The Passing of Pope Francis and What It Looks Like To Have A Big Heart
Real love is in accordance with truth.
Pope Francis passed away on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025, at the age of 88.
Tributes to a Man of Peace
As tributes to Francis have poured in from around the world, many have spoken of Francis as a man of peace and tolerance. One newspaper “praised” him for dragging the Catholic Church into the 21st century. More on that in a moment.
A Big Heart Remembered
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, in his opinion piece for the New York Post entitled, “Pope Francis’ gift to us was his big heart-he lives forever,” remembered Pope Francis this way,
Commentators note that Pope St. John Paul II revived the soul of the Church, and the world, reminding us unrelentingly that we, God’s children, have His life deep within, in our soul, and thus is every human life special, every person noble.
Then Pope Benedict rekindled our reason, as this towering intellect insisted that God’s best gifts to us were faith and reason, the two an awesome symphony.
Bring on Pope Francis. We heard him at the start speak of tenderness and mercy, sentiments poets attribute to the heart, and he did not halt in his drive to shock — paddle the heart of humanity, turning it from hardness and hate to tenderness and love. We need all three: soul, mind, heart. We’re less than human if we lack them.
So, this gentle, soft-spoken, smiling, blessing, hugging, kissing, embracing shepherd goes to the Lord ‘whose mercy endures forever,’ the God who dwells in our souls, who inspires our minds, who has a heart deeply in love with us, His children.
Francis’ big heart, his tenderness and mercy, are recurring themes throughout the many tributes to Pope Francis.
These are, indeed, laudable and necessary attributes of a Christian shepherd. These qualities are sadly lacking at times in the church today.
The Agreement Between Love and Truth
But love, mercy, tenderness, and kindness are not to be pitted against the truth of God’s Word.
Francis may personally have been a kind and loving man in many ways. But his record as a pastor and shepherd was not just lacking, it was destructive and deceiving.
When the editorial board of The Washington Post says Pope Francis pulled the Catholic Church into the 21st century, they speak of this as if it’s a good thing, but it is actually damning praise.
Francis was something new and, for the church, badly needed — a man who saw clearly that a new century had dawned and that the world had evolved. He pushed a massive institution to evolve with it.
Aligning with False Ideologies
One thing you won’t hear among the tributes to the Pope is that Francis pushed this massive institution to “evolve” and align more closely with one of the great false religions of the 21st century: Gay Race Communism.
Openly gay Vatican advisor, Juan Carlos Cruz, recalls Pope Francis told him, “The fact that you’re gay does not matter. God loves you.” And, upon bringing some transgender individuals to meet the pope, “The church belongs to ‘every one, every one, every one,’ Cruz recalled Francis saying, and hopes the church can preserve the pontiff’s legacy of acceptance.” In 2013, Pope Francis replied to a reporter’s question concerning gay clergy with, “Who am I to judge?” And, in 2023, Francis permitted Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples causing leftist activist and priest James Martin to praise the decision as a “huge step forward in the church’s ministry to same-sex couples.”
As is often the case with the most effective of deceptions, these statements subtly mix truth with error. For decades, the left has framed “love” as unqualified acceptance. There is no room to agree to disagree. Anything less than full acquiescence to someone’s invented realities and preferred perversions is considered hatred in the world religion of Gay Race Communism.
The True Nature of Love
Explaining why she repented of the so-called winsome, loving, and caring act of calling people by their preferred pronouns, Rosaria Butterfield addresses issues concerning the relationship between love and truth.
Butterfield tells the story of Laura Perry Smalts, a woman who lived as a “transgendered man” before “God saved, redeemed, and transformed her into a beautiful trophy of his grace.” Laura “returned to the church of her youth and her conservative Christian parents.” Why? Her parents had never used her preferred pronouns. “Their refusal to lie compelled her to trust.”
Butterfield goes on to argue in her article,
“Do you know the difference between making false friends (“frenemies”) and loving your enemies? Yes, Jesus was a friend of sinners, which means that by His precious blood, he ransoms all who repent, believe, and put their trust in Him. He makes former enemies into his friends through his blood. The blood of Christ does not create an ‘ally’ with the sin it crushes on the cross, for that stands in opposition to gospel hope. The world, the flesh, and the devil are not Christ’s friends. Trans identity and Jesus are not coterminous. It’s one or the other. Christians need to learn how to love their enemies, not pretend their enemies are their friends.”
