VATICAN CITY — For the reason that first day of his papacy practically a decade in the past, Pope Francis has needed to navigate an unprecedented complication within the Roman Catholic Church: coexisting together with his retired predecessor in the identical Vatican gardens. Supporters of Francis studiously performed down the two-pontiff anomaly, nevertheless it generated confusion, particularly when conservative acolytes of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI sought to wrap their fervent opposition of their chief’s white robes.

Now, with the burial of Benedict on Thursday, Francis, by no means bashful about exercising his energy, is for the primary time unbound.

“Now, I’m certain he’ll take it over,” mentioned Oswald Gracias, the archbishop of Mumbai, as he walked round St. Peter’s Sq. earlier than Benedict’s funeral Mass.

Some liberal supporters of Francis, who has usually balked within the face of advancing main overhauls, are elevating expectations for a late-breaking season of change.

Many bishops and cardinals within the Vatican are satisfied “he’s pondering forward,” mentioned Gerard O’Connell, the Vatican correspondent for America journal. “What modifications now’s that the opposition is not going to have the rallying determine, manipulating Benedict. Francis has a really clear agenda.”

Mr. O’Connell, the creator of “The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Modified Historical past,” envisioned an instantaneous way forward for swifter personnel selections and the putting of extra lay Catholics in energy. He mentioned there was discuss a brand new doc on morality, sexuality and contraception. He additionally predicted the revisiting of main points.

Francis has already allowed debate on key, and beforehand taboo, matters like being extra inclusive to homosexual folks and giving ladies bigger roles within the church. In 2021, he appeared poised to permit married males in far-flung areas just like the Amazon to develop into clergymen. Whereas an sudden expression of opposition from Benedict, or these writing in his title, maybe contributed to Francis pulling again, he left the door open.

Already absolute, Francis’ management within the church is more and more fortified by a hierarchy in his picture. By the top of the yr, Francis will nearly definitely pack the School of Cardinals with handpicked appointees. His chosen prelates will most definitely then make up two-thirds of the physique, the edge vital for electing the subsequent pope.

That quantity might click on even larger if he stays in energy by way of the top of 2024, when the second of two main conferences of the world’s bishops he has convened will finish. These so-called Synods, deeply disparaged by Benedict’s wing, are the achievement of Francis’ imaginative and prescient to foster a consensus for large modifications within the church.

Whereas that each one stays sooner or later, what appears sure is that Francis appears keen to place an finish to grievances in regards to the previous. On Friday, a day after the burial of his predecessor, Francis appeared to attempt to quell the grumbling by Benedict’s loyalists, who had accused him of giving Benedict quick shrift in his funeral homily and of getting dissatisfied the pope emeritus repeatedly over the previous decade, by quoting Benedict XVI’s personal phrases about avoiding the petty and mundane and placing religion above all else.

In a comment that has been broadly interpreted within the Vatican as a direct response to the complaints of Benedict’s closest collaborator, Archbishop Georg Gänswein — who has a e book popping out — Francis mentioned through the Mass, “Allow us to worship God, not ourselves; allow us to worship God and never the false idols that seduce by the attract of status or energy, or the attract of false information.”

The brand new period additionally ended the unusual enterprise of church officers denying any awkwardness within the two-pope epoch.

Cardinal Gracias mentioned that there was continuity between Benedict, whom he admired, and who had elevated him to Cardinal, and Francis, of whom he mentioned Benedict was a “massive supporter.”

“Pope Francis was not being influenced” by Benedict or his coterie, mentioned Cardinal Juan José Omella of Spain on the day of Benedict’s funeral.

“There weren’t two popes,” agreed Mario Iceta Gavicagogeascoa, the archbishop of Burgos, Spain. Benedict had withdrawn in his monastery, and so “there was just one pope, Francis.”

However after Benedict’s loss of life, the calculus within the Vatican has clearly modified.

“It might be tough to have two emeritus popes,” a French bishop, Jean-Yves Riocreux, mentioned on Thursday, including that the key distinction for Francis after Benedict’s loss of life was “now he can resign.”

