Is it too early to evaluate the papacy of Francis, in terms of a legacy? I think not, and I think his legacy is one of sheer, almost unmitigated, disaster.
I should be clear: I'm not presuming to "judge" the man, either in terms of worthiness for salvation or in terms of how fitting it is to pray for his soul. The first is between him and God, and the second should go without saying.
But now that the conclave has happened and we have a new pope, the thread of Francis' papacy has been cut and the cloth in that particular loom is complete. We can (and should) give it an honest examination.
And I can't think of a single good that Francis uniquely brought to the Church as pope.
To be sure, he had his inoffensive moments, as, for example, when he compared abortion to hiring a hit. But this was just an off hand expression of what the Church has always taught. It wasn't anything that Francis brought to the Church in his capacity as pope. It didn't resolve a question or advance the state of the Church's mission or sanctity.
Of all the official writings, acts, appointments of Pope Francis, is there even one that did advance the state of the Church's mission or sanctity? Is there even one, about which we can honestly say "Francis gave us X, and the Church is better for having X"? I don't think there is. Even among those few encyclicals that some people have held up as praiseworthy, Dignitas Infinita perhaps most notable among them, the failure in clarity of thought, expression, and application has rendered them harmless at best.
One might want to call out some of his canonizations as an exception, but those are something that no pope gets to claim as uniquely his. The recognition of saints is an ongoing work of the whole Church - often initiated in lay devotions - so that when a saint is canonized, it is more by way of historical accident that it occurs during a given pope's reign. These are not acts that a pope can claim as being his particular contribution to the Church.
Not that every pope needs to bring some unique contribution to the Church. The pope is the principal of unity in the Church, and simply by being the Rock and wielding the Keys to the Kingdom - in other words, simply by being the pope - every pope fulfills a necessary and holy role in the Church.
Francis, however, was such a visibly active pope (as popes seem to be since Vatican II) that it would be impossible for him to not leave a mark on the Church, either good or bad.
I stand by my assessment: There is not a single good that Francis uniquely brought to the Church in his papacy, and anything that anyone could propose as a true legacy of Francis (synodailty, for example) is explicitly bad for and harmful to the Church's mission and undermines her sanctity.
It's time to take this cloth off the loom and burn it. He won't, but the best thing the new pope could do for the Church is to simply scrap everything that came out of the Francis papacy.