After just seeing so many articles of people being sad I really just have to say the pope was an asshole. You don’t even have to do good research to see that this guy and his administration was still hiding pedophiles, hating gay people, and generally being a jerk all while pretending he was better than everyone else. The only thing he did was say he loved everyone and be a nice guy on camera which literally anyone could pretend to do. Meanwhile his administration was just more of the same shit. Just creating some counterpoint to the nonsense narrative I keep seeing.
I agree the role of Pope is very performative, but that’s not necessarily equivalent to “this guy was an asshole”. And the examples you raised strike me as more tied to his job, than things he did outside of his role as the Pope.
Or are you saying that anyone who rises to become a Pope must be corrupt enough to be an asshole?