Theory 2 Action Podcast
Theory 2 Action Podcast
CC#41--Holy Earthquakes: Understanding Pope Francis in Four Books
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Pope Francis's recent passing marks the end of a transformative and deeply controversial 12-year pontificate that reshaped the Catholic Church in profound ways. What will be his ultimate legacy? Four essential books offer contrasting perspectives that help us understand the full picture.
Austin Ivory's "The Great Reformer" and "Wounded Shepherd" present Francis as a spiritual director guiding the Church toward greater humility and mercy. The author describes Francis's impact as "like an earthquake...moving and shaking things up and in that shaking up, what will fall is what has to fall and what will rise up is a new era in the history of the church." This sympathetic view portrays Francis as a holy man committed to reforming Church structures while maintaining its spiritual essence.
On the other side, Father Gerald Murray's "Calming the Storm" and Trent Horn's "Confusion in the Kingdom" critique what they see as progressive overreach during Francis's papacy. They argue that efforts to reach the "peripheries" and create a "field hospital" Church sometimes came at the expense of clear moral teaching. As Horn writes, "The liberal Catholicism I have critiqued in this book fails the people who need God and his church the most. It causes them to downplay the spiritual hazard of certain sins."
These contrasting perspectives reflect the real divisions Francis's leadership created among Catholics worldwide. His reforms around marriage, synodality, and liturgy generated both passionate support and fierce resistance. Whether viewed as necessary modernization or dangerous accommodation to secular values, Francis undeniably leaves behind a Church grappling and confused with fundamental questions about its identity and mission.
As we pray for the repose of Francis's soul during this traditional mourning period, we might remember that if there's one thing he would want to be remembered for, it's his emphasis on God's boundless mercy – a message that transcends the political and theological debates his papacy inspired.
Correction: I referenced "Pinochet as Argentina's leader," that is incorrect. I meant to reference Jorge Rafael Videla which was the leader who overthrew the Peron govt in the 1970's during Argentinas "Dirty War" era. My apologies.
Key points:
• "The Great Reformer" by Austin Ivory traces Jorge Bergoglio's journey from Buenos Aires to the Vatican
• Ivory's second book "Wounded Shepherd" offers a more nuanced view, comparing Francis's impact to an earthquake reshaping the Church
• Father Gerald Murray's "Calming the Storm" critiques Francis's reforms for creating confusion rather than clarity
• Trent Horn's "Confusion in the Kingdom" examines how progressive Catholicism is bringing harm to the Church
• These books collectively reveal the tensions between mercy and doctrine, reform and tradition
• The Francis pontificate leaves behind significant fault lines that will shape the Church's future direction
Please pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis and remember his emphasis on God's mercy for all sinners.
Other resources:
Substack written piece "A Papacy of Milestones and Confusion"
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Four books on the legacy of Pope Francis. Let's talk about it on this Catholic Corner.
Speaker 3:You need to say it out loud, for we are the world's first, welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser.
Speaker 1:Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Catholic Corner where we dive into the book shaping our understanding of the Catholic Church today and where we try to take our faith and pull it out of the corner, so to speak, and put it front and center in our lives. So Pope Francis and his pontificate in his recent passing has sparked a global conversation on the legacy of his 12-year papacy. So today we're going to review four books that unpack his leadership, those reforms that he attempted to make and the intense controversies that came with it. Now, before we begin, let's remind ourselves that we are in a traditional mourning period for the passing of the Holy Father, so may I ask for you to offer prayers for the repose of a soul and for God's mercy on him. Thank you. Now, even though we are in the mourning period, we can look back and examine the legacy of his papacy with charity. I have written about this yesterday over at Substack and I cover a great deal in that piece on Pope Francis's legacy and I'll include a link in the show notes. But for today we're just going to cover these four books, what I think are the best books to understand a full picture of Pope Francis and his papacy and hopefully bring you closer to the truth of what the last 12 years has been like. Now, I think these four books provide us all with some great nuggets of wisdom and allow you to do your own research and give you a very high-level view of where things stand at the time of this podcast in April of 2025. So with that let's roll.
