PopeFrancisImagines: A Retrospective
This essay is every bit as deranged as the title leads you to think.
The morning Pope Francis died, I woke up to a truly staggering number of DMs, all of them sharing the news with a bated breath, wanting to ask the obvious question: What about PopeFrancisImagines?
PopeFrancisImagines is a Tumblr blog I started in 2020. It’s hard to say why. I could say I wanted to practice a type of gross-out humor calibrated to the kind of microidentity fandom politics endemic to that site’s hermetically sealed userbase, testing the limits of who exactly Tumblr can woobify. And that’s sort of true, but it’s jacking myself off a little. In reality, the twin pressures of the COVID pandemic and my undergraduate degree broke my brain and spawned the most powerful hyperfixation I’ve ever experienced: the very existence of popes. During a time when I was too listless to read for school or for recreation, I spent hours on Wikipedia, learning as much about papal history as I could.
There was something my Jewish ass found endlessly fascinating about the idea of crowning a single Guy as G-d’s favorite, and for that, choosing a Jesuit pink wave Argentinian to be the Guy. For millennia, the head of the Catholic Church has been an Italian who got the job through a series of insane political maneuvers of which the average Catholic was blessedly ignorant. And here’s Pope Francis with the steel chair, opening a Twitter account, killing the Latin Mass, taking a more progressive tack on gays and criminal priests, and openly reforming religion based on the political demands of modernity.
I say “openly,” because the papacy has always been a political office. The important difference between Francis and his premodern predecessors – except for everything – is something like the difference between George Washington and Franklin Roosevelt. In a word: commtech. A medieval Italian pope could be brazenly partisan, keep a stable of concubines, and engage in any number of earthly delights without the slightest risk of an English peasant knowing about it, or taking him to task for his hypocrisy. Pope Francis had no such affordances. He really did have to lead a religious life in order for anyone to take his authority seriously. Even that wasn’t enough for sedevacantists and other such Catholic reactionaries, to whom Francis’ concessions to the Left were evidence enough that he didn’t actually sit on the Throne of St. Peter.
Where does the Pope derive his authority? In a Catholic theological sense, the answer to this question is mystical and well-established. But for that 7/8th of the world which is not Catholic, that answer falls short of an explanation. The Pope controls a diplomatic corps that represents his interests at the UN. He is greeted by world leaders like the US President with a pomp and circumstance rarely afforded to Protestant religious leaders, to say nothing of non-Christians. (Can you imagine an imam, any imam, getting the kind of press that Pope Francis’s various trips received?) In a rapidly de-spiritualizing world, the Pope retains some of the splendor of religion’s halcyon days, becoming a floating signifier of faith as a whole, despite the peculiarity and decidedly non-representative nature of the Catholic Church. Why do so many non-Catholics care what the Pope says?
It was this question that vexed me in late 2020, when I spent hours and hours ignoring my coursework to read about papal history on my computer. My study buddies were baffled. In the end, we instituted a “Pope Hour” from 9-10 PM, when I was allowed to read about any of the Popes I pleased. The rest of the time, I was supposed to focus on my assigned readings. To be honest, the only class I can remember from that semester was Civil War and Reconstruction, for which the professor gave me a pity D- after I failed to turn in the final assignment. I was too busy thinking about the Papacy.
Pope Hour was a very good solution to this all-encompassing fascination until I referenced it offhandedly to my Internet friends, who unanimously responded: What the fuck are you talking about? Shortly after, one of them made an edit of Pope Francis in front of the MLM flag, which made me laugh so hard I almost threw up. Another sent the message that would become the first Pope Francis imagine, and was itself a proof of concept for what the blog might become.
I posted this, and was immediately owned again for not knowing how to spell Catholicism.
Though the blog existed for five years, we (that is, myself and friends I added to the blog) never posted very much. The joke is the blog itself. Trying to make posts for the blog was something of a hat-on-a-hat situation, where no post could quite live up to the premise.
