But some self-appointed US Catholic intelligentsia members apparently agreed that, this year, it would start on March 13th.

That was the day we marked the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis' election to the papacy.

And while writers generally used the occasion to try to offer a balanced assessment of his decade in office, the super Catholic know-it-alls who don't like him decided it was time to turn their scopes on the 86-year-old pope.

"A Somber Anniversary," was the title of an article in First Things penned by George Weigel, the self-promoting "official biographer" of John Paul II.

"Pope Francis' Decade of Division," donned the piece Ross Douthat wrote in his regular column in the New York Times.

And Raymond Arroyo, host of the EWTN program "The World Over," egged on Cardinals Raymond Burke and Gerhard Müller as they complained about all the ills in Church over these past ten years.

The autocratic pope who is feared in the Vatican

Weigel, who has increasingly displayed his deep dislike for Francis and his pontificate, wrote a piece that was a scattershot of unverified accusations and laments.

He blasts the pope for allegedly creating "fear engendered by (his) systematic effort to deconstruct the legacy" of the late Polish pope in the field morality — sexual morality.

"The approach to the moral life that has dominated the 'synodal process' thus far is a flat-out rejection of the basic (and classic) structure of Catholic moral theology that undergirds the Polish pope's 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor," Weigel says, "just as the deliberate ambiguities in the 2016 apostolic exhortation, Amoris laetitia, undercut John Paul II's teaching in the 1981 apostolic exhortation on marriage and the family, Familiaris consortio."

Perhaps Weigel, who is "distinguished senior fellow" at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington (DC), sees sexual morality in terms of black and white.

But that's not really the issue here.

His real beef is that Francis, even though he's the pope who canonized John Paul, refuses to support the uncritical hero-worship of the late pontiff that Weigel and his buddies have long been pushing.

We learn that some of those same pals are disgruntled officials in the Roman Curia.

"The prevailing mood in today's Vatican is one of trepidation," he says, claiming that even officials who actually support Francis' vision and policies are scared. "Because papal autocracy has created a miasma of fear, parrhesia (the "speaking freely" Francis encourages) is not the Roman order of the day, except in private," he alleges.

And Weigel would know, as he is part of the coterie of clergy and influential laity that privately gripe about Francis as they strategize to find a candidate to their ideological liking that can get elected to replace the Jesuit pope when the time comes.

The silent pope who is courting schism

This is not to say that Francis should be sheltered from criticism.

Not all at all.

Weigel is right to question the pope's record on sexual abuse, for instance, especially the pope's own involvement in the cases concerning the Slovenian Jesuit mosaic artist, Marko Rupnik.

But this "distinguished senior fellow" does not have a single good or kind word for Francis and his ten years in office.

And that is just unfair.

While he notes the pope's "efforts to display God's mercy in his public persona", he does not mean it as a compliment.

Weigel blasts Francis for creating a "slough of dysfunction" inside the Vatican by the "inconsistencies and contradictions in papal pronouncements and policy".

He says the pope who acts like an autocrat at home (and stomps on "the authority of American bishops to provide for the liturgical nourishment of some faithful Catholics"- that is, people who want the Old Latin Mass) is the same pope who allows Germany's bishops to "openly defy Roman authority".

Weigel claims that "much of institutional German Catholicism seems comfortable with apostasy", though nobody in Germany has suggested changing anything in the creed.

But, nonetheless, he claims that "schism is not out of the question".

His target is not the Germans, however. It is clearly Francis.

"The papal voice in response to this crisis is, at best, muted," Weigel says.

He saves the heavy artillery for the pope's

• continuous appointment of "bishops and cardinals who have a tenuous grasp on fundamental truths of the Catholic faith",
• his "imperious manner" of governing "with little concern for established procedure",
• and for dramatically diminishing the "Vatican's moral authority in world affairs" by his "inept papal commentary and Vatican policies that create the impression that the Church is abandoning her own".
• And, as expected, Weigel pulls out some of his old ammunition for what he calls the pope's "kowtow to the Marxist mandarins of the People's Republic of China"...

"George Weigel's column is syndicated by the Denver Catholic, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Denver," readers are informed.