Speaker 1:Our first review is the Great Reformer, francis in the Making of a Radical Pope, by Austin Ivory. Former Francis in the Making of a Radical Pope by Austin Ivory. Now, this biography traces Jorge Bergoglio's journey and that's his birth name From Buenos Aires to the Vatican, paints him as a Jesuit that was shaped part and parcel by Argentina and its culture and its politics. You will note that the Pinochet regime was quite prevalent during Jorge's time in Argentina, so that gets overlaid. That begins to make things a little bit more complex for the Jesuit and how he viewed the world. Now, who is Austin Ivory? He's a British Catholic journalist. He has an Oxford PhD. He leans into Francis's commitment to the poor and his bold vision for a church that is less about power and more about mercy, which is very good intentions. I think for the most part, it's a well-researched read. Austin Ivory certainly knows his subject and knows Argentina, spent a good deal of time there, I believe, though it is kind of rushed at some moments, there's a lot of there's not a lot, but there's some repeating phrases and I'd found some minor inconsistencies. But for the most part it's. It's a cornerstone. It's a cornerstone book for understanding Francis's roots and how he uh was shaped by world events.
Speaker 1:Now here's the main pull quote we're going to capture from the book. Go on to the book. But there is a narrative thread captured in the title the Radical Reformer that runs through them all, of a church leader who, from an early age, felt called to be a reformer and was given the authority to do so. This is the story not just of the man but his three reforms, of the Argentine Jesuit province, of the Argentine church itself and now of the universal church. His lodestars have been two French theologians, yves Congar and Henri de Labac, who taught him how to unite God's people by a radical reform that will lead them to holiness. If the reader comes to that thread and understands this papacy better as a result, the book's purpose will have been accomplished. I'm not sure the book's central theme of Pope Francis' becoming a radical reformer. I'm not sure this book really makes the case, but you can judge for yourself if you read it.
Speaker 1:Actually, the second book by the same author is what really got me thinking, and that's what we're going to cover next, because the author even admits he painted Pope Francis in far too positive of a light, calling it too full of myths and even too kind, as the Pope's own words told the author, austin Ivory, in a meeting face-to-face with him. So let's dive into the second book, because I think there is where we really get a sense of what Ivory is trying to say about the Holy Father. So, moving on to book two is Wounded Shepherd by, again, austin Ivory. Subtitle is Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church. It was written in 2019. Catholic Church it was written in 2019. Now, it's not a sequel, but it's a deep dive into Francis's first six years as Pope. So he had a 12-year papacy In total.
Speaker 1:I think this book is a really good jumping off point because it gets you six years into Pope Francis's reign and it tackles the messy stuff. It tackles the Vatican financial scandals, the clergy abuse crisis and the pushback on some reforms like sacraments for divorced and remarried people. Now Ivory portrays Francis as a spiritual director. Now Ivory portrays Francis as a spiritual director, not a dictator. I have a little disagreement with that, but guiding the church towards a greater sense of the humility for everyone in the church, which can be a good thing. Now critics call it meticulously researched. I agree with that. Detractors say it's again too pro-Francis. Either way, though, I think it's a more well-rounded book. It's more nuanced and it looks at the Pope embracing the church's wounds. And to get an understanding of what Ivory is saying, let's grab our first pull quote, because this best captures all of it.
Speaker 1:I realize now that the great reformer the book contributed to that myth. Written in a dizzying first months of his pontificate, the parallels with his life, how he appeared at moments of crisis in the church, offered an irresistible narrative. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. I cringe now that I even likened him to a gancho writing out at first light. Six years on, the time for such projections is over. We know too much about the limits of reform. Paths blocked, resistance, mobilized, mistakes made. No longer the great reformer of myth. He is the wounded shepherd to be chosen by the Holy Spirit not to be spared the trials of history.
Speaker 1:Spending time with him, I found him to be smaller, older, more vulnerable, more ordinary than in my mind's eye. I was meeting the person, not the personality. Yet here's the thing I also met holiness. I saw it in the pauses, when he was listening to his heart, to those prompts of the spirit that guide him. I saw it in his serenity, his peaceful freedom. It is a paradoxical quality self-effacing yet powerful, something you have but also give away. It left me feeling loved and free. I met the Pope, in short, in all his ordinary humanity, yet, at the same time, was captivated by the extraordinary quality of what he was open to, of what he puts at the center of his existence, and I got the point he wanted me to understand the real center of the church, he told journalists shortly after his election, was not the Pope but Jesus Christ. And later on we read further down the page.
