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fc5holidayexchange · 4 years

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FAR CRY 5 HOLIDAY EXCHANGE 2019 FIC

Tonight

Deputy Anna Bishop/John Seed. After liberating Seed Ranch, Anna can’t sleep. She goes to her favourite spot in Hope County and John joins her

@teamhawkeye

My gift to the wonderful, amazing and ridiculously talented Katie! I hope you love it (and that I did Anna justice!) Happy Holidays!

Deputy Anna Bishop x John Seed, Fluff, Smut, Outdoor Sex, Mutual Pining, Soft John There was a lot to be said about expensive mattresses and silk sheets. If nothing else, Anna could appreciate John’s taste for the finer things in life. After weeks of running and fighting, sleeping where (and when) she could, John’s bed should have been heaven, and it was, but on nights like this one, even the promise of a soft, warm bed wasn’t enough to keep her mind quiet.

Of course she knew that if she laid there long enough exhaustion would win out and she’d fall asleep eventually, but that wasn’t what she wanted. Not tonight. With a soft sigh, Anna slipped from the between the sheets, donning her red plaid shirt and jeans, her hands nimbly weaving her hair into a braid.

At the foot of her bed Boomer lifted his head, chocolate brown eyes sleepily regarding her as she moved across the room. Anna smiled, reaching down and giving him a good scratch between the ears, “Not tonight, boy. You stay here and get some rest, okay?”

He licked her fingers and made a low sound, somewhere between a whine and a bark, but settled himself down, apparently appeased with the affection she’d bestowed. Grabbing her rifle (just in case), Anna swept from the room.

She nodded and smiled in greeting at the odd Resistance members she passed. Most wouldn’t come within the house itself, content to stick to the perimeter - hell, only Anna herself had dared to make herself at home and she could still remember the stunned looks on their faces when she told them that she not only intended on making the Ranch a temporary home, but that she’d be sleeping in John’s bed too.

She might have failed to mention that it wasn’t the first time she’d spent the night there, but no one begrudged her the room. After all, she’d taken the Ranch, if she wanted to sleep in the Baptist’s fancy ass bed, who were they to stand in her way?

She smiled at the sight of her motorbike, which thanks to the efforts of some nameless good Samaritan, was gleaming for the first time in months. It wouldn’t last long, especially where she planned on taking it, but Anna appreciated it all the same. She’d never been the type to name her rides, but god damn she loved that bike, couldn’t resist trailing her fingers over the shining, smooth body as she gracefully swung her leg over the leather seat and settled herself down.

Without a backwards glance she kick started the bike, relaxing slightly as the engine purred beneath her. She sighed, the tension leaving her body as the machine idled beneath her, the engine slowly warming up. John talked for hours about flying in Affirmation, the feeling of freedom and peace he found in the skies above Hope County. That, she understood. Roads disappearing beneath the bike, the wind whipping past, all of Montana stretched out before her, she could never put that feeling into words but she loved it.

Easing off the clutch, her fingers inching forward on the throttle she took off, kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake. Don’t wait up, she thought with a smirk as she sped away from the ranch. The roads were quiet at that time of the night, especially after she’d gone to the trouble of liberating John’s ranch. Even so, she stuck to the back roads, taking the scenic journey to try and avoid, well, people in general.

She knew the way by heart, barely had to pay attention as she drove the familiar route. She found it on her first week in the County, and she’d honestly lost count of how many nights had been spent there, lying on her back and staring up at the sky. She’d taken Sharky with her a few times, which usually ended with him snoring loudly in her ear, but she didn’t mind even that - Sharky got to sleep without worrying about Peggies, and she had a few hours alone to think. Even with his bear like snores, it was peaceful, and that kind of peace was difficult to find these days.

She jumped off her bike when she reached the secluded clearing, nudging the kickstand into place with her foot. Satisfied, she made her way across the field, plopping herself down and easing herself onto her back, her arms stretched out, fingers interlocked behind her head. Distantly she heard the sounds of music - some Peggie tune she found herself humming to quietly. Crickets chirped, an owl hooted in the distance and Anna felt the tension leave her shoulders as she relaxed into the soft grass.

Though the sun had long since disappeared beneath the horizon, the late August warmth still hung in the air. Anna didn’t mind the breeze as it kissed the bare skin of her face and neck, bringing with it the scent of mountain flowers and summer, content just to lie there and watch the night pass her by. The moon was full, bathing her in a soft glow, and the skies were clear and beautiful.

She’d come for peace, to be alone with her thoughts, but as the minutes passed, something restless grew inside of her, a sense of something missing. Without even really thinking about it, Anna reached for her radio, fingers twirling the dial to the right channel. Staring up at the sky, she brought it to her lips, flicked it on, and spoke. “John… are you awake?”

She ignored the fluttering in her stomach as she waited, each second lasting a lifetime as one minute passed, then two, then finally a crackle sounded on the other end of the line and her heart leapt into her throat.

“Deputy?” that familiar voice purred, and Anna could practically hear that smug little smirk she just knew he was wearing. “It’s a little late for a bedtime call don’t you think, my dear?”

She was glad he wasn’t there to see the small smile that crept across her lips.

“I can’t sleep,” she replied with a shrug, even though she knew he couldn’t see it.

He snorted in a most undignified manner, “Guilt perhaps? I imagine that it’s difficult to sleep in a bed that you stole.”

Anna laughed. “I prefer to think of it as liberated, but no, it’s not that. And I’m not home,” her heart skipped a beat, her eyes widening a fraction and she quickly jumped to backpedal, “at the ranch, I mean.”

“What was the point of…” he broke off with a frustrated sigh, and if Anna closed her eyes she could almost picture the way that he’d shake his head, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. “If you’re not at the ranch, then where are you? Holed up with one of those irredeemable degenerates you seem so fond of? Bunking with the Ryes?”

It would be so easy to argue, to slip back into old habits and bicker, but she hadn’t called him for that. So she took a deep breath, letting her eyes wander across the night sky. “No, at the clearing, just off Robinsons Road. You know, where-”

“I remember,” he said, cutting her off. His voice was softer, like she’d taken the wind right out of his sails and for a moment there was nothing but silence between them. She could hear his breathing on the other end of the line, the only sign that he was still there.

