A week has now passed since the death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known to the world as Pope Francis. In the intervening days, an outpouring of public mourning has taken place, not only among Roman Catholics but across much of the broader Christian and secular world. Many Protestant leaders have likewise offered condolences, prayers, and reflections on his life.
There is something right in mourning death itself. Death is the last enemy (1 Cor 15:26), a sober reminder of the brevity of life and the inevitability of judgement. Christians are right to mourn the passing of fellow image-bearers, and to pray for those who grieve. Such instincts are not to be despised.
Yet reflection demands that mourning be shaped by theological clarity. While we mourn the death of a man, we cannot mourn the passing of an office that has historically, and continues to this day, obscure the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nor can we allow sentimentalism to cloud the profound theological divides that remain between biblical Christianity and Roman Catholicism.
The current moment has revealed a continued tendency among evangelicals towards a dangerous doctrinal minimalism—a desire to downplay historic differences in favour of vague expressions of unity. Yet, if we truly love the gospel, and if we truly love our Roman Catholic neighbours, we must insist on clarity where it matters most.
The death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio is, above all, a reminder that even the most influential leaders must one day give account before the throne of Christ. No office, however exalted on earth, exempts a man from standing before the Judge of all the earth.
Yet it must be said plainly: the office Pope Francis held is not one to be celebrated from a biblical standpoint. The Westminster Confession of Faith (25.6) does not mince words in describing the papacy as “that Antichrist,” not from bitterness, but because it arrogates to itself Christ’s mediatorial office, usurps authority over conscience, and promulgates doctrines contrary to the Scriptures.
The Reformers recognised that the papal office embodies an entire system—one that eclipses the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement, interposes a sacramental system between God and man, and turns the gospel of free grace into a gospel of human cooperation.
It is thus no small thing that Pope Francis’s final public act was to grant a plenary indulgence during the Urbi et Orbi blessing. Here, at the end, the great tragedy of the Roman system was again put on display: the suggestion that sinners, already forgiven through Christ’s sacrifice, must yet earn temporal remission through the treasury of merits dispensed by the Church.
Scripture teaches otherwise. “By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:14). Christ’s death is entirely sufficient. Indulgences, by their very nature, deny this sufficiency and reintroduce works into the ground of assurance.
While Catholicism uses the language of grace, faith, and salvation, the meaning of such language is completely different (As the director of the Reformanda Initiative, Leonardo di Chirico, has pointed out in this excellent talk.) Grace is necessary but insufficient; faith is necessary but insufficient; sacraments and merit must supplement the work of Christ.
This is not the gospel. It is another gospel entirely. And, as Paul warns, those who preach another gospel are under divine curse (Gal 1:6–9). Indeed, Galatians as an epistle completely tears apart the Catholic understanding of salvation.
Further, Pope Francis’s broader theological vision consistently blurred and confused the gospel. His 2013 exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) is a striking example. While it purports to be a celebration of the gospel, it never clearly articulates the true gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Instead, Evangelii Gaudium offers a social gospel: salvation is equated with alleviating poverty, fostering social justice, and promoting fraternity. Terms like ‘salvation’ and ‘grace’ appear, but sin is rarely mentioned, repentance is neglected, and the need for redemption from the just wrath of God is absent. No serious treatment is given to Christ’s atoning death as the necessary satisfaction of divine justice. Moreover, its vision of societal transformation is profoundly earthly, almost entirely devoid of any eschatological horizon.
Compounding these errors, Francis’s universalistic tendencies pervade the document. God’s love is presented as embracing all humanity indiscriminately, with little to no distinction between believers and unbelievers. At its close, Evangelii Gaudium returns again to unbiblical Mariology, invoking the Virgin Mary in terms that detract from the sole mediatorship of Christ.
In short, Evangelii Gaudium encapsulates the tragedy of Francis’s theology: a Christianity reduced to moralism, social activism, and religious universalism, stripped of its central message of sin, judgement, and reconciliation through Christ’s blood alone.
It is therefore alarming—but sadly unsurprising—that many evangelicals have responded to Francis’s death with only a little discernment. Sentiments about those who are ‘following in Peter’s footsteps’ and vague prayers for “reform” abound, yet few seem to remember what the Reformation actually stood for.
The underlying issue, of course, is doctrinal decay. The 2022 State of Theology survey revealed that 33% of evangelicals in the United States, in some capacity, disagreed with the statement that “God counts a person as righteous not because of one’s works but only because of one’s faith in Jesus Christ.” Even more concerning, 40% disagreed that “Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.”
While these statistics pertain to the American landscape, there is little evidence to suggest the Australian situation is any healthier. If anything, theological illiteracy and doctrinal vagueness are arguably even more entrenched here.
This widespread doctrinal minimalism explains why the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism are now seen by many as peripheral rather than fundamental. The essential article by which the church stands or falls—justification by faith alone—has been increasingly neglected, ignored, or denied in a desire for empty unity, sentimental platitudes, and the fleeting comfort of a peace that costs nothing.
I recall many years ago reading through a Catholic catechism, A Catechism for Inquirers, and its succinct answer to the question, “What must we do to achieve salvation?” It was telling, for it so clearly summarised the chasm that exists between historic Protestant and Catholic theology: “To achieve salvation we must do God’s will; that is, we must keep the commandments of God.”[1]Joseph I. Malloy, A Catechism for Inquirers, 4th Ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1977), 3. This is not the gospel of free grace. It is the gospel of human striving.
By contrast, the biblical gospel proclaims that “to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom 4:5). The difference is not minor. It is the difference between life and death.
Martin Luther rightly insisted the sentiment justificatio est articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae—justification is the article by which the church stands or falls. Justification is “the master and prince, the lord, the ruler, and the judge over all kinds of doctrines.”[2]Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, ed. Ewald M. Plass (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), 703. Without it, Luther warned, “the world is utter death and darkness.”[3]Ibid. And, indeed, where justification by faith alone is denied or obscured, the church collapses into darkness, and the soul is left without hope.
This is why Francis’s papacy, for all its warm smiles, inclusive rhetoric, and talk of compassion, did not point men and women to the clear light of justification by faith alone. Instead, it gently ushered them back into the fog of sacramentalism, the weary treadmill of human merit, and the warm, suffocating embrace of a salvation never assured. It was a ministry of sentiment without substance, consolation without truth, and hope without a sure foundation. In the end, it offered the comfort of wandering lights — flickering promises that lead not homeward, but deeper into the mist.
Thus, while we mourn the death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as a man made in the image of God, we cannot mourn the passing of his theology. Rather, we must renew our commitment to proclaim the gospel with clarity, courage, and compassion.
We mourn the death of a man, but we do not mourn the system he led. We pray for those who grieve, but we do not pray amiss by denying the truths of Scripture. Sympathy must never come at the expense of theological clarity.
The deepest tragedy is not that a pope has died, but that millions remain under a system that cannot bring true assurance of salvation. A system that speaks of grace but obscures the free gift of God in Christ.
May we heed the lessons of this moment. May we remember that without the doctrine of Justificatin by Faith alone, “the world is utter death and darkness.”
And may we, in all things, hold fast to Christ, the only Mediator, the only Saviour, the only Hope.
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