciled with the claim of humility.
Had Francis actually been a humble pope, he would have declared his own fallibility and placed himself under the authority of Scripture. He would also have called upon the church to examine in the light of God’s Word every word he spoke and every word his predecessors had spoken before him.
The Upholder of Doctrine
As head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis was the supreme upholder of its doctrine. Yet this doctrine is fundamentally opposed to the gospel of grace alone by faith alone through Christ alone. The unbiblical doctrine that necessitated the Protestant Reformation has been affirmed and re-affirmed by Rome. The Catholic doctrine of justification is still one of faith plus works rather than one of faith alone. Canon 9 of the Council of Trent has never been revoked and remains the Church’s official position: “If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.” This is just one of many anathemas that together claim that those who affirm justification by faith alone are placed under God’s curse and are subject to his wrath. For the duration of his time as pope, Francis was the primary proclaimer and upholder of these anathemas and did nothing to revoke them.
Had Francis actually been a humble pope, he would have declared his own fallibility and placed himself under the authority of Scripture.
Had he been a truly humble pope, he would have revoked the church’s anathemas against the doctrine of justification by faith alone and instead affirmed what the Bible so clearly teaches to be true.
The Humble Pope?
We admire those who do good things, who choose poverty instead of riches, who prefer prisoners to priests. Yet we can also be easily deceived by what is merely outward. As Protestants consider the legacy of Pope Francis, we would do well to be cautious about elevating him as an example of the virtue of humility. I have shared just three of the claims of the papacy that come into sharp contrast with any such claim. We could point as well to his titles of Your Holiness, or Holy Father, or we could point to the fact that he allowed people to kiss his ring. (Would you consider your pastor humble if he demanded such titles and such rituals?) But ultimately, these are all subservient to the greatest and most blasphemous claim of Pope Francis and the Church he represents: that he is the Vicar of Christ. In the face of this claim among all the others, “Humble Pope” is an oxymoron.
- See, for example, Christianity Today’s obituary. ↩︎
- This article is largely drawn from one I wrote 12 years ago when he became pope. ↩︎