The words burned at the tip of her tongue, all she had to do was ask the question they both knew he was waiting for, the reason she’d picked up that damned radio in the first place. But even as she opened her mouth to speak, the words slipped into the breeze unspoken. It wasn’t the fear that he’d say no that paralysed her, it was something else, something she wasn’t yet ready to admit, a vulnerability she refused to accept.

He’d come if she asked, but he might not be so willing to leave and Anna… It felt like standing on the edge of a plank, one foot dangling off the side.

And she wished that she could say that it was because they were on opposite sides, that Joseph and his Project, the Project John was utterly committed to, were tearing apart their home and she couldn’t, wouldn’t turn her back on the Resistance just because she felt… something for him.

But it wasn’t the Project or his family.

And it wasn’t her loyalties.

It was her.

“Anna, darling.” Her face scrunched up at the pet name. “Would you like some company?”

The corners of her lips twitched upwards, the tightness in her gut easing at the sound of his voice. If John was right there beside her, she just might have kissed him. “I did call you, didn’t I?” she teased.

She heard John chuckle softly, “That you did, my dear. I’ll be there soon.”

Flicking the radio off, she brought it to her chest and held it there as she exhaled, waiting.

She lost track of time as she stared at the stars, mapping familiar constellations, meditating on nothing in particular. It could have been minutes or an hour that passed before, finally, she heard a truck pull up. She didn’t glance toward the approaching footsteps, only smiled when John appeared in her field of vision, gazing down at her with amused affection.

“Comfortable?” he asked.

She smirked, pushing herself up onto her elbows as he settled beside her. “Can’t complain.”

He ran his eyes over her just once, scoffing. “So I suppose you planned on sleeping on the grass like this, then?” And just as Anna opened her mouth to retort (it was hardly the first time she’d slept out in the open, no thanks to him and his brothers) he winked, reached behind him and revealed the basket he’d brought with him. “You’re lucky that one of us came prepared.”

“S’that so?” she asked, cocking a single eyebrow as John began unpacking, unfurling a picnic blanket (god only knew where he’d found that - he didn’t exactly seem the picnicking type), tossing some pillows on top, followed by another blanket - this one thick and soft, enough to keep them both warm through the night - before reaching in one last time. A wicked grin lit up his face as he revealed two bottles of beer, ice cold and oh so welcome.

“Oh, John,” Anna tutted in faux disapproval, taking the bottle that John offered her, “what would Joseph say?”

He shot her a look, mischief sparkling in those baby blues, “What my older brother doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

She laughed at that, cracking open her bottle and clinking it against his as they shifted to sit on the blanket John had laid out.

“You know, Bishop, if you wanted me to spend the night so badly, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” he said, sliding closer so he could slip his arm around her waist.

Anna just scoffed, letting her head fall onto his shoulder and leaning into his warmth as she took a sip of her beer. “Yeah?”

John nodded, “All you have to do is say the word and my men will gladly clear your goons from my home. Once I have my ranch and my bedroom back, you’re more than welcome to spend as many nights there as you want.”

Oh she didn’t doubt for a second that he was deadly serious, but there was an uncharacteristic softness in his tone, mixed in with the not-quite-amused exasperation. It made her heart clench uncomfortably, and she wasn’t quite sure whether the butterflies that fluttered in her stomach were a good omen or not.

“But your bed is so comfy,” she murmured.

She felt his lips press against the crown of her head before he spoke again. “I know, that’s why I’m eager to return to it, darling.”

Anna just hummed noncommittally, and eventually their conversation moved on to other topics - nothing important, but she was glad for it all the same. Tucked into his side, nursing a beer and laughing at his stupid jokes, it was easy to forget about the world around them, the Peggies, the Project, his family and hers; it was just the two of them alone in the beautiful Montana night.

John smiled more, laughed easily, and so did she. He told her stories of his courtroom escapades, listened intently when she talked about her trip she’d one day take; just her and her bike and all of America laid out bare before her. She’d ride coast to coast, go anywhere she wanted… Maybe it was a stupid dream, but it was nice to pretend for a little while at least that there might be a future for her where that was possible.

And when the conversation petered out, they sat in comfortable silence, gazing up at the stars. It was nice, having the company, having him there with her. At some point, long after their drinks were empty and tossed aside, Anna and John found themselves lying down on the blankets, propped up on the very unnecessary (but appreciated) pillows John had brought.

“Do you remember the first time you brought me here?” John asked. Under the moonlight, he looked beautiful, angelic almost, but it was the way he looked at her - an emotion somewhere between need and want, that made her pulse quicken and blood rush to her face.

Truthfully, she only remembered parts. It was the first time she’d crossed that line. She’d kissed him, mostly to shut him up, but those kisses had turned into something else entirely. Dazed memories of John’s mouth moving across her skin, biting, kissing, devouring, his fingers clutching at her as he rocked into her, breathless moans and whispered praise leaving his lips as he brought her careening over the edge with him.

She’d left him there, slipping away in the pale light of dawn just before he woke up. That was supposed to be the end of it, not quite a mistake, but definitely not something to be spoken about, much less repeated again.

She almost snorted, things hadn’t exactly gone to plan, considering their current predicament.

John was still watching her, blue eyes flickering intensely across her face. “I remember,” she breathed, her voice barely carrying.

“Don’t run away this time,” he replied, and then he was kissing her.

Anna had kissed John so many times, and it still sent sparks shooting down her spine. He kissed like wildfire, burning and brazen, consuming and untameable, but Anna loved that. She loved when his lips broke free so she could breathe, only for them to latch onto her neck, kissing and marking a trail along the delicate skin, grinning in delight when she gasped and shuddered under his touch.

His tattooed fingers deftly unbuttoned her shirt, yanking it open and making short work of her bra, tearing the fabric clean in two and tossing it across the field when it wouldn’t yield to him.

“John, you asshole! What the fuck? Those don’t come cheap,” she snapped, but John just smirked as he straddled her.

