Bergoglian mourning for Francis is turning into hatred of Pope Leo

Zuppi and Repubblica  admit: "Cold Leo, we miss Francis"

Guest on Repubblica delle idee, the president of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) smiles amusedly at Francesco Merlo who defines Pope Leo XIV as cold. And he joins the chorus: "We miss Francis". But Prevost is never mentioned.

The festival of the haters takes place in Bologna where Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi opens the doors as usual to his reference newspaper, Repubblica. To say that «We don't like Pope Leo». The newspaper founded by Eugenio Scalfari says it bluntly on several occasions, the Roman archbishop adopted by Bologna the red, lets it be understood with a truly revealing silence during the meeting with Francesco Merlo for Repubblica delle idee which ended on Sunday in Piazza Maggiore.

Right with the Basilica of San Petronio behind us, a story of friendships and quarrels is played out, under the banner of how beautiful the Church of Pope Francis was. And his successor? He hasn't arrived, and not even Zuppi, a skilled communicator of the "theology of we want each other", takes too much trouble to correct his aim and slip something of Pope Prevost into his speech. What the heck.

We listen to a boring monologue for almost 45 minutes on how important Pope Francis was and at a certain point, given that the meeting was entitled the Church in the square, a year later (the reference is to the same meeting a year ago between Merlo and the President of the CEI), we expected that the two would have said what, in the meantime, had happened this year. For example, the change of pontificate with the arrival of the first American Pope.

No way.

After all, it was clear from the very beginning that Repubblica was rooting for Zuppi on the papal throne, already from the pre-Conclave sheets. And in fact, the deputy director Stefano Cappellini, in introducing the two guests, does not even hide it: «I have to tell you that this is the only debate that someone hoped would be skipped, for an obvious reason, because it was hoped that one of the two had an important commitment in another city. It did not happen». The not so veiled reference is precisely to the fact that Repubblica hoped that Zuppi, entering the Conclave, would come out onto the blessing loggia dressed in the mozzetta and the papal habit.

So, the support for the Italian Left newspaper is so blatant that people do not even worry about the old adage about whoever enters the conclave as Pope and then...

But Merlo goes further: «A year later, what has changed? There is no Pope Francis, we are the ones who miss him, everyone explains to us how beautiful the new Pope is, they do exegesis, to me it seems very cold. They say he reintroduced the liturgy, they say he acts like a Pope, but the less Pope Francis acted like a Pope, the more he became Pope. How is that?”

At that point the microphone passes into Zuppi’s hands, who could have at least sketched out a move to distance himself. In short, that a cardinal archbishop is a guest in his home of a left-leaning newspaper and is told that he misses his predecessor because he is cold, perhaps, just because of the clothes he wears, one would have imagined at least an ex officio defense of Prevost. But nothing.

“We all miss him (Pope Francis, ed.) – attacks Zuppi -, a year later he is not here, but he is here. In his ministry he has given so many keys to understanding for everyone. Think of the piecemeal Third World War, of bridges and walls, of Laudato si”.

The dialogue between the two begins in which the talking to each other is truly preponderant, the analyses absent and irony the North Star.

The irony «that was absent from the Gospels and that Pope Francis had», «the irony that makes Zuppi look so much like Pope Francis», «the irony and the taste for paradox that Pope Francis had to give a caricatural reading, but always respectful of people». How Zuppi can see in Pope Francis a caricatural but respectful irony is something only he knows. But in Piazza Maggiore the helpless silence of an audience tormented by a sultry heat and not inclined to clapping dominates, it is not worth getting too excited.

Merlo insists: «Are there moments of joy with the apostles?». Again. Zuppi replies embarrassed: «There are moments of great intimacy». But it is an off-target answer. It would have been enough to mention the wedding at Cana, unless we want to think that the one where Jesus performed the first miracle of his public life was the only sad wedding in the history of humanity, with the apostles sulking because the wine had run out. Or when they reproached Jesus for hanging out with “gluttons and drunkards”. In short, conviviality also presupposes irony. But the point is that irony is not told in the Gospels because we do not need it to go to Heaven and to recognize that Jesus Christ is the saviour of the world. Even of those “donkeys” at Repubblica. So, who cares..

But Prevost is increasingly absent from Zuppi's words, amid vintage memories of when masses were beat, of Don Milani who removed 'from teaching the solemnity that is hypocrisy as Francis has done with the liturgy' and of when he was told of his climb to the episcopal order first (under Benedict XVI) and then to the cardinalate (under Francis). So much so that when Merlo tells him 'you are the bishop of two Popes, let's hope of three', Zuppi laughs embarrassed without mincing words and through clenched teeth adds: 'Let's hope'. But he does not seem to believe it.

Perhaps because he already knows, like the old fox he is, that he will never become Pope Leo XIV's favourite. Or perhaps because in the new Vatican course there is no more room for friendship?

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