When Pope Francis emerged on the balcony over St Peter’s Basilica for the first time in 2013, it was a symbolic victory for the liberal wing of a beleaguered church. The newly elected Holy Father would tidy up the scandal-ridden mess left in Benedict XVI’s wake and drag the papacy into the 21st century. In the decade since, Francis’s efforts have demarcated him from his far more staid predecessors: he has denounced laws that criminalise homosexuality; in 2015 he struck a revolutionary tone when he suggested forgiveness could be granted to women who had abortions; early in his tenure he declared that, yes, even atheists could go to heaven.
The great Catholic reformer was in lockstep with the trajectory of the decade. In spite of the retreats made by the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum (2016 was the annus horribilis for the liberal disposition) it seemed the progressive march forward was inevitable: gay marriage and abortion were legalised in Ireland by popular vote; the Women’s March and Me Too movement fought back against base misogyny; there was the great racial reckoning of America’s Black Lives Matter summer. This was the ambient temperature of the 2010s and early 2020s. An era when even the Pope was woke.
Content from our partners