“Don’t worry, dearest. I’ll make it up to you,” he said, lowering his mouth to her breast.

She bit back a moan, her protests dying in her throat as his teeth nipped at the rosy bud, soothing the sting with his tongue a split second later. His fingers trailed across her stomach, coming up to tease her other nipple as he bit down into the soft flesh again.

“John,” the soft cry slipped from her lips before she could stop it, and when he looked up at her, his mouth still busy sucking a hickey into her breast, the fucker had the nerve to smirk.

She shivered when he finally released her, the wetness from his saliva reacting with the cool night air. He sat back on his thighs, his fingers trailing along her sides, pausing for a moment at the jagged scar that ran across her left ribs, his thumb caressing the mark before moving on. “Beautiful,” he murmured, gazing at her in soft reverence that seemed to steal the breath right out of her. “You’re so beautiful, Anna.”

Whatever words she’d planned to say next disappeared into nothing as John shuffled down her, his fingers finding the button of her jeans, popping it open and easing down the zipper. She watched with bated breath as he peeled the denim from her legs, shifting himself off of her so he could pull them off entirely, pressing stray kisses to her calves as he slipped the material off her ankles.

“Tell me that you want this,” he said.

Lying there, bare beneath him save for her panties, Anna had never felt more exposed. John had seen her naked before, more than once, but it felt different this time. Maybe because things were different, maybe because they both knew that soon she’d have to make a choice.

Maybe because for the first time, neither of them were hiding.

Her heart thudded unsteadily in her chest, but she nodded, “I want this.”

His thumbs hooked over the top edge of her panties, and Anna obligingly lifted her hips. John smiled at her encouragingly, heat simmering in the blue depths of his eyes, “Tell me that you want me,” he continued, easing the fabric down her long legs with torturous slowness.

She swallowed. “I want you.”

He nodded, rewarding her with another smile and a chaste kiss above her navel as her underwear joined her jeans on the grass beside them. She held her breath as he moved again, she expected him to sit up, to start shedding his own clothes, let her touch him, but instead his hands wrapped around her thighs, easing them apart as he settled himself between them.

He kissed a slow trail up her to her legs, his warm breath sending goosebumps along her thighs as he moved teasingly closer to her heat. Anna had to fight the urge to tangle her hands in his hair and guide him, her hands instead clutching at the blankets beneath them. But just as John reached the juncture where her thighs met, he stopped. “Tell me you love me,” he said.

Her heart skipped a beat and her mouth dried out, but there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He wasn’t asking to boost his ego, no, there was nothing remotely flippant in his expression as he regarded her. He wouldn’t let her lie, not about this. She fought down the urge to push him away, to snatch up her clothes and run for the hills, swear off John and the Project and this whole stupid, fucked up situation for good. Words, biting and cruel, teased at her tongue - another reliable fallback. But as John watched her calmly, his thumb brushing soothingly back and forth against her thigh, she choked.

He sighed, and she half expected him to shove her off, to go off on a rant, throw a tantrum, but he just shook his head. The lust was still there, written across his face clear as day, but it was tempered with a patience she’d thought him incapable of. “You can’t keep hiding from yourself, Anna. Why did you call me tonight? Why do you think that I came? It’s not for the sex; I love you, Anna Bishop. I shouldn’t, I know that, but I do. You’re wrathful and destructive and so full of sin and you frustrate me to no end, and I still love you!”

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but gape wordlessly as his eyes fluttered shut and he took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m not asking for you to turn your back on the Resistance and join the Project. I’m not asking for you to atone, just to confess; tell me you love me, or tell me that you don’t.”

His words hung heavy in the air, and distantly she remembered the words he’d uttered before he’d kissed her, don’t run away this time.

God, she was so tired of running.

“I- I love you,” she whispered, her voice barely audible but it was enough. A wide, heartbreakingly beautiful smile lit his face, but Anna didn’t have any time to focus on that, or her confession, for John took that opportunity to resume his attention on her aching pussy, his fingers teasing at her entrance as his tongue found her clit, swirling around the nub.

She cried out in pleasure as John got to work, skilfully drawing out the first of many, many orgasms. She lost count somewhere around number four - it seemed her confession awoke something in him that refused to be sated, no matter how many times she came. He moved on top of her, his muscles rippling in the moonlight as he pushed himself deeper inside of her, hitting that perfect spot that made her see stars. And every breathless cry and moan was swallowed into a kiss as he took her, his hands caressing her with a gentle reverence and affection that seemed at odds with the fervour with which he fucked her.

Eventually, even John’s stamina waned and they collapsed onto the ground, utterly spent and exhausted. Neither said a word as he shifted her against his side, letting her curl up into him as he pulled the blanket over both of them.

She knew that when the sun rose and morning came, things would return to the way that they were. Nothing had changed, no matter the words they’d spoken. Anna didn’t have the answers, she didn’t know what the future would bring for her, for John, for any of them.

But as she laid in his arms, her head against his bare chest, his fingers running through her hair and the steady sound of his heartbeat lulling her to sleep, she didn’t care.

They had tonight.

#fc5holidayexchange #john seed #john seed/deputy #deputy oc #nsftumblr #fluff #mutual pining #teamhawkeye #gift:fic #submission

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teamhawkeye · 1 year

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Happy Birthday, Anna Bishop! (Nov. 27)

just a little something for my favorite OC, who still reigns supreme in my heart! happy birthday, my messy girl! ❤️

#Deputy Anna Bishop #teamhawkeye draws #teamhawkeye's art #for not having drawn or colored anything in well over 10 months i'm not unhappy with being able to scrape this together in 12 hours #but i have never missed her birthday with a piece since 2018 and i didn't want to break tradition now

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farcry5ocs · 4 years

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Full name: Anna Louise Bishop Age: 24 Gender: Female Sexuality: Bisexual Relationship: John Seed Occupation: Junior Deputy Game: Far Cry 5 A short description about your OC:

Fresh out of the academy stationed in Helena, Anna joined the Hope County Sheriff’s Department as a way to put a painful past behind her and turn over a new leaf. Brave and loyal to a fault, adventurous, athletic, and outgoing, she’s warmly welcomed by the remaining department members and those left in the county not a part of the infamous religious group, The Project at Eden’s Gate.