Still, from time to time, I’d be struck by a bolt of inspiration, and write a post as quickly as I could before it deserted me again. My last imagine, in response to a prompt about riding in the Popemobile with Francis, was written in one sitting and goes like this:
You have been asking Francis about the popemobile for some time now. Each time, he becomes cagey and distant, like when you ask him about the Dirty War.
One day he asks, "Why would you want such a thing?"
The question takes you by surprise. It had never occurred to you that he might not enjoy riding in the popemobile, that tending God's flock might be frightening rather than invigorating. "I could help," you say.
Francis looks troubled, and says no more.
***
One Tuesday after Mass, Francis summons you to St. Peter's Basilica.
It is before visiting hours, before the masses of gathered faithful come to pay their respects, before the disorganized scene you've always seen. This is quiet, more peaceful, holy. You try to express as much to Francis, who says, "It is always holy, my child."
"I know. But..."
"One can forget how."
The two of you continue on, silent, thoughtful. He pauses occasionally to speak to a custodian or security guard in his melodic Italian, asking after their children, wives, personal lives. When you're quite sure none are listening, you ask, "Is this about the Popemobile?"
He smiles slightly, in the knowing way that lets you know you have guessed correctly. "Do you know its history?"
You shake your head. Briefly he tells you about the palanquins that used to carry popes, their replacement with standard cars, standard cars' replacement with bulletproof ones. Standing before the tomb of Pope John Paul II, you consider the full weight of what he's saying.
"The Romans, pagan though they were, had some wisdoms," he goes on. "The memento mori, among them. We kept some remnants from them, being as we are in Rome. The popemobile is one such remnant, a reminder that I will die, not that I am alive."
With that he leaves you in the silence of the Basilica, to ponder the echoes of his departing footsteps as he returns to his chambers to get ready for the day.
***
The next time Francis is scheduled to go in the popemobile, you beat him there by five minutes, managing to look calm and composed by the time he arrives.
He says nothing, though you can feel his smile gracing the top of your skull. With deep casualness, he informs the driver that there will be another riding with him today.
As you pass through street after crowded street, the bulletproof prism of glass concentrating liquid sunshine in the very air the two of you breathe, you get the deep sense that it might not be so horrible to remember death, if all of life is like this.
After I hit “post,” I stretched, looked around, and reflected on the fact that if I died that very day, one of the best things I would have ever written would have been self-insert fanfiction about Pope Francis.
On the ethics of writing gay fanfiction about a Pope
Over its five years, PopeFrancisImagines had several contributors and put out a whopping nine imagines (though we stopped numbering them after #4). Most users who interacted with the blog seemed to know it was a joke. But some took us at face value, as evidenced by their incandescent rage. One Catholic user, annoyed at our habitual use of the #tradcath tag, issued a callout post for the blog, calling our posts vile attacks on the Holy Father. (Unfortunately, the Imagines team has lost the screenshot of this post. I’ve never felt such archival grief.)
I did worry about this. On face value, the blog was a mockery of a holy man’s life work, and his work in reforming an extremely conservative institution. But the question must be raised: holy to who? As a part of the 7/8ths of the world who sees him as a guy in a hat, Pope Francis’s life is perhaps best judged in terms of impact on the world. In terms of absolute goodness, being the head of the Catholic Church stacks the deck against him. Across the world, the Church is actively fighting against desperately needed reforms – abetting homophobia in Africa, fighting against divorce in the Philippines, and dragging its feet on increased roles for women.
Francis’s reforms seem tepid to us non-Catholic observers because of the depths of the Church’s conservatism. Had he been any more radical, the sedevacantist fringe may have become a majority, causing an irreversible schism in an ancient church, the spiritual home of over a billion people. So maybe the late Pope’s actions were an act of cultural preservation. But then again, should one sect be in charge of a quarter of the world’s healthcare infrastructure? I’m not convinced the answer is “yes.” The aggressively universalizing nature of the Catholic Church makes it hard to celebrate any charity when it comes with a silent judgement: Only I practice a religion. The rest of you are witch doctors.
