In fact, as it turns out, Weigel really isn’t all that alarmed about what some of his fellow conservatives see as confusion and disarray unleashed by the maverick Argentine pope.

“This isn’t 1968, or 1978, or anything close to it,” Weigel told Crux over a lunch at a popular eatery near the Vatican this week. “There was a lot of ballast put into the system by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and I think it’s holding up fairly well.”