Not even the Pope is spared on social media

Pope Francis is a remarkable man. It is hard to believe that he was elected as far back ago as 2013. In his 12 years as Pope, he has done what all leaders should aspire to do: he has set the weather. He continues to set it, even through his own personal tempest.

He is a fascinating and clearly admirable person, who made it clear that he would be Pope his way from the day he first stepped onto the balcony. Given that the job has been around for nearly 2,000 years, that took a lot of personality and character. 

Pope Francis exhibits a maturity and judgement that any person – whether religious or not – can look to for example. He certainly hasn’t used those attributes to play safe. He seems to annoy his critics, but without any signs of his ever being personally annoying. He is both too polite and too shrewd to observe that that perhaps says more about them than it does about him.

You get the definite sense that he has done a lot of living, and that he has done it in the real world, in the ‘field hospital’ that is life, as he so brilliantly puts it. Navigating the politics of Argentina prepared him well for the corridors of the Vatican, allowing him to combine the aura of the idealist with the cool head of the realist. He also has a turn of phrase, a sense of humour, and great timing.

So for all of those reasons, many, and not just the faithful, have been moved and indeed sorrowful about these last few weeks of trial for him. The day-to-day accounts have made for a hard listen and read. Those who have been gravely sick themselves must have keenly felt the witness of it.

It has clearly been an ordeal. And one that must – even with all the fine care he will be receiving – be terribly hard to bear. We must remember that the man is 88, and because of his vocation he has neither a child, nor a partner or soulmate in person or in memory to comfort him.

For the last 12 years he has held one of the most difficult jobs in the world. When Jorge Mario Bergoglio sat on the throne of Peter for the first time, he was ten years older than the age at which most people in Ireland retire. Imagine: 75, and you get the big gig. No wonder they say that a requirement to be Pope is that you must not want the job. Who would at 55? But 75? And at that age he got properly stuck in. Not even his fiercest critics – and he has many – would say that he coasted. His critics wish he had! He has been busy on every possible front and has – though I defer to others on these pages who know more of these things – been a near revolutionary.

Yes, he has been criticised by some on the liberal side for not moving fast enough, but what Francis has done is even more significant: he has dismantled much of the power around the very throne he ascended. His pontificate has been about returning authority to the body of the Church, the communion of all the faithful. For the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ, is in a sense an anti-clericalist. When he said to the mothers with crying babies in the Sistine Chapel to go ahead and feed their children, he made it clear who he believes are the most important people in the Church.

He has performed his Papacy from the front, and he has often been earthy in how he does it. But what has struck me over recent weeks – and made me a little uncomfortable – is the level of detail that has been released about his health.

The specifics of it have been so detailed as to feel like an invasion of his dignity and privacy. He is no regular person, sure, he is the Pope. He is not a regular individual. But is a gravely ill 88-year-old man not entitled to some privacy?

That point isn’t made to criticise those involved in the decision to release this level of information. Even in his illness, the Pope may well be – and probably was – one of those people involved in making it. But does it not feel a little wrong?

Why has it happened? It is of course for an altogether predictable and depressing reason. The nature of how information is shared on social media these days is once again the culprit. With a Pope gravely ill, rumour and conspiracy theories would spread like wildfire. Traditional media outlets would not be trusted and so a huge number of people would believe the most lurid and fantastical of details about the sad agonies of an old man with lung disease. And of course, as soon as the Pope went into hospital, that exact nonsense began on social media, with reports that he had died, with fake images, and claims of Vatican conspiracies to hide the true nature of his condition.

We have seen this scenario play out only recently with the Princess of Wales, whose attempts to manage reports about her health – presumably above all to protect her children – led to the most extraordinary conspiracies flying around the internet and lodging in people’s heads. Even by the standards of a family who historically come with an exceptional degree of scrutiny and interest it was bizarre. Eventually she came out with a dignified statement addressing her health. Did it stop the rumours? That is a question that does not, alas, require an answer.

The lesson drawn from all that – and countless other episodes like it – is that you have to get out ahead of the social media monster before it monsters you. For if you let the rumours start, there is no putting them in the box.

So the Vatican authorities no doubt figured it was best to share all possible details, to try and close the ‘information gap’ that allows such nonsenses to flourish. It is understandable, and the statements have tried their best to do it in a dignified way. But to me there were certain details released that just did not seem necessary, did not seem right. This man is a great guy, but, using his own teaching, even if he wasn’t, I think he deserves better than to have the world poring over the details.

The approach is as I say understandable but I do not think wise. As a 2,000-year-old institution, the Church should recognise this strategy for what it is: an attempt to appease the baying mob in the Colosseum. It can’t be done. It shouldn’t be done.

Whatever happens now for Francis, he can be reassured that people will remember him for what he did in this life, and not for the tough ordeal he now endures. In that, all people of good faith will wish him well.