Speaker 1:This, a metaphor to capture this, came in a moment of inspiration to one of my Latin American interviewees as we sat talking in his house. I was with the Archbishop of Aquapia in southern Peru in April 2016, the day after the release of Francis' document on marriage and the family. Amoris Laetitia the Joy of Love, love. As Archbishop Javier del Rio Alba explained his understanding of the pastoral conversion to which the Pope is calling the Church, I looked beyond his shoulder through the window to a spectacularly snow-capped volcano, el Misti. Following my gaze, he suddenly said what the Pope is doing is like an earthquake, a tremor which is moving and shaking things up and in that shaking up, what will fall is what has to fall and what will rise up is a new era in the history of the church. Now, I think this metaphor is particularly revealing because there were many earthquakes in the life of the church over the last 12 years of the Francis Pontificate and based on the archbishop's quote, it seemed providential that, in terms of the quote, moving and shaking things up and what has to fall will fall and what will rise up as a new era in the history of the church, well, we definitely see. We will definitely see in what direction the College of Cardinals would like to go after this so-called earthquake, this quote shaking of things up. In fact, there was many earthquakes, I would say, that have come to the church.
Speaker 1:But I thought these two books, if you believe Francis was on the right path in terms of his radical reforms and in his guiding of the church as the ship of state through the last 12 years. I think these two books would go very well in your bookshelf to be able to read, because you understand where Francis comes from in terms of his history, which is book one, and even though book one doesn't make the case, I believe that he's a real radical reformer. But in that book two, wounded Shepherd, I believe you get more of the nuances and you understand what has been happening, at least through the first six years, halfway through his pontificate. Now, moving on to book three is Calming the Storm by Father Gerald Murray.
Speaker 1:It's not really a critique. It's not geared towards Pope Francis's pontificate per se. It's really a wholesale look at all the crises facing the church. Let me step back and give you the full, the actual full title Calming the Storm Navigating the Crises Facing the Catholic Church and Society by Father Gerald Murray. It's written in help with Diane Montagna. It was published in 2022.
Speaker 1:And Murray is a Canaan lawyer and an EWTN commentator. He's part of the papal posse. He certainly takes a more critical stance of Francis's pontificate and he argues throughout the book in certain it's a Q&A format, so Diane poses questions to him and then he responds to those questions. But in doing so you can see he argues that Francis's reforms, especially around marriage, synonality and liturgy, have stirred a lot of confusion and a lot of division. He calls for clarity and fidelity to tradition, appealing to the 1.2 billion Catholics around the world who are very or most of whom are wary of the direction Francis has taken the church and of these many earthquakes that Archbishop Alba spoke of. So let's go to the book to understand this side of the story of the 12 years of Pope Francis's pontificate. So Diane Montagna poses a question to Father Murray and his field hospital analogy would argue that Francis specifically caters to these kinds of people for whom the language of traditional Catholic moral teaching fails to resonate. What do you say to this claim?
Speaker 1:Father Murray, I don't agree with this approach. It is not the mission of the church to hide any part of the truth of the gospel in the vain expectation that people will come closer to God when they are only told the uplifting and inspiring parts of the gospel and left with the impression that the Church no longer insists on upholding the hard teachings. It causes great confusion when Pope Francis and others indiscriminately accuse those who defend the fullness of Catholic morality on being rigid, rigorous, whose zeal for God's law is really a mask hiding emotional problems. That is simply not true. In the vast majority of cases, catholic moral teaching is demanding because God made it so. So that's certainly a different way to look at the pontificate of Pope Francis, and one that I'm more sympathetic to. I believe it is noble to reach out to the peripheries and to have that field hospital analogy for the church that Pope Francis has espoused or did espouse during his pontificate. But I also believe you can't compromise the truth in the hard questions, especially with Catholic moral teaching. Francis's pontificate seemed to have wanted both, but when you mixed both of them together then it caused a lot of confusion, and I think that has been the major part of the last 12 years. So let's go on to our final book.
