Pope Francis made some headlines yesterday, slapping away an over-eager fan in a Vatican reception line.

A visibly annoyed Pope Francis slapped a woman’s hand Tuesday when she pulled his arm and yanked him toward her as the pontiff greeted pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square.

 

The 83-year-old pope was walking down a line of admirers, clasping their hands and smiling, NBC News reported. Francis was on his way to see the large Nativity scene set up in the cobbled esplanade in the center of Vatican City and turned away from the crowd, Reuters reported.

Now, a lot of us are willing to permit the 83-year-old pontiff some allowance on that, given that the fan was over-eager to the point of being rude, grabbing the man's arm, yanking him back, not letting him go. The pope pretty vividly smacked her. The pope's an old man, after all, and he'd just shaken a lot of children's hands earlier, and he was probably tired. Fans need to learn to treat celebrities as if they're people with feelings instead of wondrous toys. 

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All the same, it represented a slide downward of sorts for the pope, on his last strong point, his public image, his way with crowds, the studied press narrative that he was simple and humble and 'smelled of the sheep,' as he put it, back in the days when Time made him Man of the Year.

Back in 2013, when he was elected pope and Time named him that, because his simple humble people-friendly manner was considered a response to the pomp and circumstance of Pope Benedict, and exactly what made him a breath of fresh air:

 In a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing mission of the church—the church as servant and comforter of hurting people in an often harsh world—above the doctrinal police work so important to his recent predecessors. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were professors of theology. Francis is a former janitor, nightclub bouncer, chemical technician and literature teacher.

And behind his self-effacing facade, he is a very canny operator. He makes masterly use of 21st century tools to perform his 1st century office. He is photographed washing the feet of female convicts, posing for selfies with young visitors to the Vatican, embracing a man with a deformed face. He is quoted saying of women who consider abortion because of poverty or rape, “Who can remain unmoved before such painful situations?” Of gay people: “If a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge.” To divorced and remarried Catholics who are, by rule, forbidden from taking Communion, he says that this crucial rite “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”

Like we say, he's human. And he has since made an apology of sorts for his "poor example."

But you wonder what's going on with that. Most celebrities in the public eye know enough not to slap or get angry at over-eager fans. Drew Barrymore has been spotted at Los Angeles International Airport exhausted from a trans-Atlantic flight, graciously greeting all her adoring fans on her way out even as she must have totally wanted to get out of there. Elizabeth Warren, much as we might disagree with her politics, has posed for 70,000 selfies from all her rallies, patiently posing with all comers. I recall reading somewhere in Church doctrine that a serenely prayerful person needs to try to have a pleasant smile on their face as much as possible. The Montessori schools model their children with a taught philosophy of "grace and courtesy."

Bottom line, you'd think a person in the public eye would know enough not to slap a fan regardless of their personal feelings, particularly someone who's cultivated a reputation as the friendly 'people's pope.'

Well, he did it, Now he's just a mean old man who slaps away over-eager fans. What a decline, what a sad state of affairs as his papacy matures. He's no longer a nice old man who wears the simple papal white, cancels his own newspaper subscriptions and pays his own hotel bills as he was in the past, he's the guy who slaps over-eager fans now. 

And it coincides with a few negative biographies out there, too, describing him as an irrascible dictator pope who's quite unpleasant to staff and difficult to work with actually.

It also coincides with the philosophical and theological slide downward his papacy, though -- the constant gutting of Church tradition, the deemphasis on any heeding of Church laws, the nonsensical blather about global warming, the social justice warrior ethos and fealty to state socialism, the betrayal of Hong Kong and China, the silence on Venezuela, the invitations to the Vatican of avowed materialist communists such as Naomi Klein while groups such as the Heartland Institute have been shut out of all dialogue, the weakness on doctrine and the failure to sanction sleazy politicians who use the Church to win votes but enable acts at complete odds with Church teaching, such as respect for life. And don't forget the Church pedophile scandals, which often involved leftist prelates.

Maybe the pope is tiring out on some front, having wrecked so much of what was good in the Church with his replacement of individual salvation with advocacy for state socialism. Ugh. Now he's a mean old man, to boot. It's like a mask has come off.   

Image credit: VOA, via shareable YouTube, screen shot