A newcomer to Hope County, Anna is unprepared for the conflict that is sparked on the fateful night of the failed arrest of Joseph Seed. Thrust into a leadership role she is initially reluctant to fill, she still takes up the call and proves her merit and skill before the Resistance and Project alike, finding herself torn between both groups at times.

A mention to you/your blog or a link to your OC’s tag: Anna can be found at my blog (teamhawkeye), via her character tag and her ship tag

#OCs #20s #Female #Bi #OC x John #Deputy OC #FC5 #submission

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wilderebellion · 6 years

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TAZ DUST CHARACTERS: Setup thru Episode 4

Errol Ryehouse

Gandy Dancer

Augustus Parsons

Anna Cardium Parsons

Ann(e?) Mathis

Abigail Mathis

Dariah Cross

Dylan Mathis

Julian Mathis

Jeremiah Blackwell

Joseph Blackwell

Father Dante

Deputy Rosa

Sheriff Connors

Flint Chittles

Garrett Althiser

Emil Moche

Uncle Oni

Isabella Slate

Marie Jacobs

M (Em?) Pope the Ghost Gambler

Nick Winstead

Mr. Silver

Jonathan (Mathis!)

Michael

Liam

Marcus

Wilder

The Banshee

Ellis

Blackwood

Clementius (Carrion Street neighbor)

Derek/Derrick (Carrion St. neighbor)

Tommy (K)Nox

Bishop (from Bigg Cityy)

Limdafel

Omdafel

(Daughter) Blackwell

#taz dust #the adventure zone

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solesurvivorkat · 4 years

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Fandom: Far Cry 5 Rating: General Audiences Relationships: Female Deputy | Judge/John Seed, Deputy | Judge/John Seed Characters: Female Deputy | Judge (Far Cry), John Seed, Original Characters, Original Child Character(s) Summary: Anna Bishop and John Seed spend their first Christmas Eve together, both secretly planning a surprise gift for the other.

(A very late 'Secret Santa' gift for SolidHawk)

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It may be late, but here it is! My 'Secret Santa' gift for @teamhawkeye! I don't pretend to write HALF as well as she does, but hopefully people will enjoy. It was an honor to 'borrow' her awesome FC5 OC, Anna Bishop (and the Thorne children for a little bit), and fun as always to write for John Seed.

Sorry again that this was late hon, but Merry (late) Christmas! <3

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gossipgirl2019-blog · 5 years

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Pope vs. Pope: How Francis and Benedict's Simmering Conflict Could Split the Catholic Church

New Post has been published on http://gr8gossip.xyz/pope-vs-pope-how-francis-and-benedicts-simmering-conflict-could-split-the-catholic-church/

Pope vs. Pope: How Francis and Benedict's Simmering Conflict Could Split the Catholic Church

Over a plate of double-egged fettuccine and two bottles of Antinori Chianti at our usual trattoria in Rome’s old city, the Vatican monsignor is gossiping about the late Pope John Paul II: how he wore Penhaligon’s aftershave from Harrods of London; how, as a bishop in Poland, the future Pope camped out with his philosopher friend Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Now he’s showing me how John Paul mockingly gave a discreet Nazi salute toward the backs of a departing group of German bishops.

“When I raised my eyebrows disapprovingly at his antic,” says the monsignor, “he punched me hard on the arm. It hurt!”

He’s my Deep Throat, my Sotto Voce, purveyor of unattributable whispers in Vatican cloisters. A middle-echelon member of the Vatican bureaucracy, known as the Curia, he gestures smoothly with his wrists, showing off pure-white cuffs and gold links. “This place,” he says with a smile of self-conscious irony, “floats on a sea of bitchery!”

Before long he’s bitching about Pope Francis: “He’s soft on the homosexuals, the lesbians, and the transsexuals. And how dare he criticize the Curia? . . . Accusing us of spiritual Alzheimer’s . . . just because his papacy is unraveling.” Sotto Voce is angry about the tongue-lashing Pope Francis gave the curial cardinals four years ago for the “serious disease” of gossip. The Pope had said, “Brothers, let us be on our guard against the terrorism of gossip.”

It stands to reason that Pope Francis would excoriate the gossip-mongers, for he is often the object of their sharp tongues. Today, the Catholic Church is riven by an internecine power contest between conservatives and liberals that rivals the battle of the angels in Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. Who are the powers of light? Who are the powers of darkness? It depends whose side you take in the onslaughts of texts, tweets, and blogs, as well as the trumpetings of the Catholic media. In the conservative National Catholic Register, the prominent Catholic writer Vittorio Messori accused Francis of creating a Church in which “everything is unstable and changeable.” In the liberal National Catholic Reporter, Catholic-studies scholar Nancy Enright observed that Pope Francis resembles “Jesus in conveying the gaze of mercy to millions in great need of it.”

What makes this prospect of a division within the Church more severe, and far riskier, than the usual bickering is the presence of two Popes, both resident in the Vatican, each with his own loyal and vociferous following. The liberals have Francis, but the conservatives have his predecessor, Benedict XVI. If Francis is the living, reigning Pope, Benedict is his shadow, the undead Pope emeritus.

In 2013, Benedict unexpectedly resigned his papacy. He was the first Pope to do so in nearly 600 years. Afterward, he did not, as many expected, depart for an obscure Bavarian monastery. He stayed put, still accepting the title “His Holiness,” still wearing the pectoral cross of the Bishop of Rome, still publishing, still massaging his record, still meeting cardinals, still making statements, still involved. His very existence provides encouragement to conservative critics who want to undermine Francis’s reign.

Take Matteo Salvini, the populist deputy prime minister of Italy and head of the right-wing Lega Party. Salvini has called for immigration control and the barring of illegal immigrants, and deplores Francis’s exhortations to welcome all refugees. Salvini, who is friendly with Steve Bannon and the anti-Francis cardinal Raymond Burke, has been photographed holding a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase IL MIO PAPA È BENEDETTO (“My Pope is Benedict”) and an image of a desperate-looking Francis.

