On July 31, 2026, Pope Leo XIV met with American rock musician,
poet, and artist Patti Smith — the so-called “Godmother of Punk” — in a
40-minute private audience at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.
Both
are from Chicago.
The meeting was attended by Father Antonio Spadaro. There are several official photos and a video of the encounter.
This
harmless encounter — I imagine that it mainly involved an exchange of
pleasantries, with hardly anything of great significance for the Church —
raises questions for me.
For
a long time now, I’ve been personally troubled by the fact that, since
John Paul II, popes have increasingly been speaking in a purely informal
manner on all sorts of occasions (e.g., on an airplane or by the
roadside, as Pope Leo XIV recently did in Castel Gandolfo). They give
spontaneous interviews and express personal opinions. They are
accessible to all sorts of people who want to have their picture taken
with them. Given a pope’s workload and responsibilities, does he really
have nothing more important to do than grant such private audiences
(which are especially popular when the petitioners come from show
business or have some kind of cultural or elite relevance)? Such
appearances reinforce the impression among the secular public that the
pope is, at heart, simply another member of the international
establishment. The humble fisherman from Galilee certainly knew nothing
of such “glamour.” Nor did Paul seek the spotlight; rather, he entered
the Areopagus in Athens to proclaim the Gospel. I will refrain here from
discussing protocol obligations and significant state visits.
Among
those pampered with a private audience may also be people like Emma
Bonino, who spent her entire life at odds with Church teaching. Pope
Francis even paid her a private visit at her apartment on November 5,
2024. However, the Pope’s task is not individual pastoral care. Nor
should he teach through images, but through clear words.
Not
to be forgotten are this Pope’s repeated and lengthy conversations and
phone calls with the atheist Eugenio Scalfari, founder of the left-wing
newspaper La Repubblica. From these, Scalfari
reconstructed ominous interviews from memory. On several occasions, the
Vatican had to distance itself from alleged statements attributed to the
Pope. For Pope Francis, this approach — of hinting at things while
remaining reserved on doctrinal matters — had almost become a method.
Above all, I would like to point out: When a pope receives such people
in a private audience, he cannot, out of courtesy, publicly distance
himself from them afterward. As a result, such a reception comes across
to many as a trivialization of what these individuals stand for. In this
way, the Pope himself obscures the Church’s position and — depending on
the circumstances — even causes offense to the faithful.
These
audiences take on all the more false significance the less the Pope
simultaneously upholds the unabridged doctrine of the faith, publicly
corrects the false views of these people, and puts a stop to abuses (cf.
the exploitation of private audiences with the Pope for his own
pro-LGBT agenda by the Jesuit James Martin).
I believe that as a
result, recent popes have lost authority and spiritual capital. Their
personalities (spin doctors need images) take center stage. Their
private inclinations and details irrelevant to their office become
messages to the mainstream and take center stage. We see Pope Benedict
at the piano or Pope Francis visiting a record store in Rome in a Fiat
that’s far too small for his corpulence, just to indulge a personal
whim.
Popes certainly have more important things to do than pay
for their hotel room out of their own wallet, as Francis did at the
beginning of his pontificate. Do they even have enough time for that? Do
they have enough time to reflect on matters in prayer, to linger long
before God so as to be guided by Him? Do they have enough time to read,
study documents, and prepare statements in which they truly teach—teach
authoritatively and unambiguously—rather than offering speculations that
are of no use to us?
But
no, they must constantly appear at audiences, shake hands, and receive
people indiscriminately. At papal Masses, they themselves take center
stage as a sort of “church star,” pushing Christ — “the actual subject” —
into the background. The papal throne towers over the altar. The Holy
Mass in St. Peter’s Square should really serve as an encounter with the
LORD, and not be a “happening” featuring His servant, the Pope—to put it
somewhat polemically.
I cannot comprehend this. Collections of
interviews, spontaneous remarks of varying quality, personal appearances
at all sorts of events — such as the blessing of an ice block at a
climate conference in Rome: All these things do more harm than good to
the office. They serve only those who like to use the Pope to further
their own agenda. And popes have recently been lending themselves to
such things. They can be seen, for the media and to the delight of
business leaders, test-driving the first electric Ferrari and more.
Here, too, one should pay attention to the ambivalence of the images!
For
me, there is a lack of distance — in the positive sense of the word.