And,
“Christians who use the moral lens of LGBTQ+ personhood are not merely a ‘soft presence’ in the enemy camp. Their malleability makes them pudding in the enemy’s hand. They make false converts to a counterfeit gospel that bends the knee to the fictional identity of LGBTQ+. This wolfish theology cedes the moral language to the left by using transgendered pronouns as a moral lens (‘respect, courtesy, hospitality’). They reject the clarity of the word of God and replace it with garbage. By doing so, they have rejected the gospel truth that Jesus is the only way to salvation. Heidelberg Question 30 puts it like this: ‘for though they boast of Him in words, yet in deeds, they deny Jesus as the only deliverer and Savior.’”
The way to love someone and be a true friend is, as Butterfield put it, through the blood of Christ. We do not “ally” with sin. We do not contribute to making false converts by offering a counterfeit gospel. We don’t conceal or soften the truth that Jesus is the only way to salvation. As Butterfield stated, the blood of Christ crushes sin on the cross. The tolerance of the world makes false friends. Christ made friends by ransoming “all who repent, believe, and put their trust in Him. He makes former enemies into his friends through his blood.”
The Pope said being gay does not matter, who am I to judge, the church is for everyone even in their unrepentant transgenderism, and he created a way for priests to bless same-sex couples. The world called him loving, compassionate, and merciful for this yet thru his so-called loving acts, he replaced the gospel with “garbage.” By being a “friend,” he left many as enemies of God. In this, he was an instrument of false friendship and deception rather than compassion.
Denying the Exclusivity of Christ
Francis’ “big heart” on LGBTQ+ was not the only way Pope Francis denied “the gospel truth that Jesus is the only way to salvation.” Last year during a trip to Singapore, Pope Francis told one group,
“All religions are paths to God. There is only one God, and religions are like languages, paths to reach God. Some Sikh, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Christian.”
Progressives defended the Pope arguing that he stills affirmed the “centrality” of Christ while recognizing the value of other religions. This approach was “humble” and “generous.”
“Francis’s humble and generous approach to interreligious dialogue—most vivid in his recognition of other traditions as paths to God—is not oriented only to Truth. For Francis, dialogue is ultimately a practice, a way to advance God’s kingdom of justice and peace.”
It is not the mere centrality of Christ that the church holds to when we speak of salvation. It is the exclusivity of Christ that we find in the God’s Word.
The Failure to Love Truly
Archbishop Emeritus of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput responded by identifying the failure to love that an approach such as Francis’ represents.
“Christians hold that Jesus alone is the path to God. To suggest, imply, or allow others to infer otherwise is a failure to love because genuine love always wills the good of the other, and the good of all people is to know and love Jesus Christ, and through him the Father who created us.”
This is the correct response. But let us look outside the heretical church for a fuller affirmation of the precious doctrine of “Christ Alone.” According to J.C. Ryle,
“We must come in the name of Jesus,—standing on no other ground,—pleading no other plea than this, ‘Christ died on the cross for the ungodly, and I trust in Him. Christ died for me, and I believe on Him.’
The garment of our Elder Brother,—the righteousness of Christ,—this is the only robe which can cover us and enable us to stand in the light of heaven without shame.
The name of Jesus is the only name by which we shall obtain an entrance through the gate of eternal glory. If we come to that gate in our own names, we are lost, we shall not be admitted, we shall knock in vain. If we come in the name of Jesus, it is a passport and Shibboleth, and we shall enter and live.
The mark of the blood of Christ is the only mark that can save us from destruction. When the angels are separating the children of Adam in the last day, if we are not found marked with that atoning blood, we had better never have been born.”
A False Teacher’s Legacy
Pope Francis may have had a “big heart,” but he was a false teacher who left many in their sins in the name of his version of love and tolerance. A true friend offers love joined with truth. A love that would see people redeemed by the blood of Christ rather than offering them a winsome niceness which has no real power.
Love without truth is not love at all.