From the start of his tenure as God’s authority on Earth (at least for Roman Catholics), the media has praised Pope Francis for his apparently progressive views. His background as a politically engaged cardinal in Argentina augured well, and his very decision to take the name of Francis of Assisi implied a siding with the modest and, implicitly, against the rich and powerful. As a Jesuit, he has always led an ascetic lifestyle, and has continued this by shunning many of the luxuries that come with the papacy. 

Politically, too, Francis marked himself out early on from his predecessor Benedict XVI. While the latter described homosexuality in the clergy as one of the ‘miseries of the church’, Francis responded to a question about the same issue by asking, ‘Who am I to judge?’.  Meanwhile, Francis has gone further than any previous pope on environmental issues, publishing an encyclical this year explicitly aligning the church with the green movement.  Such opinions have made the pontiff an unlikely darling of liberal and secular commentators. As one put it, ‘Who doesn’t love Pope Francis? Hands up, if you dare. He opposes violence and war, supports the poor, focuses on the needs of the disabled, and talks about the need to suspend judgment of others.’

Among traditional Catholics, though, there have been grumblings. When Catholic liberals announced their wish to soften the Church’s stance on homosexuality and second marriages, an American cardinal, Raymond Burke, warned, ‘the church is like a ship without a rudder’. Cardinal George Pell from Australia even felt the need to remind his congregants that ‘Pope Francis is the 266th pope and history has seen 37 false or antipopes’. Unsurprisingly, this has led some to talk of a coming schism within the Roman Catholic Church. British Catholic journalist Damien Thompson has even warned of a ‘Catholic civil war’, while his American counterpart Ross Douthat wrote in the New York Times that a ‘real schism’ is a possibility.

Nevertheless, when the church leadership embraced certain reforms in 1962 with Vatican II, many predicted a major schism that failed to materialise. Traditional Catholics by their very nature are obliged to be loyal and obedient to the Holy See. And while Francis has castigated Catholics who put moral issues such as abortion, contraception and gay marriage above social justice, doctrinal teaching on these issues has not changed. So is talk of Catholic Armageddon overstated?

How progressive is Pope Francis? Can the custodian of centuries of tradition really just get with the (non-Catholic) programme and move with the times?  Is it a problem that Francis often seems more popular with those outside the church than within it? How plausible is an actual split or schism within Catholicism? And what place is there for traditionalists within today’s church?