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 can’t begin to understand the religious-minded, but I do know from there being a lot of Catholics in my area that he was well-regarded by many, and people mourn his passing the same people mourn influential figures in other aspects of life they care about. Regardless of the ups and downs of the church, I am under the impression that he was pushing it further in the right direction, at least, and people are sympathetic to that, so I feel that is still worth acknowledging despite whatever ongoing negatives come with any religion.