Bonfire night has been celebrated in Britain for over 300 years and for the majority of its history the effigy on the fire has been one of the pope.
The Vatican and the Era of Hollow Change
The Death of Pope Francis and the End of Neoliberal Mercy
When Pope Francis died, the headlines rushed to canonise his legacy: “The Pope Who Transformed the Catholic Church.” But for many, especially outside the Catholic inner circle, the image doesn’t match the reality. Francis talked like a prophet of justice – but sat atop a throne built on centuries of abuse, wealth, and opacity. He washed the feet of the poor, but left the Church’s vast fortune and power structures essentially untouched. He spoke of mercy, but protected an institution that has, in many places, preyed on the vulnerable.
That dissonance doesn’t just belong to the Church. It’s the defining feature of our age.
Francis wasn’t the first pope to preside over scandal, but he was the first to wear the robes of modern liberal empathy while doing so. He eschewed the Papal Palace, chose a modest car, spoke of climate justice and migrants, and cast himself as a humble servant. The optics were powerful. So was the language. But beneath the surface, the structure stood firm. Predator priests were shuffled, not expelled. Wealth remained locked in golden vaults. Women and LGBTQ+ Catholics stayed in the margins.
This is neoliberalism’s core contradiction: a veneer of reform covering the continuity of power.
In many ways, Francis’s papacy mirrors the broader death spiral of neoliberal institutions. From global finance to Western democracy, we are living through the collapse of structures that once promised inclusion, prosperity, and progress – while protecting the interests of the powerful. Their moral language – diversity, empathy, sustainability – masks a deeper rot. Like the Church, they’ve failed to deliver justice or safety. Like the Church, they are bleeding credibility.
And now, one of the last great moral avatars of this era has died.
Not with a reckoning. Not with a revolution. But quietly, with platitudes and pageantry. A death that feels more like a ritual than a rupture. And yet, it marks something: a chapter ending.
The question that follows is not just who will be the next pope – but what will replace this age of well-spoken inaction. If Francis was neoliberalism’s moral fig leaf, then his passing leaves us naked before the truth: reform without redistribution is just rebranding. And mercy without justice is just marketing.
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Sources:
• “Vos Estis Lux Mundi,” Vatican.va: http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio-20190507_vos-estis-lux-mundi.html
• National Catholic Reporter archives on clerical abuse and accountability: https://www.ncronline.org
• “The Church’s Bank of Secrets,” The Economist: https://www.economist.com
• “The Unholy Wealth of the Vatican,” The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com
• “The End of Neoliberalism and the Rebirth of History,” Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com
• “Pope Francis and the Crisis of Meaning,” New York Review of Books: https://www.nybooks.com
