IRELAND
Irish Times
Breda O’Brien
Pope Francis has just completed four years of his pontificate. From the moment Jorge Bergoglio greeted Rome and the world with “Buona sera”, he has been controversial. That is no bad thing. Jesus himself was controversial, to the extent that people left him in droves, unable to stomach his teachings.
Pope Francis is both deeply loved and deeply criticised by his flock. He also has had the most extended media honeymoon of any pontiff since John XXIII.
In contrast, his predecessor, Pope Benedict, could do nothing right in the media’s eyes. The gentle, scholarly Benedict was constantly warding off judgments that he was either a crypto-Nazi or some kind of Islamophobe.
Strangely, the media seem to develop selective attention when Francis says something about abortion, such as this this statement from Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel): “This is not something subject to alleged reforms or ‘modernisations’. It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life.”
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