By Nabil S. Mikhail

In assessing the legacy of Pope Francis, it is a must to revisit his dealings with the Catholic Church in the U.S. it was not an easy relationship because Pope Francis wanted it to be confrontational in order to settle a few scores with the Catholic Church in America. The Pope was mostly liberal on the majority of the social and economic issues that transpired inside America. He was also progressive on doctrinal and theological matters. Yet, he was able to shroud his liberal theology beneath a veneer of sophisticated theology and Christian creed that made it impossible for conservatives to attack him.

Pope Francis pleaded with President Obama not to isolate Cuba and urged him to restore America’s diplomatic ties with Havana. President Obama himself acknowledged the Pope’s role in his administration decision to normalize relations with Cuba.

Pope Francis also clashed with the Trump Administration over its stances toward immigrants and refugees. He described deportations as violating the “dignity of many men and women, and of entire families.” In addition, the Pontiff had an exceptional opportunity to address a joint session of Congress on September 24, 2015. He meant his speech to be relevant to a few of America’s realities such as the environment and climate change, racial injustice, and the migration problem. He desired it to be inspirational to America. He wanted America to be what they should be not what they were. He strived to see the American people as more cooperative with the rest of the world. He wanted peace and justice to emanate from America and her people. He established a nexus between the challenges facing the globe and what he entertained as an adequate responses or replies to these questions and threats whether collectively or individually originating from America. He wished if the higher share and the most effective solutions to these dilemmas were to come from the United States. He was insistent that the U.S. would be able to formulate a global consensus over the best ways for the resolutions of these quandaries.

He invoked the legacies of prominent American figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton–to affirm the plea to construct a good society. And through that effort, the promulgation of justice and faith would lead to peace.

There is no doubt that Pope Francis, politically speaking, idealized an American nation and a U.S. society that had its less fortunate people treated with dignity and compassion. As one Catholic priest said, “The Pope’s warm “buenos dias” met with wildly enthusiastic cheers from the crowd, as did his blessing of all, including ‘those who do not believe.’ This was the Pontifex Maximus, bridge builder, taking down all that divides us and bringing us together. My memories of that day are bittersweet and leave me longing for a leader who heals divisions, offers hope, challenges us to live our high ideals and is applauded by people of every race, language, and way of life.”

On the other hand, Pope Francis had a tough encounter in many instances with leaders from the Catholic Church in America. One of his major critics was Cardinal Raymond Burke. In
January 10, 2019, Burke reproached Pope Francis’s September 2018 Holy See–China Agreement. He described it as “in effect … a repudiation of generations of martyrs and confessors of the Faith in China”. Burke as well was against the concept of “synodality”, whereby authority is detached from the pope and is deputized in the offices of bishops. He said, “In listening to the Pope, one is given the impression that he is giving more and more authority to individual bishops and Conferences of Bishops. But this is not the Catholic Church.” Pope Francis asked him to leave his apartment in the Vatican as he became more critical of his performance.

Moreover, Pope Francis removed Joseph Strickland, the bishop of Tyler, Texas, seeing him as a frequent antagonist. Strickland accused Pope Francis of undermining the faith and questioned whether several Vatican officials were genuinely Catholic or not.

Pope Francis’ predecessors were more keen in maintaining good ties with the United States.
Pope Paul VI knew that he was making history by becoming the first Pope to visit the United States in 1965. His trip to New York City lasted for fourteen hours where he addressed the United Nations, and met with President Lyndon B. Johnson. Later, he celebrated Mass at Yankee Stadium. His trip was an important event against the growing American involvement in the Vietnam War at the time.

Pope John Paul II hailed the United States as the nation that could defeat Communism and end the Soviet Empire. Pope Benedict XVI appreciated America as the strongest nation in the world of Christendom, and the global influence of Islam worried him and many of his assistants. “Pope Francis changed all that,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology at Villanova University. “He interrupted a long period of an extremely friendly relationship between the Popes and the United States.”

Pope Francis chose to be very practical with American Catholicism. This is why he collided with a conservative wing in it. He wanted a new doctrine for the American Catholic Church based on its historical experience and not on strict biblical doctrines.