Francis was indeed talking about “the social process of lynching someone,” according to Juan Pablo Cannata, a sociology researcher at Universidad Austral in Argentina, who is writing his dissertation on cancel culture. But the pope has his own definition of cancel culture, one in which local voices, especially those in poorer nations, are quashed by powerful institutions.

In international relations today, Francis told the diplomats at the Vatican on Jan. 10, the elite global community’s agenda ”leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the ‘cancel culture’ invading many circles and public institutions.”

What the pope’s vision shares with social media-driven boycotts against casual racism or misogyny, Cannata said, is that both are born from people “trying to build a more inclusive society, to promote values of tolerance, acceptance, for different identities and groups.” But in doing so the elites cancel, rather than converse with, cultures that don’t conform to their values.

The pope calls this “ideological colonization,” because in forcing its worldview on the poorer nations, the elites erase local cultures and traditions.

“Pope Francis is concerned about the repeated imposition of power, especially by Northern American and European countries, in other parts of the globe,” said Cristina Traina, professor of Christian theology and ethics at Fordham University.

This “ideological imposition” often goes along “with economic and political leverage,” she added.

Francis’ thinking, experts say, can be traced back to his days in Argentina, where, as Jorge Bergoglio, he led the Archdiocese of Bueno Aires.

“We mustn’t forget that he’s a Latin American who has always experienced ideological colonization, from North America especially, as a problem,” said Massimo Borghesi, who teaches philosophy at the University of Perugia and is the author of “The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Intellectual Journey.” 

Borghesi explained that at the height of globalization efforts in the ’90s, economically developed nations adopted “a ruthless economic model” that connected financial assistance to beleaguered Latin America nations with the promotion of contraception and abortion. More recently, aid comes with ideas about gender, Borghesi said.

“Abortion is synonymous with the IMF,” said the Rev. José María “Pepe” Di Paola in 2018, referring to the International Monetary Fund. Di Paola, a Catholic priest known for ministering to the inhabitants of Argentina’s slums and a close acquaintance of Francis, was speaking as debate raged in Argentina over decriminalizing abortion. Argentina legalized abortion in 2020.

Francis advanced similar claims himself while answering questions aboard the papal plane when returning from a 2015 visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. He recalled an episode from 1995, when the Argentine minister for education was offered a loan to build schools for the poor only if she would accept a textbook that promoted gender theory.

“This is ideological colonization,” Francis told reporters. “They introduce an idea to the people that has nothing to do with the people. With groups of people yes, but not with the people. And they colonize the people with an idea which changes, or means to change, a mentality or a structure.”

Inspiring the pope’s vision is one of his favorite books, “Lord of the World,” a 2016 work by the Rev. Robert Hugh Benson, a British Catholic priest who had converted from the Church of England. In the novel’s dystopian future of the 2000s, global powers impose what Francis has called an “imperial form of colonization” that leads to the end times.

As archbishop, Bergoglio often opposed the Argentine government led by President Nestor Kirchner and Kirchner’s successor (and wife), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, for what he saw as their efforts to promote abortion and gay marriage, but also policies that in Francis’ view were detrimental to the poor.

Francis shared his opposition with a group of Argentine intellectuals who sought to protect South America’s local cultures and traditions against globalization. Though this focus put them on the side of the poor against the elites, the thinkers tried to offer an alternative to the Marxist-inspired liberation theology that was gaining ground across the continent.

Among Francis’ models was Uruguayan author Alberto Methol Ferré, whom Bergoglio praised for his ability to navigate the tension between the abstract ideals of international organizations such as the European Union, the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund and the day-to-day concerns of local communities.

“His acute and creative thought was able to gaze with prospective at the roots as well as the utopias, which converted him to a man faithful to the reality of peoples,” Bergoglio said in 2010, at an event commemorating Methol Ferré’s death a few months before.

Photo courtesy (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)