I’m not talking about aloofness, but about dignity. This is often
underscored more by silence than by speech — by speaking at the right
moment, and then in a warm and engaging manner, using few, unambiguous,
and clear words. Pope Francis demonstrated this particularly toward
traditionalists and Mafiosi, or in the context of migration. He was able
to clearly condemn abortion while warmly welcoming its proponents and
even elevating them to significant Vatican commissions. This, too,
undermines the Church’s doctrinal position.
We need discernment
in the sense of tradition (not in the sense of so-called “new
synodality”). But the popes have almost no time for this. They spend far
too much time on audiences, greetings, handshaking, and travel. I see
the danger of activism. It masks the lack of a clear condemnation of
heretical positions, which are also held by bishops (cf. the Synodal
Path). These positions must be clearly identified, and their proponents
must be admonished or removed from office.
Burning issues
such as the liturgical question are being put on the back burner. As
advisors to the Pope, the cardinals do not really have a say.
St.
Pope John Paul II — perhaps willy-nilly — gave his public appearances
as Pope the character of a superstar, especially through World Youth
Days. In 2003, John Paul II published “The Roman Triptych—Meditations,” a
new cycle of poems. The Vatican documented its official presentation on
March 6, 2003, as if it held significance comparable to the major
magisterial documents from the same pen. Even as Prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict published
collections of interviews, a practice he continued as pope. With his
valuable books on Jesus, he did not intend to teach authoritatively as
pope, but rather to make an academic (?) contribution, as he had done in
the past when he was a university professor.
All of this is
unusual for popes, who are expected to teach authoritatively. Pope
Francis produced several autobiographies at once — a format previously
unthinkable for popes. Moreover, he did not write them himself, as one
might assume. Through all these innovations, the media portrayal of his
personality and style took on almost greater significance than what he
taught or was supposed to teach. In the age of the media, there was a
concerted effort to come across well. This was also evident with Pope
Francis. Any cracks in his image were quickly patched up by the media
(cf. his brusque reaction in St. Peter’s Square when a Chinese woman
grabbed his hand and pulled him toward her on December 31, 2019, and the
“mea culpa” that became necessary during the Angelus the following
Sunday).
But
for the LORD to shine through, other things — the irrelevant, the
overly personal — must take a back seat. The media, however, take
particular delight in turning precisely the latter into a main
attraction: the swimming pool or tennis court at Castel Gandolfo, the
black shoes beneath the white cassock, the worn leather briefcase from
days gone by, Benedict’s cute cat, the piano, the Fiat, the Ferrari. The
list just keeps getting longer. Who cares about that when popes are
teachers of the truth? A revealed truth! I don’t think they need to
constantly undertake elaborate and grueling trips for that (for the
truth) — trips that physically exhaust them — when a single sentence
from their lips can circle the globe in the blink of an eye without them
even moving.
How much personal energy is lost this way — energy
that is then lacking elsewhere (also due to their constant absence): in
leading the Curia; in meeting with people who are truly relevant to the
Pope’s decision-making; in staff meetings to prepare sound statements
and coordinate the various dicasteries. Their presence is not required
merely to observe processes initiated by others, to let them run their
course without providing leadership, to act as students themselves, or
even to be good listeners. Are they not the teachers of Christendom,
whose words everyone awaits? Do they not sit on the Chair of St. Peter,
and not on some other chair? Are they not needed above all in Rome?
The
popes have become all too human in the exercise of their office. Their
personality, not their office, takes center stage. This may seem
appealing to some who are eager to get a photo with them, perhaps later
exploiting it to promote their heretical views.
The mainstream
wants to see them as approachable: as ordinary people just like the rest
of us. Pope Francis, in particular, wanted the latter. For this reason,
on March 25, 2017, in Milan — much to the annoyance of many believers —
he spontaneously used a nearby portable chemical toilet, which his spin
doctor, Antonio Spadaro, naturally put into the proper context
afterward. Most recently, he had his caregiver push him in a wheelchair
through the bustling St. Peter’s Basilica while dressed in everyday
clothes, as if he were just some senior citizen from next door (with all
due respect to his terminal illness!). For me, this was yet another
historic low point for the papacy.
Popes, after all, are not
people like us. They should have respect for their office and, as
guardians of the Church’s doctrine, step down personally like John the
Baptist, who wanted to be nothing more than a voice—albeit one that
speaks the truth. In contrast, his own profile was of no consequence.
Popes should remain aware of this: that it is not their personality that
counts, but their office. That is a cross to bear. “He must increase,
but I must decrease” (John 3:30). They are merely the friends and
representatives of the Bridegroom, not the Bridegroom himself. Only the
latter is of significance and interest!
