On the election of a pope.

Back when Francis was elected pope in 2013, I wrote the following article for a previous blog. You can change that first paragraph to read, “On 8 May 2025, a Roman Catholic committee of church leaders elected Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States to be their church’s new leader, the pope. By custom, the new pope usually takes on a new name as part of the job, so he’s gonna be known as Leo XIV.”

Annoyingly, the reasons I wrote this article still apply. So, time to rehash it.

On 13 March 2013, a Roman Catholic committee of church leaders elected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina to be their church’s new leader, the pope. By custom, the new pope usually takes on a new name as part of the job, so he’s gonna be known as Franciscus, or for we English-speakers, Pope Francis. (Named for one of my favorite saints, Francesco Bernardone, a.k.a. Francis of Assisi.)

What does this mean for Christians? Well, not every Christian is a Roman Catholic. I’m not. But since Catholicism is the largest branch of Christianity, and since your average pagan has no idea about what a pope is or does, or even the differences between one denomination and another, they’re gonna assume the pope is in charge of Christianity, and anything he does affects every single Christian on the planet. You know, like everybody assumes the Dalai Lama is in charge of every single Buddhist. (Oh, wait, you thought he was in charge of every Buddhist? Well now you know how pagans think of the pope.)

The pope’s job, really, is to preserve the Catholic Church: He preserves the gospel of Christ Jesus, and he upholds his church’s traditions. Pagans don’t understand this: They think the pope is the boss of the church. They think he can order the church what to do and think. That’s why a lot of pagan journalists love to speculate, “What sort of changes might a new pope make in the Catholic Church?” Some of them dream of a new, exciting, permissive pope who’ll make all the progressive changes they’ve been fantasizing about: No more bans on abortion and birth control. No more bans on same-sex marriage. Anybody can become a priest, whether male or female, gay or straight, married or single, Christian or atheist. Anything they wish wasn’t a sin, will now totally be permitted. (That way, they’ll feel a whole lot better about identifying themselves as Catholic, despite the fact they don’t follow Catholic teachings, or even Jesus, at all.) But none of that is the pope’s job. He can’t change any of that. Not without a great big church council, and sometimes not even then.

Now, other denominations don’t work this way. In some, the president decides the church is gonna work a different way, and by golly it does work a different way. In others, the pastors gotta meet and vote before changes can be made—but sometimes they do vote, and huge changes are made. Now, we can debate about whether those changes are any good, or consistent with the scriptures at all. (Some of them certainly aren’t.) But the Catholic Church isn’t one of those denominations. Change comes slowly. And they’re not gonna ramp up the process, simply because society rushes headlong into everything.

“Not my pope.”

In the past few days I’ve read a lot of reactions, by Protestants, to the new pope’s election. Sad to say, I’d have to describe the bulk of them as graceless. While they don’t wish Pope Francis or the Catholics any ill will (well, they claim they don’t), the general consensus is, “But he’s not my pope. For I am a Protestant. And we don’t go for any of that papist nonsense.”

It immediately reminds me of this story.

Mark 9.38-41 NLT

38John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn’t in our group.”

39“Don’t stop him!” Jesus said. “No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. 40Anyone who is not against us is for us. 41If anyone gives you even a cup of water because you belong to the Messiah, I tell you the truth, that person will surely be rewarded.”

Is the new pope my pope? Well, even though I’m not Catholic, and he’s nowhere in my church’s hierarchy, I’ll say it this way: When he follows Jesus, yes he is my pope. If he’s not against us, he’s for us. Doesn’t matter if he’s not in my group.

And that’s true of every Christian leader in Christendom.

Say you go to Ninth Baptist Church, and several of your friends and neighbors go to Tenth Baptist Church. Say the pastor at Ninth retired, so you hired a new pastor, and you’re excited about him, and share the news with your friends, and their response is likewise, “Well, he’s not my pastor. And I don’t care what the people of that church do. I don’t bug them; they don’t bug me. Keep me out of it.”

It’s a crappy attitude. It’s not doing for others as you’d have them do for you. It certainly doesn’t reflect the love for one another Jesus expects of his followers, regardless of which branch of his church they’re in. The Dalai Lama did a better job of congratulating Francis on his election than those schmucks did.

On the election of a new pope, we Christians need to be generous. We need to be gracious. We need to show love. We need to bear the fruit Christians should. I pray the pope continues to follow Jesus, ministers him effectively to the world, and draws even more people into the kingdom.