The Italians have a saying, “dimmi con chi vai e ti dirò chi sei,” which translates as “tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.”

At this point in the calamitous pontificate of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the list of his friends—those near to his heart, on whom he has lavished special attention­—tell us quite clearly who he is:

·         a lady abortionist turned radical Left politician in Italy, who boasted of performing thousands of illegal abortions with a bicycle pump;

·         people living in adultery, whom he counsels to receive Holy Communion without an amendment of life, disregarding any priestly advice to the contrary;

·         flagrant homosexuals living in “unions” based on sodomy;

·         the flagrantly homosexual priest he placed in charge of his household;

·         a pro-homosexual activist priest, whose hands he kissed;

·         “transgenders,” including one who mutilated herself to resemble a man, pretended to be “engaged” to “marry” another woman, and then had a personal audience with Francis, accompanied by his imaginary “fiancée.”

·         the defrocked, child-molesting priest he reinstated and whose suspension of faculties under Benedict XVI he lifted, thus overruling the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith;

·         a bishop who covered up for a child-molesting priest;

·         the notoriously modernist German Cardinal whose notion of “mercy” in the form of Holy Communion for public adulterers in “second marriages” Francis has been promoting from the beginning of his pontificate;

·         a Cardinal who participates in balloon Masses and is Francis’ official spokesman regarding Amoris Laetitia’s opening to Holy Communion for the divorced and “remarried”;

·         still another cardinal of notorious heterodoxy, who covered up for a child-molesting priest, had to resign in disgrace, later plotted for Francis’ election, and then was rewarded by being named to the rigged Synod on the Family;

·         a member of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta who oversaw the distribution of contraceptives, was duly dismissed from his position by the Order’s governing Council when he refused to resign, but then—in a flagrant violation of all applicable laws and norms—was forcibly reinstated by Francis after he had also forced the head the Order to resign;

·         the radically Leftwing, atheist journalist to whom he has made innumerable scandalous remarks reported in the press;

·         Loony Anglican and Lutheran clerics of all sorts, including lady “bishops”;

·         a liberal rabbi and a Muslim leader;

·         various Protestant ministers, with one of whom he “high-fived”;

·         a Marxist priest who thinks Fidel Castro was gift of the Holy ghost and whose suspension by John Paul was lifted by Francis;

·         Liberation theologians, including Leonardo Boff, who abandoned the priesthood and attempted marriage;

·         moral theologians who dissent from Humanae Vitae; including Bernard Häring, perhaps the most infamous of the dissenters;

·         communist dictators, including Fidel Castro and Raul Castro;

·         Marxist dictators, including the one who gave him a hammer-and-sickle “crucifix” he personally took back with him to Rome;

·         radical environmentalist ideologues;

·         atheist population controllers, who promote contraception, abortion and sterilization;

·         Barack Obama;

·         Liberal politicians, rock stars and loony Left Hollywood actors who despise the Church but love Francis;

·         the promoters of the Super Bowl and the Lady Gaga half-time show;

·         every Catholic who is divorced and “remarried,” is involved in homosexual activity, uses contraception, or is otherwise not a “rigorist” who thinks that the negative precepts of the divine and natural law are without exception;

·         Liberal Protestants and Muslim apologists in general.

This list, while seemingly exhaustive, is by no means complete, but it will have to suffice. On the other hand, it is far easier to list those who are not friends of Francis:

·         Orthodox Catholics, including the cardinals and bishops he has sacked, the traditional orders he has destroyed, and the many young people who are devoted to the Church’s liturgical tradition.

·         Conservative or populist politicians—above all, Donald Trump, against whom he has just launched a barely veiled attack in his latest papal video (read: manifesto).

So, what do we know about Francis based on the friends of Francis? We know what Antonio Socci has stated with unsparing candor: that with the end of the Obama regime, the fall of Hillary Clinton and rise of Western populism, Francis is “the only point of reference for the international Left, deprived of a leader,” whereas for the Catholic faithful he is “ever more perceived as a politician and a foreign body” in the Church.

I think the phrase “foreign body” says it all.