Whereas Francis has entertained the prospect of retiring, Vatican analysts say that if his well being holds out and he retains having fun with the job of being pope, it’s unlikely he would rush at hand issues over to a successor who might undo his legacy, simply as he has chipped away at Benedict’s.

Certainly, conservative critics of Francis are already fearing the worst.

“Appears that Francis declared 12 months Zero, goodbye to all that, and so on.,” Rod Dreher, a hard-right traditionalist who left the church however stays energetic in its politics, declared Thursday on Twitter after what he thought-about a paltry homily to Benedict by Francis. “Unhealthy occasions coming for trustworthy orthodox Catholics.”

However some Vatican analysts maintain a countervailing view that Francis is not going to be the one power with a freer hand now. Annoyed conservatives and traditionalists, they are saying, will now not really feel chastened by Benedict, who at occasions supplied cowl to Francis by telling his personal followers to chill it. As a substitute, with Francis having already introduced down the hammer on their beloved Previous Latin Plenty, some predict they may wage an much more open struggle towards Francis.

Francis doesn’t appear too apprehensive. He has largely shrugged off their critiques, and in 2019, he responded to a query a few potential breaking off by arch conservatives within the Catholic church by saying, “I pray there aren’t any schisms, however I’m not scared.”

Greater than conservative opposition, what has held Francis again on main points, Mr. O’Connell mentioned, was the seek for a collegial consensus to convey the entire church ahead on the key modifications. “His goal is to maintain the unity of the church,” Mr. O’Connell mentioned. “And that’s the constraint.”

Francis hopes to safe that consensus, or one thing near it, over two main conferences of bishops within the coming two years. However within the Vatican, two years is loads of time for one thing to go fallacious and sluggish Francis down.

To the chagrin of his critics, Francis has demonstrated a political agility, media savvy and seeming imperviousness to the scandals and crises that so hobbled Benedict throughout his eight-year papacy.

Benedict continuously stumbled with political missteps. He overtly acknowledged he was no administrator and appeared to desire the books of a theologian to the platform of the globe’s strongest pastor. He surrounded himself with intrigue-prone Italians within the Curia, the Roman forms that governs the church, and in the end resigned amid tawdry Vatican scandals, together with the theft of his paperwork by a butler.

In contrast, Francis depends on a number of trusted clerics, usually Jesuits like him, who function outdoors the standard Vatican energy construction. He has proven a capability to bounce again from errors and has managed to maintain the standard Vatican intrigue at bay with a mixture of good hires and draconian governance.

If with Benedict tongues wagged, with Francis heads have rolled.

When an embarrassing scandal erupted in 2020 in regards to the doable misuse of funds to purchase an house constructing in London, Francis publicly humiliated considered one of his high cardinals and stripped him of his privileges, together with voting within the conclave.

And on a extra substantive disaster, when Francis wrongly sided together with his bishops in Chile over intercourse abuse victims, whom he accused of “calumny,” he reversed himself, ordered an investigation and “wound up firing mainly half” of the bishops in Chile, mentioned Joshua J. McElwee, an editor at The Nationwide Catholic Reporter and a co-editor of “A Pope Francis Lexicon,” a group of essays in regards to the pope.

“He’s proven an unbelievable means to vary his thoughts and to adapt to studying that he was fallacious,” he mentioned.

Or as John L. Allen Jr., the editor of Crux, a information website specializing in protection of the Vatican and the Catholic Church, put it, in additional political phrases, Francis and his workforce “can see a prepare wreck coming and attempt to get out forward of it in a manner that Benedict and his workforce was by no means in a position to do.”

That crisis-management savvy, clear agenda and now fragmented conservative opposition has put Francis ready to make the modifications his supporters have so hungered for.

Alberto Fernandez, a priest in Madrid who had traveled to Rome to attend Benedict’s funeral, mentioned that “with time, it grew to become standard” to see two popes within the Vatican. Now that there’s one once more, he expects Francis to remain on the identical path.

“The pope has been Francis for nearly 10 years,” he mentioned. “That was the change.”

Gaia Pianigiani and Emma Bubola contributed reporting from Rome.