I will mention two issues in which I think he is wrong, and then one in which I would like, on the contrary, to appreciate his principled position.

I think his policy towards China, specifically the Chinese regime, the Communist Party, is wrong. That in the agreement with China in 2018, he gave way too much to its government. It was too much to promise to appoint bishops only from those selected by the Chinese Communist Party. It is one thing to consult with the government on the names of bishops, but to agree to appoint as bishops only those who are first selected by the Chinese Communist Party is another. Bishops should be chosen by the Pope, not by the Politburo of the Communist Party.

In addition, immediately after the agreement, the Chinese regime increased its attacks against the religious freedom of all, including Christians, Catholics and Protestants. That deal was counterproductive.

In addition, the Pope recognized the bishops from the so-called The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church, which is a collaborating organization. In a way, it was a betrayal of Chinese Catholics loyal to Rome at that time. They were sacrificed on the altar of agreement with the Chinese rulers.

I strongly suspect that the Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, Joseph Cardinal Zen, a man I greatly respect, is right about this. According to him, Pope Francis does not understand the Chinese Communist Party; he does not understand the extent of the evil of her regime, and the whole deal with China was the work of the Secretary of State Pietro Cardinal Parolin, who is a smooth diplomat from the school of Agostino Cardinal Casaroli, known for his Ostpolitik towards communist countries.

Agreement is that to which everything must submit, even at the expense of truth. But this is not a good diplomatic approach; sometimes it is better to walk away from the negotiation and not reach an agreement than to enter into a disadvantageous agreement that will take revenge on the church one day.

The second thing in which I think Pope Francis is wrong also happened in 2018, when the Pope changed the catechism and decided that the death penalty is supposedly no longer permissible.

I think those two justifications are even worse than the decision itself. To claim that we have – who? The pope? Mansion? – a better understanding of human dignity than our ancestors, is arrogant. Did Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas have a defective understanding of human dignity? More flawed than Pope Francis? Were such important philosophers of law as John Locke, Immanuel Kant or GFW Hegel wrong, who all considered the death penalty permissible?

And were all the popes before Francis wrong who also considered it permissible (even though St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were personally against the death penalty, they never declared it impermissible)?

The Pope is supposed to teach what is morally impermissible – murder, artificial abortion, war of conquest, etc. –, but when something is not evil in itself (malum per se), e.g. a just war or the death penalty for murderers and traitors, so whether it takes place or not, the laity, the statesmen, and not the clergy, should decide.

It is up to the statesmen to evaluate whether the death penalty is necessary to protect society from murderers. Coincidentally, like Pope Francis, I think that we in Europe do not need the death penalty. But if I were a citizen of Mexico or Nigeria, I would consider it necessary to defeat and destroy the drug mafia, drug cartels in the case of the first country and the fanatical, maniacal murderous cult of Boko Haram in the case of the second country.

Without the death penalty, it will not succeed in either case. In other words, politicians, citizens, and lay people should evaluate this, not the Pope, because he does not know the situation in every country in the world.

He is only supposed to declare whether the death penalty is evil always and everywhere under all circumstances, and he cannot, because he would deny two thousand years of church teaching. That’s why he hides behind the formula now… No. Either the death penalty is and has always been evil and the church was wrong, or it is not necessarily evil and then politicians should decide about it.

The declaration did not come a day before it was necessary; it arrives just in time.

But now the appreciation, why I’m actually writing this.

On the second Monday in April, Pope Francis issued the declaration Infinite Dignity , in which he condemned gender ideology, transgender surgical operations (which mutilate a person) and the so-called surrogacy as attacks on human dignity and moral evils similar to artificial abortion and euthanasia.

The document was prepared for five years and confirms the objectivity of gender, male and female. A person is either a man or a woman, there is no third option, and the attempt to change sex with hormonal “treatment” and surgery is an attack on human dignity.

The declaration did not come a day before it was necessary; it arrives just in time. Crimes against humanity have already been committed against so many children by being given puberty blockers, then hormones of the opposite sex, and then surgical mutilation.

It is the madness of the times, to which many have now fallen and for several decades they will be ashamed and apologize for it. It is high time that the Holy Father confirmed the reality and rejected the terrible superstition of this time. How many people are afraid to say who a woman is? And how many people have already suggested that no one actually knows who the woman is? Anyone can be a woman; and also a man, a transman, can supposedly give birth…

The voice of Pope Francis is the voice of common sense. And when it comes to surrogacy, the desire for a child or children is good and natural, but there is no such thing as a “right, claim to a child”. On the contrary, we must always ask what is in the best interest of the child. Women are not surrogate mothers like laying hens.

Future generations will appreciate this attitude of the Pope as heroic, correct and in the interest of human dignity. The voice of reason against the madness of the times.