It's not very nice. I am starting to see a trend out there. Trad Catholics, at least many of them, had this Pope's number from the moment he was announced after the white smoke went up. For the most part your more mainstream conservative, small 'o' orthodox Catholics snorted and rolled their eyes at the dire warnings coming from the traddies.
Not anymore.
More and more of them are coming round to the "there is something seriously wrong with this one" line of thinking. And if most of them have not yet reached the point where they are willing to use the "H" word in connection with the Supreme Pontiff, increasingly they are openly calling into question his temperament, judgement and prudence.
Anyways that's a start.
Say what you want about Francis, but thanks to his pontificate I've gotten a crash course in Catholic ecclesiology from Catholic bloggers:
ReplyDelete"It is necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Bishop of Rome. But please don't pay attention to anything he says or does because he's nuts and possibly a material heretic."
Yeah, well, but besides that . . . .
ReplyDeleteThere is only one church, which of course has a head bishop. Like the Pope, I have a job. It doesn't really involve my opinions. Neither does his. His job is to define and defend our doctrine, not invent doctrine that goes against it. We Catholics obey the Pope's office in that sense; it's part of the church's teaching office. I don't care what Benedict XVI's opinions were, doctrinally speaking, even though I like them, or what Francis's are. Irrelevant. So there's no contradiction.
ReplyDeleteNot really alleging a contradiction so much as noticing a pattern. The RCC keeps the formal doctrine/institution in place while hollowing it out with "pastoral" practice and benign neglect. It happened ages ago with usury, then with the juridical legerdemain of annulment, and it looks to be happening again with communion for the divorced and remarried. So it doesn't surprise me that this pattern may even extend to the papacy itself.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are others of us, with average font 'O's to our Catholic orthodoxy, who find Pope Francis' privileging of mercy a deeply Christian and Catholic path.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete"Pope Francis' privileging of mercy a deeply Christian and Catholic path"
How nice of you - and how Protestant, to prefer your own and a pope's private judgment over the whole of Catholic Tradition. And, while we're on that subject, where is warrant to be found in Scripture or Catholic magisterial Catholic tradition for admitting individuals in a state of unrepentant mortal sin - adulterers, that is - to the Eucharist?