Brendan Hoban: Whoever succeeds Pope Francis, the genie is now permanently out of the bottle

On the evening of March 13th 2013, I was watching television sitting in the presbytery of Moygownagh parish in County Mayo where I was parish priest, as Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican chamberlain, appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s in Rome and declared Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio to be the new pope.

As Pope Francis emerged from the shadows, my heart sank. He looked impossibly old for the task that faced him. If he had the words “Caretaker Pope” written across his chest on his new white soutane, it couldn’t have been clearer that he was merely expected to keep the throne of St Peter warm, waiting for a more active successor.

Here, I thought, was another elder filling a gap for a few years where a Church – that by every available metric was in what looked like terminal decline – could avoid the hard questions for another few years.

[ Pope Francis obituary: Outsider pope who championed those at the marginsOpens in new window ]

Within a few days it was clear that my assessment was considerably off...
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