‘The Walking Pope’ Mid-Season Finale Recap

Season 3 of The Walking Pope has been a downward slide for EWTN who produced the hit TV show as well as the pontificate it’s based on. As many viewers have said before, many of the problems stem from Francis’s exhausting form of liberal villainy, but he is not the only problem. Last night’s mid-season finale “Sacred and Immaculate Hearts Still Beating” gave viewers brief glimpses of what made the pontificate work before this season and reminded many of the season’s greatest flaws.

A brief appearance from Cardinal Burke is enough to know that sidelining him for all but a handful of episodes was a mistake, and LCWR president Mary Pellegrino’s emotional speech to Francis about ridding the habit altogether made her season of sulking so much more tiresome. But it’s in the secluded walls of the Vatican where everything really goes wrong. Pope Francis is still camping out in Pope Emeritus Benedict’s house, making pasta and terrorizing the conservative elites, while Benedict is out scavenging for him to help protect the Church from any further damage.

When The Walking Pope returns February, it needs a renewed sense of orthodoxy to sustain the momentum it began building this weekend when nothing weird came out of the Vatican for three straight days. “Vatican walkers,” spiritual violence against traditionalists, and lack of guts are not enough to keep the ecclesiastical narrative moving, but it’s a start. The hit pontificate needs to find its purpose again.