Pope Francis and ambassadors to the Holy See at the Sistine Chapel, January 2017.

Photograph from Vatican Pool/Getty Images.

The hostilities reached new heights last August, when Francis was visiting Ireland. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the formal papal nuncio to Washington, D.C., and a prominent conservative, issued a letter accusing Francis of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse and calling on him to resign as Pope. Viganò’s most serious charge is that Francis reversed sanctions that Benedict had placed on the American cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has been accused of sexually abusing adult seminarians as well as an altar boy. (McCarrick denies this.) It took the Vatican six weeks to respond to the letter, though Viganò was sure Francis was talking about him when he asked Catholics to pray to Mary and St. Michael the Archangel to “protect the church from the devil, who is always looking to divide us from God and from one another.” By the time the Vatican issued a statement condemning Viganò’s allegations as “false,” “blasphemous,” “abhorrent,” and politically motivated, Francis’s popularity in the U.S. had dropped to 51 percent, 19 points below where it had been in January 2017.

It’s hard to blame Francis’s defenders for taking a skeptical view of conservative outrage over the papacy’s handling of sexual abuse. Francis has gone much further than John Paul II and Benedict ever did to acknowledge that the Catholic Church bears shameful responsibility for the sexual-abuse scandals that have erupted around the world in recent decades. Still, Francis’s instinct for empathy—and, perhaps, his hatred of gossip—has led him to make a series of unforced errors. In August, a Pennyslvania grand jury reported evidence of a widespread cover-up of sexual abuse by Church leaders, including Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. Francis responded by accepting Wuerl’s resignation, yes, but also praising Wuerl for his “nobility” and asking him to continue running his archdiocese until a replacement could be found. Earlier this year, Francis had rushed to the defense of Chilean bishops accused of covering up sexual abuse, only to reverse himself after a 2,300-page report he had commissioned painted an unmistakable picture of misconduct.

Disentangling this legacy of shame would be challenging enough for a Pope who wasn’t looking over his shoulder at a predecessor.

To what can this two-Pope circumstance be compared? We are in the realms of archetypes and myth. Think King Lear, who gave all yet stayed to control, disastrously, or Hamlet’s Ghost. The mere presence of a former Pope has been enough to test the mettle and independence of Francis from day one.

Would the jolly John XXIII have initiated the reforming Second Vatican Council had Pius XII, his autocratic predecessor, been watching lugubriously from a neighboring window? And would John Paul II have shaken the rotting tree of the Soviet Union had the anguished, hesitant Paul VI, who had contemplated a Vatican accord with Moscow, been lurking at his elbow? Whatever the direction of the papacy, left or right, for better or for worse, it’s the unique, exclusive primacy of one Pope at a time that lends supreme authority and power to his office. Loyalty through thick and thin to the single living Supreme Pontiff is the open secret of Catholic unity.

Instead, the rift between Francis’s loyalists and Benedict’s insurgents threatens to provoke the biggest split in the Catholic Church since the 16th-century Reformation, when Martin Luther and other pious reformers led the Protestant revolt against the Vatican. As Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of Church history at Oxford, tells me: “Two Popes is a recipe for schism.”

A key figure in the twin-Pope rivalry is a handsome archbishop, Georg Gänswein, known for his skiing, his tennis, and his sartorial bella figura. He is popularly known as “Gorgeous Georg.” He is Benedict’s secretary and caregiver, and lives with the Pope emeritus in a renovated, multi-room former convent behind a thick hedge and high fences in the gardens of Vatican City.

On the morning of September 11, 2018, Gänswein gave a talk in the library of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies before a gathering of policy wonks. He promoted Benedict’s vision for the Catholic Church. The occasion was the launch of the Italian-language edition of The Benedict Option, by Rod Dreher, a senior editor at The American Conservative magazine and a self-described “crunchy conservative.” In the book, Dreher praises the sixth-century monk St. Benedict for preserving Christian culture in remote monasteries throughout the Dark Ages. The clerical sexual-abuse crisis, Gänswein explained to the group, is the Church’s new Dark Age—the Catholic world’s 9/11.

Gänswein’s talk was interpreted, not least by Dreher himself, to mean that the savior of the current Dark Age is none other than Pope Emeritus Benedict.

Ever since his years as Catholicism’s chief doctrinal watchdog, starting in 1981, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had advocated the formation of a smaller Church, cleansed of imperfections. The papal vision of Francis runs diametrically opposite. He espouses a big-tent church, merciful to sinners, hospitable to strangers, respectfully tolerant of other faiths. He seeks to encourage doubters, console the abused, and reconcile those excluded by their orientation. He has likened the Church to a “field hospital” for the sick and wounded in spirit.

Against the background of a Church at war with itself over clerical abuse, Gänswein has emerged as the promoter of Benedict’s alternative papal agenda. On May 20, 2016, he declared that Francis and Benedict together represent a single “expanded” papal office with one “active” member and one “contemplative” one. Francis rejected that notion out of hand, saying: “There is only one Pope.”

Since then, the Francis-Benedict relationship seems to have deteriorated. In July of 2017, Gänswein read a letter from Benedict at the funeral of conservative cardinal Joachim Meisner, the archbishop emeritus of Cologne. It contained a line that could be read as profoundly destabilizing to Francis’s pontificate. Benedict, via Gänswein, said that Meisner was convinced that the “Lord does not abandon His Church, even if the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing.” The boat of the Church is a powerful, ancient metaphor. The living Pope is the captain of the bark of St. Peter. Benedict appeared to be saying, in other words, that the Church under the command of Pope Francis is sinking.

Pope-watchers noted that Meisner was one of four prominent cardinals who had raised theological doubts about Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), a major pastoral letter written by Francis to the world and published in April 2016. The Pope had sought to encourage sympathy for divorced and re-married Catholics—who, according to Church teaching, are banned from receiving Communion. The four cardinals opposed any change in teaching. Given that some 28 percent of married American Catholics get divorced, and that many seek to re-marry, this means that a sizable proportion are “living in sin.” Francis has pleaded for a change that would bring these Catholics back into the fold. Benedict’s Cardinal Meisner letter could be taken as a sign that the Pope emeritus, too, disapproves of Francis’s liberalism.