On the topic, here’s a bit from fellow PopeFrancisImagines admin J.M. Ransom:
Viewers of the movie Conclave might have brushed up against a similar point. We, as outsiders, viewers, “progressives,” find ourselves rooting for the liberalization of the Church. It must be good for an organization with such significant worldwide influence to become a little cooler about women, gay people, and people of color. But, like… is it though? Is it good for Thee Catholic Church, this institution that has done such damage and continues to do such damage, to have more appeal, to get with the times, to welcome more people? I found myself, watching Conclave, watching the preparations for the appointment of the new Pope, invested in the image and ethics of the Catholic Church. Why? I must acknowledge that, as the Church exists and holds great influence over people, its slow track toward social progressivism may effect positive change. But such a track also validates the existence of the institution. I still haven’t decided if I think the institution of Catholicism should be liberalized or if it should be disintegrated entirely. Or if those wishes are mutually exclusive.
That’s part of why, whatever progress Pope Francis made and however good he may have personally been, I was comfortable writing insane xreader joke imagines about him on Tumblr and using them to spam the #tradcath tags. He was head of the Catholic Church. I owe no deference to such a person.
Mis/interpretation
More than anything, what soothed my scruples vis-a-vis mocking somebody else’s tzaddik was the simple fact that I was making fun of myself, too. I’ve been on Tumblr for a decade. When writing a post for the blog, I was thinking less about the Catholic Church and abstract questions of power and thinking more about how ridiculous I could be without overplaying my hand. My ability to do this was solely predicated on the countless hours of my life I’d wasted on the site.
I wanted it to seem plausible, at least, that the writer of Pope Francis Imagines meant it all for real. If this seems far-fetched, please know it’s not the craziest fandom on the site.
That dubious honor belongs to Reichblr.
This was an easier line to toe than I’d imagined. When people see something outrageous on the Internet, they don’t always stop to question whether or not the poster was being serious. After all, that forecloses a much more exciting option: righteous anger.
Frankly, I don’t know if I could write a funnier joke than someone genuinely believing we were discussing the cancellation of Pope Francis on tumblr.com. What’s the point? Cancellation only works as a political maneuver if you have enough followers willing to harass the cancelled into deleting their account and/or life – a power no Tumblr account wields over the Pope.
Now, I don’t mean to rag on Tumblr users oatplant and purplespacecats. The law of averages means that everyone will fall for a troll post once in a while. In this arena, I often defer to one of my girlfriend’s anecdotes about riding the Tube. Towards the end of a line, an announcement plays every thirty seconds for several minutes telling passengers that the line is about to terminate, and they need to get off. But when the train cars are full of hundreds of people, the probability that one or two of them will mishear or ignore the announcements altogether is somewhere near 100%.
The post above has about 140 notes. By Tube rules, it should be expected that at least one or two people fell for it, especially when the context is Tumblr itself, an ecosystem that loves woobifying anyone. What I didn’t expect was hearing STRANGE ÆONS read something I wrote in a video about tradwives.
Our bit is around the 11:20 mark.
To her credit, STRANGE ÆONS noted that the entire #tradcath tag “appears to be a lot of satire and a lot of more progressive Catholics kind of co-opting the tag to make fun of traditional Catholics.” No one running the blog was a Catholic of any adjective besides “lapsed,” but nevertheless. For those who stopped to take a second look, it was usually obvious that we were taking the piss.
The death of a Pope (and a blog)
Even though all the friends I brought on board to Pope Francis Imagines thought it was funny, none of us exactly knew how to continue the bit. Once in a while, one of us would post a long imagine, but most of the time, we reblogged the rare Pope-related post, and laughed privately at asks in our inbox.
Then, of course, the Pope had to go and die.
This is also J.M.
Now the joke is over. As I write, the cardinal electors are sequestered in Rome, casting ballot after ballot to determine who will be the next Pope. Whoever it is, it… won’t be Francis. Don’t get me wrong: every Pope is fascinating by virtue of wearing the hat, but only a very few of them can be photoshopped in front of the MLM flag and yield a coherent joke about the nature of modernizing reforms and Tumblr fandoms. That honor belongs, perhaps singularly in papal history, to the late Pope Francis.