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Since I see a lot of people commenting on this topic, I would like to offer a different perspective. Pope JPII was for my southern European social democratic C

Since I see a lot of people commenting on this topic, I would like to offer a different perspective. Pope JPII was for my southern European social democratic Catholic family much more polarizing than Pope Francis. Pope Francis had politics that are mainstream and not at all controversial in my part of the world. Whereas JPII was perceived as the guy who was buddies with Reagan and Bush and a general supporter of American foreign policy. To what extent that was a fair assessment, I do not want to comment, since he did try to speak against the invasion of Iraq. None the less, it is not true that Pope Francis is more popular with non-Catholics (Reagan, Bush and most of the US were not Catholic and big supporters of JPII). It was also JPII that started the interfaith dialogue. It is also not true that Pope Francis is unpopular with Catholics. There are Catholics all across the globe with vastly different opinions on all kinds of issues.

dmix 1y ago
As an outsider it sounds like both were in the current overton window of the power systems at the time.
- alistairSH 1y ago
  That's a fair assessment. Notably, while Francis is sometimes considered liberal, there weren't (m)any notable changes to Church doctrine during his papacy. He did have a habit (a good one, IMO) of speaking more off-the-cuff in interviews. Whether that was contrived, or just a natural part of his personality, I do not know. But, it was those comments that usually led to the "he's a liberal!" comments. And both sides of the political spectrum said similar things... "He's a liberal (like us)!" or "He's a liberal (unlike us)!" - so he was probably doing something right.