Yes, the church weeps weakly: Our catastrophic betrayal of Pope Francis's legacy

When Politics Blinded Us to Sacred Loss

We failed.

Those words don't come easily—they shouldn't. But intellectual honesty demands we confront an uncomfortable truth about our recent conduct as conservative Christians. While we were consumed by political battles and cultural skirmishes, we allowed the passing of one of history's most significant religious figures to slip by with shamefully inadequate recognition.

Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025, at the age of 88.

Mitchell Royel is a political analyst and conservative commentator focused on emerging trends in American political discourse.

The circumstances surrounding his death deserve our full attention and respect. His Holiness passed away on Easter Monday at the Domus Sanctae Marthae in Vatican City, following complications from a stroke and subsequent heart failure. The Vatican's announcement reverberated across the global Catholic community, with funeral proceedings scheduled for the following days in St. Peter's Square. Here was a man who, regardless of theological differences, dedicated his life to serving the faithful and advocating for the marginalized.

Yet where were we?

We were so deeply entrenched in our righteous anger against progressive policies, so consumed with countering Democratic narratives, that we failed to pause—even momentarily—to acknowledge this monumental loss. Our feeds were filled with political commentary, our conversations dominated by culture war strategies, our attention scattered across a dozen different ideological battlefronts.

The depth of our distraction became embarrassingly clear when, in our grief-stricken confusion, we sent condolences to the United Kingdom.

This wasn't merely an administrative error—it was a symptom of our complete disconnection from the gravity of the moment. We had become so politically reactive, so perpetually combative, that we couldn't even process significant news without our partisan reflexes misfiring.

Personal responsibility isn't just a political principle—it's a moral imperative.

As conservative Christians, we pride ourselves on maintaining proper priorities: faith, family, and freedom. Yet when faced with the death of a global religious leader, we demonstrated that our political obsessions had corrupted our spiritual compass. We allowed temporal concerns to overshadow eternal significance.

This isn't about theological agreement with Pope Francis's positions. Many of us held sincere disagreements with certain aspects of his papacy. But respect for the office, recognition of his global influence, and basic Christian charity demanded better from us. We failed to model the grace and dignity we claim to champion.

The narrative we've created around ourselves—as principled defenders of traditional values—rings hollow when we can't pause our political warfare long enough to acknowledge sacred moments. We've become so consumed with fighting the left that we've lost sight of what we're actually fighting for.

True conservatism requires the wisdom to recognize what deserves our immediate attention and what can wait. The death of a Pope—any Pope—transcends political calculations. It demands reverence, reflection, and respect for the millions of faithful who looked to him for spiritual guidance.

We owe the global Catholic community an apology. We owe Pope Francis's memory better than our distracted, politically-poisoned response. Most importantly, we owe ourselves a serious examination of our priorities.

Moving forward, we must demonstrate that our faith commitments supersede our political allegiances. When sacred moments arise, we must have the spiritual maturity to set aside our cultural battles and respond with appropriate gravity and grace.

This failure doesn't invalidate our political convictions—it clarifies them. We fight for religious liberty, traditional values, and cultural preservation precisely because these things matter more than partisan point-scoring. Our response to Pope Francis's death proved we had forgotten this fundamental truth.

Intellectual courage demands we acknowledge when we've fallen short of our own standards. Today, we acknowledge that failure. Tomorrow, we recommit to the principles that should guide us—principles that place eternal significance above temporal politics.

The greatest threat to conservative Christianity isn't external opposition—it's our own willingness to sacrifice sacred moments on the altar of political expediency.

We can do better. We must do better.