The divorce-and-re-marrying issue is one of the most significant points of contention between Francis’s liberals and Benedict’s conservatives. After all, as conservatives point out, Jesus forbade divorce—it’s in the Gospels. A Catholic might seek a civil divorce, but the sin is in re-marrying and having sexual relations. The Church considers that adultery. The Catholic historian Richard Rex, professor of Reformation history at Cambridge, writing in the conservative journal First Things, condemned Francis’s plea for leniency with devastating succinctness: “Such a conclusion would definitively explode any pretension to moral authority on the part of the Church. A church which could be so wrong, for so long, on a matter so fundamental to human welfare and happiness could hardly lay claim to decency, let alone infallibility.”

Another crucial clash is over the causes of clerical sexual abuse. The conservatives declare that homosexuality is to blame. At the outset of his papacy, in 2005, Benedict ordered that gays should be banned from seminaries and the priesthood. Francis has a more tolerant view. When asked about homosexuality during an in-flight press conference in 2013, he famously said, “Who am I to judge?”

That many seminaries have accepted gay men is beyond doubt. The expert on priestly sexuality, the late A. W. Richard Sipe, was a psychotherapist, former priest, and definitive liberal. He was characterized mischievously in the movie Spotlight as “a hippie ex-priest who’s shacking up with a nun.” Sipe reckoned that only about 50 percent of American priests are celibate, that at least a third are gay, and that between 6 and 9 percent of priests are pedophiles.

My Sotto Voce would have me believe that Baltimore’s diocesan seminary, St. Mary’s, scurrilously known as “the Pink Palace,” was the biggest “gay bar” in the state of Maryland. In 2016, Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin stopped sending students to the country’s oldest seminary, St. Patrick’s, Maynooth, after allegations of sexual harassment. It was also reported that trainee priests were using the dating app Grindr to violate their vows of celibacy, and that seminarians who complained were getting kicked out.

I had a personal experience of abuse as a junior seminarian. When I was 17, I was invited by a priest we called Father Rainbow to receive the sacrament of confession—not in the dark confessional box but in the privacy of his room, sitting close together on easy chairs. He offered me a glass of Tia Maria liqueur and a Sweet Afton cigarette, and steered the conversation to the topic of masturbation. He asked if he could inspect my penis, and manipulate it, “just in case” it was malformed and unusually prone to erections. I left the room instantly, unshriven. He was later removed by the bishop—and installed as the chaplain of a prep school for even younger boys.

Nevertheless, there is no evidence to support the conservative view that homosexuality drives sexual abuse. Marie Keenan, author of the authoritative book Child Sexual Abuse & the Catholic Church, wrote that “the combination of data that are now emerging clearly points to the fact that sexual orientation has little or no bearing on sexual abuse of children or on victim selection.” Abusers have targeted both boys and girls, across a spectrum of childhood development: puberty, post-puberty, even infancy.

Liberals lay the blame for abuse within the Church on “clericalism,” a priestly culture that treats clergy as spiritually separate, elevated, entitled, and unaccountable. The process of clericalism, they say, starts in the seminaries, where trainee priests are cloistered off from the world and ultimately infantilized. Francis has said that because of poor training the Church risks creating “little monsters”—priests who are more concerned about their careers than with serving people.

Liberal Catholics want to end the celibacy rule that denies priests the right to marry. They deplore the absence of a woman priesthood. Clericalism, they say, encourages unequal-power relationships that lead to the sexual abuse of minors. When a priest errs, the tendency is to maintain secrecy and suppress any scandal that could further diminish his standing among the laity.

Pope Francis greets Pope Emeritus Benedict at Benedict’s new Vatican City residence, under the watchful eye of “Gorgeous Georg” Gänswein, December 23, 2013.

Photograph from Maurix/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images.

The irony of the traditionalists’ homophobia, according to the liberals, is that it’s often pedaled by closeted clerics whose animosity is impelled by denial and shame. Conservative Catholicism is associated, almost by definition, with old rituals, such as the Latin Mass and a fondness for traditional vestments. In Europe, liberal priests mockingly refer to the Roman collar as “the little préservatif” (French for “condom”) and the cassock as “the big préservatif.”

Benedict, as Pope, went in for ruby-red slip-on loafers and red ermine-trimmed capes. Gorgeous Georg, also nicknamed “Bel Giorgio,” was the inspiration for Donatella Versace’s winter 2007–8 “clergyman” collection. Francis will have none of that. He wears modest black shoes and a white cassock that is said to be made of wool.

Benedict laid the ground for an involved retirement early on. In the early 1990s, John Paul II built a residence in the Vatican gardens, with a chapel attached, to house a community of 12 contemplative nuns who engaged in silent prayer to support his pontificate. Benedict, four months ahead of his resignation, and without signaling the purpose, ordered a renovation of the convent, now cleared of the nuns, to create a suitable Vatican retirement home, office, and chapel—with ample space for his live-in caregiver. People refer to it as a “monastery.” It is more like a palace.

In July 2012, moreover, he appointed the conservative bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller as the new head of the orthodoxy police, formally known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Benedict must have known, even at this point, that he was planning his resignation and therefore saddling his successor with a hard-line doctrinal watchdog who would be difficult to replace. (Francis replaced Müller last year.) In another striking pre-resignation maneuver, Benedict appointed Gänswein not only to be his personal secretary but also to remain as head of the papal household. This meant that Gänswein would run the new Pope’s apartments and offices in the Apostolic Palace, where Popes have resided and worked for hundreds of years. This would have positioned Gänswein to monitor the conversations and meetings of the new Pope. And since this was one of Benedict’s last big appointments before his resignation, it would be difficult for the new Pope to countermand it without seeming disrespectful.

