Pope Francis’ passing has rattled the world, but it was who he was believed to be when he was alive that Liz Wheeler of “The Liz Wheeler Show” is focused on.

“The hallmark of his papacy, in my opinion, was confusion for the faithful, due partially to his Argentine liberation theology, or his theology that was informed by his experiences in very close relationship with Argentine liberation theology,” she says, noting that “he simultaneously denied” being part of the theology, which is a Marxist view.

“It’s also worth noting that Pope Francis differed significantly from his predecessors — his two immediate predecessors, Pope Benedict and Pope St. John Paul II — because Pope Francis did not seem to understand the power of the media,” she continues.

“He never seemed to push back when the media misinterpreted what he said, and that happened often, by the way,” she adds, explaining that most of the time he spoke in Italian or Spanish, which allowed what he said publicly to be interpreted by the American media.

“How it was translated by either international or American media was often incongruent. It was often reported inaccurately, what Pope Francis actually said, and the media, of course, we know, has a bias not only politically but theologically, spiritually, religiously,” Wheeler explains.

“And so, the media often portrayed Pope Francis as saying things that he didn’t say, because it’s what the media wanted him to say,” she adds.

While the media made the pope out to lean left, Wheeler notes that, actually, he was “against gender ideology.”

“And he was very clear about marriage being between one man and one woman,” she says.

However, the pope elevated priests like Father James Martin, who is advocating for changes to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, because he’s “an LGBTQIA+ lobbyist.”

“That’s confusing to me; that’s confusing to the faithful,” Wheeler says.

Pope Francis also once described abortion as “hiring a hit man to resolve a problem.”

“You cannot stand for life more strongly than that, and yet, at the same time, he stated that the church ‘cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods,’” Wheeler says. “He instead suggested a broader focus on social justice issues, and I find that to be confusing.”

“How can you acknowledge that abortion is murder? How can you acknowledge that an unborn child is a human person, with as much right to life as you, that this unborn person with a right to life is made in the image and likeness of our creator, and then dismiss it as just, like, one of many social justice issues?" she continues.

“One of the roles of the pope is supposed to be to speak with moral clarity. There should be no misinterpretation possible when a pope is speaking, especially one of the hot-button issues that is kind of rife with confusion in the first place,” she adds.

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