This is not surprising, given that its archbishop, Sam Aquila, has called Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò — the former papal nuncio to Washington who continues to demand that Pope Francis resign — "a man of deep faith and integrity".

Tellingly, Aquila issued no statement on the occasion of the pope's 10th anniversary. At least he had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.

The cruel pope who is dividing the Church

Meanwhile, in the pages of the venerable old Gray Lady, the New York Times, Ross Douthat says the "Catholic right has started a civil war" in the Church, but he insists that this is "a consequence of the specific ways that Francis has pursued his liberalization, rather than just a reflexive opposition to anything outside their comfort zone".

Douthat, who calls himself a "conservative Catholic", is an excellent writer.

But he's a no theologian.

Douthat repeats the longstanding lament of his tribe that Francis causes confusion.

He says the pope's attempted "strangulation" of the Tridentine Mass was "micro managerial cruelty".

Worst of all, he links to a nasty article by British writer Damian Thompson, lending credibility to this tortured soul's malicious attacks on the pope, which are full of innuendos, half-truths and outright lies.

"Seen now at its 10-year milestone, then, this pontificate hasn't just faced inevitable resistance because of its zeal for reform," Douthat says in his final lines.

"It has needlessly multiplied controversies and exacerbated divisions for the sake of an agenda that can still feel vaporous, and its choices at every turn have seemed to design to create the greatest possible alienation between the Church's factions, the widest imaginable gyre."

The only thing Douthat gets right in this last sentence is that there is a great alienation between the Church's factions. But it is wrong to take aim at Francis and accuse him of deliberately causing it.

Obviously, for one side of this ecclesial divide it's now open season on the pope.

• Robert Mickens is LCI Editor of La Croix International.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

All I knew about Jorge Bergoglio was that my friends in Latin America, liberation theologians and Jesuits, did not like him, calling him conservative and authoritarian.

I was not alone in my ignorance.

George Weigel, the conservative Catholic commentator and biographer of Pope John Paul II, opined in a column shortly after Francis' election that the sole disappointment in John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI for many cardinals was that these popes had not reformed the Jesuits.

According to Weigel, the cardinals had decided that the only way to reform the Jesuits was to elect a conservative one as pope.

Weigel claimed to know the mind of Bergoglio because he had spent time talking with him in Buenos Aires about the Jesuits and the church.

My guess is that Weigel did most of the talking while Bergoglio sat poker-faced, leading Weigel to think that the archbishop agreed with everything he said.

Within a couple of weeks, we learned how wrong we both were.

The cardinals had elected as pope a man who would change the style of being pope, attack clericalism, empower the laity, open the church to conversation and debate and change the pastoral and public priorities of the church.

Although he did not change doctrine, he was revolutionary in every other way.

The stylistic change was immediately evident when, from the balcony of St Peter's, Francis, in simple dress, greeted the people informally and asked them to pray over him before he blessed them.

His simple style was linked to a full-throated attack on clericalism.

He told cardinals and bishops not to act like princes.

Leadership means service, he told them.

Shepherds should smell like their sheep.

Clergy were to be "gentle, patient and merciful" with an "outward simplicity and austerity of life."

Although Francis became known for his compassion and kindness, this did not apply to the clergy, with whom he could be very tough.

Here he sounded like the authoritarian director of novices and Jesuit provincial that he once was.

This became especially true in the manner he removed bishops who had not dealt forthrightly with sexual abuse.

Laity

Linked to this attack on clericalism was his desire to empower the laity.

Do we give the laity "the freedom to continue discerning, in a way befitting their growth as disciples, the mission which the Lord has entrusted to them?" he asked.

"Do we support them and accompany them, overcoming the temptation to manipulate them or infantilise them?"

Francis also opened up the church to conversation and debate in a way that had not been seen in the church since the Second Vatican Council.

Fearing the church had become too chaotic, John Paul had used Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to clamp down on priests and theologians who wanted to continue discussing doctrinal issues in the wake of Vatican II.

Francis, on the other hand, held that "open and fraternal debate makes theological and pastoral thought grow. That doesn't frighten me. What's more, I look for it."

This freed theologians to talk about how the church could present the gospel message in an understandable way in the 21st century.

