So that would be.......the Baptists? Or.....
It was more along the lines of the faithful not being intimidated into surrendering to the "modernist" analytical who bring to the table their own suppositions based more on their own prejudices, than some actual finding, discovery, or inherent superiority of methodolgy which they employ.
We've seen discussion on these pages concerning even a few inside the RCC who lean towards seeing Christ as figurative/mythological. Interestingly enough, some of the worst offenders along those lines, are Jesuits, which brotherhood the new pope is part of.
I'm not suggesting for one instant that Francis is one of those sort of Jesuits, but it's likely he knows of them, and has seen a few up close.
Some modern scholars don't hesitate to scoff at each account of miracles, and the like, putting them fully into the catogory of mythology, for example...reducing scripture to morality tale, legend, and religio-cultural artifact.
I do think it was more those types of folks he had in mind, while putting forth tradition of the church, against the "science" skeptics.
There is much more overlap concerning the approach towards what we know as scripture, between this new pope (and the last one) and Baptists in general (one would hope) than between many of the modern NT "scholars" and their methodologies.
Mark D. Roberts, himself a NT scholar, trained at Harvard, spoke of that sort of thing in a book of his titled Can We Trust the Gospels:Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
I'd give you a copy, but gave the one I had away (since it was such a good read).