The Pontiff Archetype (II): Francis, the Wounded King
The Wounded King in an Age of Stone and Convenient Silence
If the first piece portrayed Francis as a shepherd walking with the people, this is the other side of the mirror.
The reformer trapped in a palace that didn’t want to shift even a cushion. A leader who tried to shake the foundations… while the whole building pushed back to keep everything still.
And here emerges the most powerful image of his legacy
The Wounded King.
That cursed archetype who sees all the rot, who knows exactly where the hand must go, yet carries the weight of centuries, vested interests, and decayed loyalties. The crown was a stone on his head.
From the very beginning, he wanted a Church that went out into the streets, that got its shoes dirty and stopped speaking only to its own.
He wanted open windows.
But inside, the doors were reinforced.
He went after the untouchables.
The murky Vatican finances, the power games among cardinals who believe themselves invincible, the age-old privileges. He tried to speak of compassion instead of punishment. Of listening before judging. But of course, not everyone was buying that story.
To many within, Francis wasn’t a pope—he was a threat. An Argentine who spoke plainly, carried the scent of the street, and didn’t grasp that in those corridors, people play chess—not the Gospel.
A man out of tune with the velvet decor, speaking of mercy while others still tallied sins with a calculator.
The myths are clear: when a hero enters the old city to heal it, he awakens demons that have slept for centuries.
That was Francis’s fate.
And that’s why his story carries the bitter tone of tragedy—not because of what they did to him, but because of all he longed to do and couldn’t.
He wasn’t a martyr.
No one poisoned him in a dungeon. But the wear was real. The tension constant. They let him speak, yes, but often tied his hands. They applauded him in public and sabotaged him in private. And that turned his papacy into a road of wounds more than triumphs.
That’s the mark he leaves: not the reforms he managed to force through, but all that remained stuck. What he revealed—that the monster is still alive, made up but just as stale.
Because the more he tried to humanize the machine, the more obvious it became that the machine didn’t want to be human. They didn’t hate him for what he said, but for what he stood for: a change that rose from below, without permission.
And now that he’s gone, his figure hangs in the air. Not as the pope who conquered, but as the one who fought knowing he would likely lose. And still, he stayed.
That is the Wounded King
The one who doesn’t win epic battles, but leaves scars where once there was only silence.
Don’t save it to read quietly in church. Share it with those who aren’t afraid to speak the uncomfortable truths.
Because real reform doesn’t begin with dogmas.
It begins when someone dares to say the emperor has no clothes.