Bishop Eleganti: Is the Petrine Ministry in Decline?

By Bishop Marian Eleganti OSB

On 31 July 2026, Pope Leo XIV held a 40-minute private audience at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican with the American rock musician, poet and artist Patti Smith (born 1946), the so-called “Godmother of Punk.” Both are from Chicago. The meeting was attended by Father Antonio Spadaro. There are several official photographs and a video of the encounter.

This innocuous meeting — I imagine that it mainly involved an exchange of pleasantries, with hardly anything of great significance for the Church — raises questions for me.

For a long time now, I have personally been troubled by the fact that, since John Paul II, popes have increasingly been speaking in a purely informal manner on all sorts of occasions (e.g. on a plane or by the roadside, as Pope Leo XIV does in Castel Gandolfo). They give spontaneous interviews and express personal opinions. They are accessible to all sorts of people who want to have their photograph taken with them.

Given a pope’s workload and responsibilities, does he really have nothing more important to do than grant such private audiences — which are particularly popular when the petitioners come from the world of show business or have some sort of cultural or elitist relevance?

Such appearances reinforce the impression among the secular public that the Pope is, at heart, simply another member of the international establishment. The humble fisherman from Galilee, at any rate, knew nothing of such “glamour.” Nor did Paul seek the limelight; rather, he went to the Areopagus in Athens to preach. I shall refrain here from discussing protocol obligations and state visits of significance.

Among those favoured with a private audience may also be people such as Emma Bonino, who spent her entire life at loggerheads with Church doctrine. Pope Francis even paid her a private visit to her home on 5 November 2024. However, the Pope’s role is not that of individual pastoral care. Nor should he teach through images, but through unambiguous words.

Nor should we forget this Pope’s repeated and lengthy conversations and telephone calls with the atheist Eugenio Scalfari, founder of the left-wing newspaper La Repubblica. From these, Scalfari reconstructed controversial interviews from memory.

On several occasions, the Vatican had to distance itself from alleged statements attributed to the Pope. With Pope Francis, this way of floating ideas while himself remaining doctrinally non-committal had almost become a method. Above all, I would point out this: when a pope receives such people in private audience, he cannot, out of courtesy, publicly distance himself from them afterwards. Consequently, to many, such a reception appears to downplay what these individuals stand for. In this way, the Pope himself obscures the Church’s position and — depending on the circumstances — may even cause offence to the faithful.

These audiences take on all the more false significance the less the Pope simultaneously upholds the doctrine of the faith in its entirety, publicly corrects the erroneous views of these people, and puts a stop to abuses (cf. the exploitation of private audiences with the Pope by the Jesuit James Martin for his own pro-homosexual agenda).

I believe that, as a result, the most recent popes have lost authority and spiritual capital. Their personalities — spin doctors need images — come to the fore. Their private preferences and details irrelevant to their office become messages to the mainstream and take centre stage. We see Pope Benedict at the piano, or Pope Francis — squeezed into a Fiat far too small for his bulk — going to a Rome record shop to indulge a personal whim.

Popes certainly have more important things to do than pay for their hotel room out of their own pocket, as Francis did at the start of his pontificate. Do they even have enough time for that? Do they have enough time to ponder matters in prayer, to linger long before God so as to be guided by Him? Do they have enough time to read, to study documents and to prepare statements in which they truly teach — authoritatively and unambiguously — rather than offering speculations that are of no use to us?

But no, they must constantly attend audiences, shake hands and receive people indiscriminately. At papal Masses, they themselves take centre stage as a sort of “Church star,” pushing Christ — “the actual subject” — into the background. The papal throne towers over the altar. The Holy Mass in St Peter’s Square ought rather to serve as an encounter with the LORD, and not be a “happening” centred on his servant, the Pope — to put it somewhat polemically.

I cannot comprehend this. Collections of interviews, off-the-cuff remarks of varying quality, personal appearances at all manner of events, such as the blessing of a block of ice at a climate conference in Rome: All these things do the office more harm than good. They serve only those who are keen to use the Pope to further their own agenda. And popes have recently been lending themselves to such things. One sees them, for the media and to the delight of business leaders, test-driving the first electric Ferrari and much more besides. Here, too, one should be mindful of the ambivalence of the images!

For me, there is a lack of distance, in the positive sense of the word. I am not talking about aloofness, but about dignity. This is often emphasised more by silence than by speech — by speaking at the right moment, and then in a warm and engaging manner, using few, unambiguous and clear words. Pope Francis found such moments particularly when dealing with traditionalists and Mafiosi, or in the context of migration. He was able to clearly condemn abortion, yet welcome its proponents warmly and even appoint them to significant Vatican commissions. This, too, undermines the Church’s doctrinal position.

