The reformist left has lost its Pope

The recent death of Pope Francis has dominated politics and the media in Italy this week. Amidst the unending chorus of Francis’ sycophants, however, the reformist left have been keen to make their voices heard, celebrating the life of this supposedly ‘revolutionary’, ‘anti-capitalist’ figure. We publish below a translation of an article by the Partito Comunista Rivoluzionario – the Italian section of the Revolutionary Communist International – explaining the truth about Pope Francis and clearly stating the communist position on the reactionary institution of the Catholic Church.

[Originally published in Italian at rivoluzione.red]

Can the Pope calling for disarmament be enough to transform him from a bastion of reaction and obscurantism into a champion of the official left?

That is what is happening to Jorge Bergoglio, who ascended to the papal throne under the name Francis in 2013 and passed away a few days ago. No matter how much the Italian state professes to be secular on paper, newspapers, news outlets and the media are currently united in devoting their attention exclusively to the exaltation of the late Pope. World economic turmoil and political instability have been demoted to mere secondary importance in the Italian media.

The hypocrisy of the ruling class is also palpable in the statements of western governments, who are competing to thank the pontiff of Rome for his work to achieve peace and fight discrimination, even though they have often collided with the values preached by the Pope himself.

The Meloni government has seized the opportunity by declaring that the demonstrations planned for 25 April across the country, celebrating Italy’s liberation from fascism, must be sober and that the various municipalities may consider suspending them for “national mourning” – this will be music to their ears!

Added to all this are the delusional statements of various political and student groups – even those claiming to be anti-capitalist or even communist – in the name of the supposedly pacifist values that they share with “comrade” Francis, seemingly forgetting the arch-reactionary role that the Catholic Church has always played. Perhaps some will even agree to celebrate Liberation Day in a subdued and silent fashion in the name of mourning the Holy Father.

The Partito Comunista Rivoluzionario will not join this chorus of heartfelt gratitude.

We have not forgotten that the Church is a reactionary bastion that, for many centuries, has helped maintain the increasingly shaky capitalist system and is an important part of the Italian and international ruling class.

A progressive Church?

It could be noted that Pope Francis has distinguished himself by some stronger stances than his predecessors: the choice of a name inspired by the pauper lifestyle of the Saint of Assisi; the drafting of an encyclical dedicated to environmental emergency; the call for a “ceasefire” in Ukraine and Gaza.

We expect nothing progressive to come from one of the greatest conservative institutions that has ever existed / Image: Fczarnowski, Wikimedia Commons

No doubt the more conservative layers of the clergy did not look favourably on him. At the same time, however, certain statements by the ruler of the Vatican State – which have been given a revolutionary tinge by the official left – not only had a very different goal, but were elaborated by the Church of Francis for the specific purpose of giving an increasingly discredited institution a few crumbs of credibility, especially in the eyes of the younger generation.

According to the latest Demos polls, only 7 percent of those under 30 consider spirituality to be fundamental to them, and atheism among young people exceeds 28 percent in Italy. These unprecedented figures are also reflected in the increasingly high rate of abstention from the optional Catholic education programme in Italian schools. Today, in high schools, one in four students consciously decides not to avail themselves of this backward and unnecessary education in schools that are on paper ‘secular’. These Catholic programmes are a legacy of the Lateran Pacts between the fascist regime and their allies in the Church (1929), as well as the renewal of the agreements over ecclesiastical interference in schools under the Craxi government (1984), which both shifted the political landscape in an anti-communist direction and carried out important attacks on the sliding scale of wages.

As communists, we have always been opposed to the teaching of religion in schools. We expect nothing progressive to come from one of the greatest conservative institutions that has ever existed, which has been an obstacle in all the most important revolutionary junctures in European history from the Middle Ages to the present day. Let us not forget centuries of religious wars and bloody persecutions by the Inquisition, nor their support for the most heinous right-wing regimes from Mussolini to Salazar – the ‘Catholic dictator’ of Portugal. The Church of Rome, on the other hand, has never made a secret of its fervent anti-communism, expressed to the highest degree in the post-war period with a militant campaign of propaganda and the excommunication of Catholics who came close to communist ideas. This was continued even until recently by popes such as Wojtyla (John Paul II) and Ratzinger (Benedict XVI).

