The problem with Pope Francis' misinterpretations by the press is that they were continuous. I'm gracious. I'm willing to give him the first 3 times he said something that got yanked out of context by the press as being benign. After that point, he and his staff should have known better. What happened was over a decade of nonstop soundbites he provided the media of the softening of RC positions on social issues with half-hearted corrections issued after the fact, much as the press issues retractions in the back of the paper for headlines that ran above the fold. Regardless of the accusations of moral perfidy and corruption in the Vatican, they aren't stupid, naive, or without guile. If it was not their intent for Francis to offer these morsels to the press, it would not have happened, or at least not with the frequency it has.
I've come to view his papacy as a "shaping operation" for the eventual change in dogma for the Roman Catholic Church that will make conservative Catholics yearn for the days of Vatican II liberality. The catechesis of the vast majority of Roman Catholics worldwide has been an utter failure. While we used to be able to rely on the grace of a Godly society to preserve peoples' souls, despite their ignorance of their own faith, that is no longer the case. The average Catholic not only cannot articulate the doctrinal moral argument against non-NFP means of birth control, would be completely unwilling to subject themselves to it even if they did understand it. I'm not a sedevacantist. I'm not even a Roman Catholic. I'm a protestant. A lot of my family are Catholics and I've been patiently praying for and with them as they struggle through the wilderness. The direness of the situation cannot be understated. I'm hoping I'm wrong. I'm hoping the cardinals, like the elites in the US, decide they need to back a voice of sanity. We got Trump because Musk had a personal vendetta against the left and Zuckerberg and Bezos were sick of trying to step around bum excrement on the streets of San Francisco. Hopefully the Cardinals feel the same way, but if Francis was a stepping stone on some grander design, they're going to capitalize on the gains they made.
The problem with Pope Francis' misinterpretations by the press is that they were continuous. I'm gracious. I'm willing to give him the first 3 times he said something that got yanked out of context by the press as being benign. After that point, he and his staff should have known better. What happened was over a decade of nonstop soundbites he provided the media of the softening of RC positions on social issues with half-hearted corrections issued after the fact, much as the press issues retractions in the back of the paper for headlines that ran above the fold. Regardless of the accusations of moral perfidy and corruption in the Vatican, they aren't stupid, naive, or without guile. If it was not their intent for Francis to offer these morsels to the press, it would not have happened, or at least not with the frequency it has.
I've come to view his papacy as a "shaping operation" for the eventual change in dogma for the Roman Catholic Church that will make conservative Catholics yearn for the days of Vatican II liberality. The catechesis of the vast majority of Roman Catholics worldwide has been an utter failure. While we used to be able to rely on the grace of a Godly society to preserve peoples' souls, despite their ignorance of their own faith, that is no longer the case. The average Catholic not only cannot articulate the doctrinal moral argument against non-NFP means of birth control, would be completely unwilling to subject themselves to it even if they did understand it. I'm not a sedevacantist. I'm not even a Roman Catholic. I'm a protestant. A lot of my family are Catholics and I've been patiently praying for and with them as they struggle through the wilderness. The direness of the situation cannot be understated. I'm hoping I'm wrong. I'm hoping the cardinals, like the elites in the US, decide they need to back a voice of sanity. We got Trump because Musk had a personal vendetta against the left and Zuckerberg and Bezos were sick of trying to step around bum excrement on the streets of San Francisco. Hopefully the Cardinals feel the same way, but if Francis was a stepping stone on some grander design, they're going to capitalize on the gains they made.
"Europe is in rough shape, also I'm Catholic!" Say what you will, Americans love to troll