Francis, in an apparent effort to outsmart Benedict and Gänswein, opted to live not in the papal apartments under Gänswein’s control but instead in Casa Santa Marta, a guesthouse for visiting clergy adjacent to St. Peter’s Basilica, where he has a modest apartment and a makeshift office. He allows Gänswein to arrange audiences in the papal apartments with grand figures like royalty and heads of state, but he eats in the self-service cafeteria and gets coffee from a coin-operated machine.

The unassuming lifestyle of Pope Francis, in contrast to the extravagance of some of his cardinals, is legendary. One can only imagine how he felt about the $500,000 that was diverted in 2014 from a Vatican-owned children’s hospital in order to renovate Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s 4,300-square-foot apartment and roof terrace in the Vatican. Or the $2.2 million mansion that American archbishop Wilton Gregory built for himself in Atlanta in 2014. (Gregory apologized and the home was later sold.) Or the $43 million in renovations undertaken in 2013 by the German bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, known as the Bishop of Bling. (Tebartz-van Elst resigned in 2014.)

On his election, in 1963, Paul VI penned a note about the unique state of papal solipsism: “This solitary feeling becomes complete and awesome . . . my duty is to plan: decide, assume every responsibility for guiding others, even when it seems illogical and perhaps absurd. And to suffer alone . . . Me and God.”

For Francis, the equation has been more complicated: Me, God, and Benedict. And the intrusion is made all the more painful by the fact that the two Popes couldn’t be more different.

As young men, Benedict and Francis made decisive moves in opposite directions. Both were exceptionally intelligent and rose rapidly within their chosen priestly spheres. Joseph Ratzinger was born in 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, the son of a police officer. He was obliged to join the Hitler Youth at age 14, but did not attend meetings. He studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1951. Academic from the outset, his theology was at first progressive. He became a professor at Tübingen University, where the rowdy student demonstrations of 1968 sparked an ideological conversion. He came to believe that youthful rejection of authority leads to chaos and that liberal ideas in the Church would result in religious decline.

In 1981, John Paul II appointed Ratzinger head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—formerly called the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, and before that the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition—where he strived to hold the strict line of Catholic teaching. Both John Paul II and Ratzinger were intransigent on sexual morality, which John Paul referred to as “sexology.” Never mind that new generations of young Catholics were living together before marriage, practicing contraception, coming out as gays and lesbians, divorcing and re-marrying. The Pope and his doctrinal enforcer preached the sexual morality of former ages, refusing even to condone the use of condoms for African Catholics with H.I.V. Self-control was their disastrous recommendation. In 2013 alone, AIDS-related illnesses claimed the lives of 1.1 million people in sub-Saharan Africa—74 percent of the global total.

Francis said that “reforming Rome is like cleaning the Sphinx of Egypt with a toothbrush.”

During his eight-year papacy, Benedict witnessed with mounting horror what he termed “the filth” in the Curia. Leaked documents exposed financial corruption, blackmail, and money-laundering schemes. News of a Vatican sex ring came to light. In March 2010, a 29-year-old choir member of St. Peter’s Basilica was fired for allegedly procuring male prostitutes, including a seminarian, for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.

In May 2012, Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi published a book titled His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, which included revealing letters and memos to Pope Benedict, Gänswein, and others. The Apostolic Palace was exposed as a snake pit of envy, scheming, and infighting. There were details of the Pope’s personal finances, including attempted bribes for private papal audiences. In January 2013, Italy’s central bank suspended all bank payments inside Vatican City for the Church’s failure to follow “anti-money-laundering” regulations.

Benedict had commissioned a report on the state of the Curia by three trusted cardinals. It landed on his desk in December 2012, and his resignation followed two months later.

This was the state of affairs that Cardinal Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio inherited on March 13, 2013. When he first appeared on the Vatican balcony, he was wearing just his white cassock: he had declined to wear the traditional scarlet, ermine-trimmed cape, and wore the papal stole for only a few moments. He waved to the crowd and said a simple “Buona sera.” He then asked the throng to pray for him and to sleep well. Later, he went to the hotel where he had been staying to collect his bags and pay the bill. This was a new style of papacy, and the Curia would not like it.

Jorge Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires in 1936, the son of migrants from the Piedmont district of Northwest Italy. His grandmother had come off the boat in the heat of an Argentinean summer wearing a fur coat lined with the cash proceeds from the sale of the family’s Italian home and business. Jorge was a boy during the dictatorship of Juan Perón, a regime that bordered on fascism while regarding itself as socialist. After graduating technical school with a degree in chemistry, Jorge thought of studying medicine. But after a Damascus moment during the sacrament of confession, he entered the Jesuit novitiate, embarking on the 15-year training for the priesthood.

At age 36, he was appointed head of the Jesuits in Argentina. In a reversal of Benedict’s shift from progressive to conservative, Francis started out as a martinet, insisting on correct clerical dress and narrow traditionalist studies in Latin. The “dirty war,” in which the Argentinean government was pitched against dissidents and suspected subversives, changed him. Many priests were imprisoned and killed, and many of his parishioners disappeared. He has been accused of not doing enough to combat the regime, yet his defenders assert that he was living a double life, helping where he could in secret. He became known for his unconventional pastoral style, traveling by public transport, living simply, cooking for himself. He was close to the poor and marginalized. He was seen sitting on a bench counseling prostitutes in the red-light district at night. Asked to describe himself after his election as Pope, he said, “I am a sinner.”

Thanks to the opposing visions of the two Popes, Catholics face a choice between pursuing an ardent orthodoxy, of the kind advocated by Benedict, or accepting a kinder, more humanistic version of their religion, as preached by Francis. As the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor has argued, religious conservatism carries the tendency of all fundamentalisms: to wound and self-harm. Religious liberalism carries the danger of relativism. The contrast between the two Popes’ spiritual approaches is demonstrated by Benedict’s chosen exemplar of clerical excellence: St. Jean Marie Vianney. A priest of the post-French Revolution era, Vianney scourged himself at night until blood ran down the walls. He slept with a rock for a pillow and lived on cold boiled potatoes. He turned his parish into a spiritual bootcamp, banning alcohol and dancing.

