Could the Pope’s Death Mean the Demise of Liberal Catholicism?

The last dignitary Pope Francis met in his mortal life was JD Vance, the U.S. vice president, Catholic convert, and critic of the pontiff’s liberal views on mass migration. There is something powerfully symbolic about that. The scene of the two men, separated by 48 years and scarcely more than a meter, stands for the passing of one kind of Catholicism, and the rise of another. When he became pope in 2013, progressive Catholics expressed hope for a “Francis effect” that would liberalize Catholic doctrine and practice, and draw back to the Church millions disaffected by what they regarded as...