Curia

Francis was also critical of the curia's control over what happened at the synod of bishops.

He recalled being told what could and could not be discussed at a synod he was involved in leading.

The synods had become not forums for advising the pope but places for participants to show their loyalty to the pontiff and the Vatican.

At his first synod as pope, he told the participants, "Speak clearly. Let no one say, ‘This can't be said'. … Everything we feel must be said, with parrhesia (boldness)."

He used the Greek word "parrhesia" describing how St Paul addressed St Peter at what could be called the first synod in Jerusalem, when the disciples discussed the obligation of Gentile Christians to follow traditional Jewish practices.

In other words, Francis told the synod participants, "treat me the way St Paul treated St Peter."

Ironically, conservatives used this new freedom to attack the pope for allowing free debate.

Those who had labelled as dissenters anyone who questioned the actions or teachings of John Paul and Benedict now became vocal in their dissent.

"Loyalists" became rebels, showing that their true loyalty was not to the papacy but to their own opinions.

Church

Francis also changed the pastoral priorities of the church.

He wanted a poor church for the poor, one that would serve, accompany and defend the poor. He described the church as a field hospital for the wounded, not country club for the rich and beautiful. His stress was on compassion, mercy and reconciliation.

He felt that the church's message was too complicated. "We lose people because they don't understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity," he said.

And while others blamed the faithful or the culture for the exodus from the church, Francis feared that people saw the church as "too weak, … distant from their needs, … cold, … caught up with itself, … a prisoner of its own rigid formulas, … a relic of the past, unfit for new questions."

Priorities

For Francis, the first words of evangelisation are about God's love and compassion.

We should preach the gospel, not the catechism or a rule book.

As the Gospel of Matthew teaches us, living the faith (orthopraxis) is more important than how we talk about faith (orthodoxy).

Francis also changed the public priorities of the church.

In an interview during his first year in office, he said he would not obsess over abortion, gay marriage and birth control since everyone knows what the church teaches on these topics.

Rather he attacked unregulated capitalism and globalisation.

He criticised war and called for peace.

In words and actions, he defended migrants, refugees and the marginalised.

He continued and advanced the work of John Paul in inter-religious dialogue, meeting and issuing joint statements with the top Shia leader in Iraq and the top Sunni leader in Egypt.

Finally, he wholeheartedly embraced the environmental movement and called on the church and the world to deal with global warming.

Francis is not perfect

Although I love and support Francis, he is not perfect.

His language about women drives First World feminists nuts.

One might call him a Third World feminist because he is concerned about human trafficking and poverty, not language.

He will promote women to positions of power in the church bureaucracy but will not ordain them priests.

Nor has he completed the work of curial reform.

Rather than firing people who are incompetent or disloyal, he calls them to conversion.

The church is terrible at human resource management. It tends to be either authoritarian or too gentle, paternalistic or bureaucratic.

Nor has he been willing to spend the money on the lay expertise necessary to reform Vatican finances.

Cleaning up the Vatican bank cost over a million dollars in accounting fees. Cleaning up the rest of the Vatican finances will have similar costs. Forensic accountants are not cheap.

Looking ahead

Although Francis is 86, his papacy is not over.

The Synod on Synodality is on track to meet in October this year and again next year.

For Francis, I believe, the synodal process is more important than any decisions that come out of the synod.

He hopes the process will transform the church into a synodal one.

This will disappoint progressive Catholics who want results: married priests, women priests and changes in church teaching on sex and gender.

Francis is not a miracle worker.

Because he has not won over large numbers of bishops and clergy to his vision for the church, his impact has been limited.

People love Francis but often do not see him in those leading their parishes or dioceses.

As Francis continues to the end of his papacy, he will likely be attacked from the right and the left.

Conservatives are already plotting to make sure there is a return to something like the papacies of Benedict and John Paul.

There are even rumours that "opposition research" is being done to dig up dirt on cardinals who might continue down Francis' path.

And yet the odds still favour continuity between this pope and the next; Francis has already appointed two-thirds of the cardinal electors and still has time to appoint more.

No matter who is elected, the impact of Francis on the papacy will be long-lasting.

Like Vatican II, he has opened windows that are difficult to close.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.