Who was Bergoglio?

In the last few hours, effusive praise has come out for the late Francis, described as the “last revolutionary” and celebrated by leftist parties as a champion of peace and inclusiveness.

Even at the time of this pontiff's election in 2013, while he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, we already noted the shadows of his past. These included his passive silence in the face of the crimes of Videla's dictatorship in Argentina, including the torture of two priests deemed subversive, as well as the kidnappings of the babies of missing mothers. Collusion with the Argentine regime is not an unfounded accusation, if we remember that between 1973 and 1979 Bergoglio was not a country parish priest but the highest authority of the Jesuit order in the country.

Even after the end of the regime, he refused to expel priests convicted of pedophilia (such as Grassi or Bishop Storni) and never agreed to open the archives of the Argentine Church for trials relating to crimes against humanity.

Once he succeeded Ratzinger, the Pope had no problem mourning the death of working-class enemy Margaret Thatcher and shaking hands with heads of state such as the right-wing Zionist Netanyahu, the emblem of the conservative bourgeoisie Trump and the ultra-liberal Milei. The latter two leaders, who for months have directed frontal attacks at the pontiff's pacifist statements, are now flying to Rome for his funeral. The whole of the ruling class will gather to mourn at his grave, since for them he is not a class enemy.

Francis often tried to speak on a subject very dear to young people: the environment. The encyclical Laudato si' undoubtedly raised the issue of the need to change the economy for the survival of the planet, but he was unequivocal in saying that “the Church defends the legitimate right to private property” and that “entrepreneurial activity is a noble vocation oriented toward producing wealth and improving the world for all.”

The so-called Pope ‘of the poor and marginalised’, who out of humility will not be buried under St. Peter's Basilica, wasted no time over the years in shifting the College of Cardinals into his favour, such that 80 percent of currently electoral prelates were appointed by Francis.

The whole of the ruling class will gather to mourn at his grave, since for them he is not a class enemy / Image: public domain

On civil rights, it is enough to recall his definition of doctors who carry out abortions as “hitmen,” his visit to the so-called ‘Cemetery of Fetuses’ – which includes the graves of aborted fetuses buried by the Catholic Church – and his claim that the Church needs to counter “too much faggotry.”

In short, to attribute the epithet ‘revolutionary’ to the Church's highest exponent speaks volumes about the longstanding misery of the reformist left today. They cling to the papal cassock, thinking that with the empty slogan of ‘peace’ and appeals to imperialist institutions, one can ask the wolf to become a lamb.

The Church is not an ally, but an enemy

As Gramsci observed almost a century ago, the Church has branches all over the world and is one of the greatest enemies of the revolutionary proletariat on an international scale. It is willing to join any reactionary alliance as long as its own interests are protected.

Today, the Vatican is one of the few existing theocratic states, an absolute monarchy emblematic of the survival of elements of the old feudal society within the capitalist system. The real estate holdings of the Catholic Church worldwide amount to more than €2 trillion and, in Italy alone, the value of its properties exceeds €42 billion. This is not to mention its ownership of countless artistic and architectural assets, which constitute 70 percent of Italy's cultural heritage. In Rome, one in four tourist accommodations belongs to the Vatican, as do more than 23,000 properties of various types, from vacant buildings to healthcare facilities.

The Holy Roman Church also acts as a bastion of reaction on the ideological level, calling for equality among men but discouraging the questioning of the capitalist order. For this institution, which is extremely hierarchical and governed by men alone, private property is sacred, hunger is solved by charity and almsgiving, poverty is to be accepted because it is a moral virtue, and the search for a more equitable society is postponed to Heaven.

A pontiff with less obscurantist rhetoric will not be enough to make him an ally of those who want to build a world free of inequality, free of superstition and the slavery of profit on this Earth.