Speaker 1:Book four is Confusion in the Kingdom by Trent Horn. It was written last year, 2024. Subtitle was how Progressive Catholicism is Bringing Harm and Scandal to the Church, and Horn is a Catholic apologist. He examines in the book how Francis's papacy has become a lightning rod for polarization. He critiques in the book a progressive overreach, a liberal Catholicism if you will, and he urges unity through charity and truth, trying to cut out the confusion. I believe it's a more balanced, accessible read. It's grounded in church teaching, though some might want a more in-depth on the specific controversies. If that's the case, I'd refer you back to Father Murray's book. But Trent Horn has a knack for clear reasoning which always shines through in his books, and I think this is a very good, balanced book. If you find yourselves not all the way to Father Murray's side of things and if you're not all the way to Pope Francis's side of things. I think this is especially a good book if you're trying to navigate the fault lines and see where everything is at. So let's go to the book and find out how Trent Horn sees this notion of progressive Catholicism.
Speaker 1:Throughout this book, I have focused more on the actions of lay people and priests, but there is no denying that Pope Francis, although he has taken positions on issues like transgenderism that have angered his liberal allies, he has also shown a fair amount of confusion on key theological and moral issues. For example, as I was revising this manuscript, in December of 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith released fiduci-supplicants, a declaration allowing for the blessing of couples, but allegedly not unions who are in irregular relationships, including same-sex relationships. Although the document claims that this is a development from a previous 2021 decree from the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, at first glance it seems to directly contradict that decree, which forbade blessing same-sex unions because the church cannot bless sin. Now I won't give you a complete analysis of the document here Others have ably done that but I will offer some thoughts on it and how the document reveals one of the greatest tragedies of liberal Catholicism. And later on we read I'm skipping over three, four, five, six pages because I don't think you want to get in the weeds on that. You can check out the book if you want more of those details. But we pick it up four pages later when Trent says this and this is where I think he really gets very close to the truth.
Speaker 1:Going back to the book, the liberal Catholicism I have critiqued in this book fails the people who need God and his church the most. It causes them to downplay the spiritual hazard of certain sins, especially sexual sins, and retreat to a relativistic view of conscience and culpability. Because they haven't fully hardened their hearts by becoming full-blown dissenters. They can still hear God's voice calling them to repent of supporting or engaging in sins like sodomy and abortion. However, instead of responding to God's voice, they turn inward and find unhelpful outlets for their natural religiosity. For example, whereas they allow freedom of conscience for most of the hardened sexual libertine, who says he's Catholic? They fixate on Catholics who happen to own guns or vote Republican, claiming they are really the ones who need to repent because they are quote ruining the church.
Speaker 1:So you can see from that quote and that the church really does have some significant fault lines that has erupted in the last 12 years of the Francis papacy and, I believe, ones that are offering more confusion than clarity. I certainly agree with the archbishop. There has been many earthquakes and I think those earthquakes have caused these fissures and these breaks in the ground of the earth, so to speak. And I think Trent Horn ably describes those fissures and rightly and correctly calls both sides to take a harder look, a more balanced look, and look at things through a charitable lens as Christians, which we are called to do. By doing that, I think he gets closer to the truth, and sometimes the truth is hard for one side or another side to view and hear. As we know, if you have ears to hear and eyes to see, then you can move along in the path of virtue. So in today's Catholic Corner, from Ivory's sympathetic portraits to Murray's critiques and to Horn's call for unity and truth and clarity, these four books show Pope Francis's pontificate.
Speaker 1:That one is probably most likely going to be called one of confusion if I were to put a one-word stamp on it. And over time I'm sure there's going to be more books to explore the legacy of Pope Francis. But as we're still in this traditional morning time for the passing of the Holy Father, just some three, four days removed from his passing, I think it would behoove all of us Christians, and especially Catholics, to pray for the repose of his soul and that may God have mercy on him. That is what I know he would wish for all of us, and I know that is what I would wish and we would all wish for ourselves that we are all sinners in humility and we should all seek God's mercy and forgiveness. Again, if there's one thing Pope Francis could be remembered for instead of the confusion, he certainly would be remembered for God's mercy. He gave it out, and may God grant him the mercy he so often called all of us to. For now, let's keep fighting the good fight, and I thank you for listening.
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