Francis’s favorite saint is St. Francis of Assisi, with his insistence on caring for the poor and living in harmony with all living creatures. Pope Francis has frequently preached against the destruction of the environment. He has respect, not mere tolerance, for other religions. At the foot-washing ceremony on the first Maundy Thursday Mass of his pontificate, in 2013, Francis included two Muslims and two women, to the horror of his critics.

At the time of his resignation, in 2013, Benedict cited his diminishing strength, but he showed, and continues to show, no sign of incapacity. In fact, at age 91, he looks remarkably spry. In The Last Testament, a 2016 book with journalist Peter Seewald, Benedict said that his doctor had cautioned him against making the long trip to attend World Youth Day in Rio in 2013—hardly a reason to take such a historically momentous step as vacating the papacy. In October 2017, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, a close confidant of Benedict’s, said in an interview that the status “Pope emeritus” was an invention with no precedent. In recently leaked correspondence, Benedict responded testily to Brandmüller’s comments on November 9, 2017, writing that Popes had retired in the past, albeit rarely: “What were they afterward? Pope Emeritus? Or what else? . . . If you know of a better way, and believe that you can judge the one I choose, please tell me.”

Pope Benedict steps out of a car.

By Stefan Wermuth/Getty Images.

In a subsequent letter to Brandmüller, dated November 23 of that same year, Benedict writes of the “deep-seated pain” that his abdication caused for “many,” which he “can well understand.” So what must he feel now?

What led to Benedict’s resignation? What was he thinking?

I liken him to Thomas à Becket, the 12th-century Archbishop of Canterbury depicted in T. S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral, who encounters four temptations to be a martyr. Perhaps Benedict faced four temptations to resign. First, the temptation to avoid sudden death through overwork and anxiety. Second, to enjoy a brief period of well-earned retirement at age 85, petting his cat and tinkering on the piano. Third, to pass on the task of cleaning up the Vatican’s “filth” to a successor.

The fourth and final temptation is that of the sublime egotist. His recent predecessors, great men such as Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II, lie entombed in the vaults under St. Peter’s. None of them lived to see their successors, the judgments passed on their pontificates, who is in and who is out. Was Benedict tempted to resign by an overweening curiosity to witness what would happen after he had left the scene?

Benedict has witnessed Francis attempt to clean up the Vatican’s finances, making the Vatican Bank and its investments accountable. He has seen Francis implement reforms in the Vatican bureaucracy, shutting down whole departments. He would have read the harsh words Francis used in a 2017 Christmas address to the top members of the Vatican, accusing them of creating “cliques and plots,” which are “unbalanced and degenerate,” and of suffering from a “cancer that leads to a self-referential attitude.” Francis said that “reforming Rome is like cleaning the Sphinx of Egypt with a toothbrush.” Now Benedict sees Francis’s increasing isolation from the Curia, while fresh revelations of clerical sex-abuse scandals expand with no signs of abating.

Could he be thinking, The more they dislike him, the more they will love me?

The Times of London recently published a blurred image of Francis walking alone in the Vatican, unaccompanied by security or attendants. Catherine Pepinster, former editor of the authoritative international Catholic weekly The Tablet, declared in The Guardian that the image was symbolic of Francis’s isolation: “Here is a man struggling to find allies or support from the Catholic faithful in his stalled efforts to reform the church and failing attempts to tackle the abuse crisis.” Many liberals, already disappointed with Francis’s tepid treatment of errant priests, were further disillusioned by his recent comments comparing abortion to the act of “hiring a hit man.”

And then there is the question of money. Archbishop Paul Casimir Marcinkus, controversial head of the Vatican Bank for 18 years, once famously quipped, “You can’t run the Church on Hail Marys.” The Catholic treasury is vast but threatened by potential future crises. According to an investigation by the National Catholic Reporter, the U.S. Catholic Church has paid nearly $4 billion in costs related to clerical sex-abuse cases over the past 65 years. And as a result of the scandals, lost memberships and donations have amounted to a prodigious $2.3 billion a year over the past 30 years. By apologizing on behalf of the Church, and openly accepting responsibility for the abuse, Francis risks being sued along with the Vatican on an international scale.

Francis’s travails are severe enough that a few conservative Web sites have joined Archbishop Viganò in calling for him to step down. How could this be brought about?

One tactic would be to argue that Benedict had been unduly pressured to quit, which could make his resignation invalid by canon law, meaning that he is still Pope and Francis is a mere cardinal. Another might be to declare Francis an anti-Pope. Between the 3rd and 15th centuries, there were about 40 anti-Popes—rivals for the papacy who attracted followings without being recognized by Rome. For this stratagem to advance, a conservative group of cardinals and bishops would have to call a conclave and elect a new Pope. Unless Francis resigned voluntarily, there would be two Popes, and if Benedict was still alive, three. Schism would be inevitable.

A 21st-century schism could unleash chaos: litigation and perhaps even violence over money and property ownership, involving churches, schools, seminaries, and even colleges and universities.

Once released from doctrinal constraints, bishops in one liberal area might ordain women, while such priests would be unrecognized in another. Dissident bishops might deny Church teachings on contraception, divorce, abortion, and the supreme authority of the Pope. The great orders of the Church—monks, friars, and nuns—might splinter.

The saddest, most frightening aspect of a schism would be the consequences for clergy, sisterhoods, and the ordinary faithful. It’s easy to imagine splits within parishes and even families over the conservative-liberal divide: conflicts between parish priests and their curates, divided religious communities, parents and siblings taking sides, all aided and abetted by social media.

It is tempting to lay the blame for this impasse on Benedict, the rigid moralist and advocate for a smaller, purer Church. He is the one who resigned without leaving the scene, and he is the one whose very existence undermines Francis’s authority. But there is reason to believe that Francis has his own reasons for wanting to provoke a crisis.

From the very first days of his papacy, Francis has spoken in ways that suggest he is seeking, prompting, even urging on, a massive change within the authoritarian, dogmatic, stubbornly unchanging Church that has shown its bitter fruits in the thousands of abused young faithful across the Catholic world. A drastic purging of the obstinate entitlements, the secrecy, the unaccountability, the wealth, the self-satisfied traditionalism, could be the necessary condition of making a fresh start.