Gone but not forgotten, a different perspective on the phrase

 With the death of Pope Francis, there are all sorts of reactions from the Catholic community (I am only limiting this article to the Latin rite circles) and as much as I respect the death of a person, I will not accept the romanticization, idealization and sugarcoating that many Catholics among the liberals are spreading in social media. We have a responsibility for the truth, as Mother Angelica put it, "It's your obligation to speak the truth, and everyone can either take it or leave it." so I cannot but speak against these unrealistic and saccharine posts wherein the late pope is usually dramatically portrayed as a holy and heroic figure. That goes against what the late pontiff had taught the world on how to perceive him as, because he always expressed that he must be portrayed as a sinner among sinners. We should remember not only the shortcomings he admitted, but the grave sins he committed. For the entirety of his pontificate, he participated in pagan rituals, befriended freemasons, supported the LGBTQ community the strongest than any of his recent predecessors, seemingly solving the sex abuse crisis but still enabled many immoral and sexually abusive priests, his feminist appointments even to positions held for centuries by males alone and many more. To balance this, we must also not forget the good that he had done, most especially his call for more transparency in the clergy and lay empowerment, his call for peace during global conflicts and his adamant imploration to world leaders about climate change. We should take the good that he had done and accomplished as adding to the merit of Holy Mother Church and all the ills that he had spread as chastisement for the laxity and complacency of many Catholics throughout the decades following the Second World War. His damage to the Church must never be erased from our memories just to put him on a pedestal and idealize him, because they would seem to be validated and would continue to plague our Church if the next pope would not reverse them and if we would not speak against them. Yes, he is dead, but that does not make him immune from criticism. After thousands of years, we still criticize the betrayal of Judas Iscariot and Brutus. After hundreds of years we still remember the adultery of King Henry VIII that led to the separation of the Church of England from the Catholic Church that in turn led to the slaughter of thousands of Catholics. We still remember how Adolf Hitler had massacred thousands of Jews, Catholics and people of Non-Aryan race. Even Saints are remembered for their past sins that led to their conversion. Pope Francis died without ever recanting any of his statements that are heretical or goes against the teachings of the Church. His most recent indifferentist quote, "All religions are paths towards God" led many to believe that there is salvation outside of the Catholic faith, something that many popes had preached as error. 

An AI generated image imagining Pope Francis being welcomed by Our Lord, Our Lady, St. Peter, some angels and some his predecessors. Both he and Pope Benedict XVI aren't canonized as saints yet.

There are also the "autocanonizers" as I read on one Facebook user's comment. They immediately believed and declared in a heartbeat that the pope was accepted into Heaven. This started with the announcement of his passing by the Camerlengo of the Vatican, Cardinal Kevin Farell. In the statement, he said that Pope Francis "returned to the Father's House" which is a presumption, a grave sin in the Catholic Church. For liberals who always say "You shouldn't judge", they are showing a double standard when they bypass the authority of the Just Judge, God, for their own interpretation that he entered Heaven. We must all assume that those who passed in friendship with God in the Catholic faith could've gone to Purgatory, so we must pray for them. Autocanonizing someone is depriving them of the prayers for the souls in Purgatory that would detain them there for longer. As Pope St. John Paul II, who created Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis, as cardinal had said, "Praying for the souls in Purgatory is the highest act of supernatural charity". If liberal Catholics truly love him, they would pray for his salvation which would better ensure it and we must all pray that his mistakes, by the grace of God, would be reversed by the next Supreme Pontiff.