"significantly more liberal" in this context means he's a slightly less hateful reactionary bigot.

If the pope ran for election in the average western democracy he would be far right, next to the neo-nazi's and the anti-immigrant parties.

But because it's the catholic church we even use the word "liberal" to describe his ideology.

> If the pope ran for election in the average western democracy he would be far right

The fairly harsh criticism of modern capitalism in Evangelii Gaudium is hardly consistent with the far right. Certainly, the Church has right-wing positions on some issues -- which are in many cases the issues Francis has said the Church tends to excessively focus on and needs to not overemphasize -- while on others it has fairly left-wing positions.

this simply doesn't make sense. i live in a catholic country with extreme right-wing parties. they are to the right of this pope. they are worried by him.

also, try learning how the word "more" modifies an adjective. 1e99 is "more small" than 1e100.

i despair at the level of comments here.

If being "liberal" automatically equates to being "good" and you want to pick someone who has the maximum impact, well, there's probably at least one Muslim cleric out there who wants to ban the stoning of women, hanging of homosexuals and Saturday afternoon be-headings.