We need discernment in the sense of tradition (not in the sense of so-called “new synodality”). But the popes have almost no time for this. They spend far too much time on audiences, welcoming addresses, handshaking and travelling. I see the danger of activism. It masks the lack of a clear condemnation of heretical positions, which are also held by bishops (cf. the German Synodal Path). These positions must be clearly identified, and their proponents admonished or removed from office.

Burning issues such as the liturgical question are being put on the back burner. As advisers to the Pope, the cardinals do not really have a say.

St Pope John Paul II — perhaps nolens volens (whether he wanted to or not) — gave his public appearances as Pope the character of a superstar, particularly through the World Youth Days. In 2003, John Paul II published the “Roman Triptych – Meditations,” a new cycle of poems. The Vatican documented its official presentation on 6 March 2003 as though it held similar significance to the great doctrinal texts from the same pen.

Even whilst serving as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict published collections of interviews, a practice he continued as Pope. With his valuable books on Jesus, he did not intend to teach authoritatively as Pope, but rather to make an academic (?) contribution, as in the old days when he was a university professor. All this is unusual for popes, who are expected to teach authoritatively.

Pope Francis produced several autobiographies at once, a format hitherto unthinkable for popes. Moreover, he did not write them himself, as one might suppose. Through all these innovations, the media portrayal of his personality and style took on almost greater significance than what he taught or was supposed to teach. In the age of the media, there was a concerted effort to ensure one came across well. This was also evident with Pope Francis. Any cracks in his image were quickly patched up by the media (cf. his brusque reaction in St Peter’s Square when a Chinese woman grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her on 31 December 2019, and the ‘mea culpa’ that became necessary during the Angelus on the following Sunday).

For the Lord to shine through, however, other matters — the irrelevant, the overly personal — must take a back seat. The media, however, take particular delight in turning precisely the latter into a main attraction: the swimming pool or tennis court at Castel Gandolfo, the black shoes beneath the white cassock, the worn leather briefcase from days gone by, Benedict’s cute cat, the piano, the Fiat, the Ferrari. The list goes on and on.

Who cares about that when popes are teachers of the truth? A revealed truth!

I do not think that, for the sake of this truth, they need to constantly undertake elaborate and gruelling journeys that physically exhaust them, whilst a single sentence from their lips travels round the globe in the blink of an eye without them having to move a muscle. How much personal energy is lost in this way, energy that is then lacking elsewhere (partly due to their constant absence): in the running of the Curia; in meetings with people who are truly relevant to the Pope’s decision-making; in staff meetings to prepare sound statements and coordinate the various dicasteries. Their presence is not required merely to witness processes initiated by others, to let them run their course without providing leadership, to act as a mere student, or even just to be a good listener. Are they not the teachers of Christendom, whose words everyone awaits? Do they not sit on the Chair of St Peter, and not on some other chair? Are they not needed above all in Rome?

The popes have become all too human in the exercise of their office. It is their personality, not their office, that now takes centre stage. This may strike some as endearing; they are keen to snap a photo with them, perhaps subsequently exploiting it to promote their heretical views.

The mainstream wants to see them as approachable: as perfectly ordinary people like the rest of us. Pope Francis, in particular, wanted the latter. For this reason, on 25 March 2017 in Milan, to the annoyance of many believers, he spontaneously used a nearby portable lavatory, which his spin doctor, Antonio Spadaro, of course appropriately reframed afterwards. Most recently, he allowed himself to be pushed in a wheelchair by his carer, dressed in everyday clothes, through the bustling St Peter’s Basilica, as if he were just any elderly neighbour (with all due respect to his terminal illness!). For me, this was yet another historic low point for the papacy.

Popes, after all, are not people like us. They should have respect for their office and, as guardians of the Church’s doctrine, personally step back like John the Baptist, who wished only to be a voice, albeit one that speaks the truth. In comparison, his own profile was without significance. Popes should remain mindful of this: that it is not their personality that counts, but their office. That is a cross to bear. “HE must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). They are merely the friends and representatives of the Bridegroom, not the Bridegroom himself. Only the latter is of any significance or interest!

Bishop Marian Eleganti OSB was an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Chur from 2009 to 2021 and Abbot of St Otmarsberg Benedictine Abbey in St Gallen from 1999 to 2009.

This commentary was originally published in German on Bishop Eleganti’s website and has been republished here with his kind permission.