What do conservative Catholics want from Pope Francis?

Liberal Catholics mostly love the new pontiff. Conservatives, on the other hand, are divided.

Pope Francis
(Image credit: (Franco Origlia/Getty Images))

In a recent column, I posed the question of what liberal Catholics want from Pope Francis. Do they expect him to bring church doctrine into conformity with the egalitarian ethos of liberal democracy? Or has doctrine become so irrelevant to liberal Catholics that the pope's rhetorical shift on culture war issues is enough to satisfy their longing for reform in the church?

But what about conservative Catholics? What do they want from the new pope and the church? And what would that mean, in particular, for American politics?

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.