PopeWatch thinks that a commenter over at Father Z’s blog speaks for at least a few Catholics:
PopeWatch finds fascinating the task of keeping a daily eye on the actions of the Pope, but this view is certainly understandable.
Thursday, April 18, AD 2024 5:35pm
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it’s our job. Perhaps Father Z feels unappreciated. Joining Cardinals Burke and Pell, Father Z has a unique perspective on Pope Francis, if only to point out his errors, shortcomings and heresies.
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I can understand why the Desert Fathers went into the desert. Every so often I think of doing the same. The world does not need me. The world got along without me before I came and the world will be just fine after I go, but since I will not know the good I have accomplished for heaven, I will stay until I must go.
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Of course Father Z is a priest and his saying Mass is all that is important. Saying the Mass for Pope Francis’ soul ought to help him improve his people skills, of which Pope Francis has none. That is why he appeals to other people who have no people skills.
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The only thing separating Pope Francis from the great unwashed is that the Pope says the Mass. That is the only time I believe in Pope Francis. I cannot stand the man.
If the commenter can pull it off, more power to him.
I don’t talk about him. When people ask me my opinion on Pope Francis, I always respond “The Pope is the Pope. And I’m not.”
Jay Anderson: I don’t talk about him. When people ask me my opinion on Pope Francis, I always respond “The Pope is the Pope. And I’m not.”
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I like your response. May I use it?
Mary, that was not written by Fr. Z. Someone posted that in the combox in one of the blog posts.
Before Rorate shut down its combox, they had a lot who were critical of Fr. Z.
Fr. Z cannot openly criticize the Pope or any bishop.
I don’t understand how any of the other cardinals believed that Pope Francis was papabile…or, for that matter, how he ever got the red hat to begin with.
Pope Francis has appeal to a lot of people…many people who don’t care about Church teaching, to start. Those Catholics – lay and clerical – who try their hardest to live by Church teaching and follow the Gospel are the people who he has been the coldest and meanest, and I admit to being damned tired of it.
Penguins Fan: I thought much about this and if I must, as a lay woman, criticize the Pope, I must. The Pope does not have any right to insult, demean or upbraid another person without just cause. The Pope must observe protocol for the sake of his office.
Thank you, Penguins Fan. I missed that.
We have a doctor of the Church who is well known for telling the Pope he was wrong– for scolding him!– and why; maybe we should do what she did, as best we can.
Fr. Z cannot openly criticize the Pope or any bishop.
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Andrew Greeley (who once called his bishop a ‘madcap tyrant’ in the Chicago papers) got away with that and worse for more than 35 years.
It’s a booger to follow the rules when other folks don’t. Doesn’t mean it’s less needed, just means that it gets annoying.
Art, Father Zuhlsdorf would never get the leeway that Andrew Greeley got and you and I both know it. Did Greeley trash the Pope?
We sure need a St.Catherine of Siena today.
What concerns me is the radical elements of the
Catholic clergy plotted to have the humble Argentinian
installed in the Chair of St. Peter in the last days of St.
John Paul II’s papacy. I remember during those last days the
progressives were pleading with St. John Paul II to retire, which
he refused. However, the progressives seemed to have convinced
Pope Benedict to retire, who was under pressure to do so by
the scandal of his butler’s stealing confidential documents from
Benedict and by the scandal of a corrupt Curia of a militant homosexual
mafia, which scandal disappeared from the headlines after the Great
Modernizer was installed.
I know progressives must have power and will do almost anything to achieve
power, which includes the destruction of their opponents.
I wonder whom the progressives are plotting to install after the humble
Argentinian, and I wonder if we will ever see a faithful Catholic in
the Chair of St. Peter again?
It is foolish to expect a “humble”(cough,shudder, wheeze) man like Jorge Bergoglio to accept, much less to be changed by correction, even if it cannot be missed. It is not in the “programming” of such a man.
This pope is an identity politics candidate. The ideal candidate on paper was an ostensible Vatican outsider, from the Global South, who was Italian, who had some position in the Eastern communion (which Frank did as head of the Eastern rite in his home country), had a reputation of making nice with Protestants, was both diocesan and religious (Jesuit bishop), and who would at least flirt with the Church’s left while maintaining orthodoxy.
They thought, hey, he really cleaned up BA and he stood up to the Kirchners on abortion and gay marriage and religion in public life. Why not him?
They didn’t realize he was DESPERATE to impress the cool kids.
Me too, Franco. There is a mindset. … Not a Catholic one – that is operating there. We need a bright light on the politics of it all