The mainstream media is beginning to catch on to the fact that Pope Francis is more popular outside the Church than within the Church. From Politico:
New figures published by the Vatican show that the 79-year-old Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who won election to the papacy in 2013 and rode a groundswell of public support for what were seen as relatively modern views, is drawing smaller crowds and possibly alienating the base of traditional Catholics.
In 2015, more than 3.2 million pilgrims visited and attended papal events, liturgies or prayer services at the Holy See, the Vatican said at the end of December. That was a sharp drop from the 5.9 million visitors received by Pope Francis in 2014. And it was less than half of the 6.6 million pilgrims who visited the Vatican during the first nine-and-a-half months of his pontificate in 2013.
The Vatican attributed the fall, in part, to terrorism fears keeping people from visiting Rome.
But pope-watchers say there’s another factor at work: his comparatively liberal views on some hot-button social issues, including gay rights, and whether Catholics who have divorced and civilly remarried should be allowed to receive communion. Those views, which have won Pope Francis positive coverage in the media, may be turning off devout Catholics.
Go here to read the rest. I cannot recall a Pope before more popular outside the Church than within the Church.
There is only one to which our popularity matters (and He won’t be reluctant to judge).
Reality doesn’t include the game of Mercyopoly, where guilt-free sin is negated by the drawing of a “Get out of Hades free” card.
What good can come from a situation where the most obedient of sheep tend to avoid their shepherd?
I oppose Pope Francis in several areas but Christ had big crowds when He was multiplying fish and loaves but had only several friends at the foot of the cross and the first Pope wasn’t one of them. Pope Benedict was usually wise enough to put his more odd ideas away from the lightly read public. If everyone younger than 40 knew that in Spirit of the Liturgy, he called all pop music banal and all rock music worse than that, his crowds would have decreased thereby. If all traditionalists had noticed that in Verbum Dominisect.42 that he was saying God didn’t command the herem massacres of the Canaanites as the Bible states He did about five clear times, many of them would have dropped off also with a puzzled look on their face. Francis is unguarded. His predecessors were more circumspect and said much less to the microphones….but had their oddities in less read documents.
It probably is a mixture of both – terrorism fears and his oddball inelocutions. Would be curious to see comparative figures for European tourism/travel. I know of at least a few folks who have changed travel destinations based upon current practices of the Religion of Piece.
There is a tendency not to listen to people who contradict your beliefs. I take it as a good sign that Pope Francis audiences are falling off. Maybe he will get the message.
Accodring to Mastercard’s 2015 Global Destination Cities Index. the number of overnight international visitors to Rome has been steadily increasing:
2011 6.66 m
2012 6.73 m
2013 7.04 m
2014 7.05 m
2015 7.41m
https://newsroom.mastercard.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/MasterCard-GDCI-2015-Final-Report1.pdf
Obviously those people aren’t flying in to catch the weekly public audience