Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 6:45am

PopeWatch: Is the Pope Catholic?

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Father Z directs our attention to a post by British Catholic gadfly Damian Thompson:

 

At Heat Street, Damian Thompson asks: “Is the Pope Catholic?”

That site is a mess to read, so let’s see some of it here.  My emphases and comments:

Is the Pope Catholic? Here’s Why Many of Pope Francis Flock Aren’t Sure

Pope Francis, we learned this week, will take part in a service next year to celebrate a great moment in Christian history.

The Reformation.

Yes, you read that right. ‘Pope celebrates Reformation’ sounds like an Onion headline, but it’s actually going to happen – when Francis travels to Sweden next year to mark the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s first furious broadside against Rome.  [Here’s one Catholic who won’t be celebrating the Reformation.  I’ll be flipping to the back of my Missale Romanum for Votive Masses Pro fide propagatione, and ad tollendum schisma and  contra persecutores Ecclesiae….]

Liberal Catholics, liberal Protestants and the secular media will cheer when he does so. They will drown out the groans of traditional Catholics for whom this is yet another feelgood stunt by a pope who isn’t interested in theology. [That doesn’t sound like an unqualified “Huzzah!”, does it?]

And only the very sharp-eared will hear the rattle of decapitated skeletons – both Catholic and Protestant – turning in their graves.

The Reformation jamboree will pay lip service to the ‘tragedy’ of the 16th-century martyrs. But if those bones could speak, I suspect they’d say the real tragedy is the spectacle of Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican leaders glossing over the doctrines for which they died.

One thing is for sure. Benedict XVI, if he were still pope, wouldn’t be throwing himself into the Reformation festivities. Indeed, it’s hard to think of anything Francis has done that his retired predecessor really approves of.

‘Exactly!’ say Francis’s millions of admirers. ‘Benedict was a dinosaur who tried to turn the clock back. Francis is sweeping out the Vatican stables. He’s making Catholicism more compassionate. And did you see him with George Clooney?’

At which point I’m the one letting out a groan, together with lots of Catholics who, like me, were initially charmed by the Argentinian pontiff’s laid-back style.

Let’s get one thing straight. Pope Francis is not a ‘great reformer’, as one sycophantic biographer dubbed him. He’s pushed through just one overdue reform – simplifying the church’s marriage annulment procedures. [The annulment thing… oh boy, don’t get me started.  However, were Francis to accomplish only a financial reform of the Curia, that would be something noteworthy for a pontificate.]

 

Go here to read the rest.  PopeWatch is certain that the Pope is Catholic, but he agrees with this closing statement by Thompson:

 

Or, to put it another way, the Pope may be a Catholic – but it’s beginning to look as if the cardinals made a terrible mistake when they decided that this particular Catholic should be a pope.

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, June 7, AD 2016 5:00am

No. Next question . . .

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Tuesday, June 7, AD 2016 5:24am

I’m beginning to think Francis is a very elaborate practical joke by the Eastern Orthodox.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Tuesday, June 7, AD 2016 5:49am

T Shaw is correct. To Nate: better that the Pope would be Eastern Orthodox than what he is: a Marxist Peronist petty Latin American failed cleric.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Tuesday, June 7, AD 2016 6:22am

*sigh* Sometimes I wonder about people’s sense of humor…

LQC I didn’t say he WAS one of them, I said he was a PRANK by them. Think about it a minute, if you wanted to mess with the west and say “we told you not to have a pope” what would you do?

Kind of like how Trump is conservatives’ prank on liberals – or maybe he was a prank attempted by the left only to have the right embrace and run with it in a vicious double-prank turn around. (We’ll find out by the end of the year.)

Dale Price
Dale Price
Tuesday, June 7, AD 2016 8:11am

Amazingly strong statement from Thompson, who has been quite affable about this pontificate so far.

DJH
DJH
Tuesday, June 7, AD 2016 8:40am

Sad to say, I think this Pope is turning a lot of very good Catholics into Protest(ant)s, as we/they are very busy (and very weary) of protesting him and Rome.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Tuesday, June 7, AD 2016 9:21am

Sorry, Nate. I misunderstood.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Tuesday, June 7, AD 2016 7:18pm

For a Catholic to celebrate Reformation Day is beyond ludicrous. This pontificate is a disaster.

“Beginning to look like a terrible mistake?” Oh, please.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Wednesday, June 8, AD 2016 3:05am

The Pope does not ACT like a Catholic. He ACTS like a Protestant. He even may BE a Protestant.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, June 8, AD 2016 5:20am

Is there no one to defend himself, or to shoot ad hominems at the above commenters?
.

val
val
Thursday, June 9, AD 2016 2:14am

We, Catholics cant attend protestants’ Sunday services. But now, can we? For our leader will do it.

@FMShyanguya
Sunday, June 12, AD 2016 2:19pm

Is the Pope Catholic? No imagination needed here to emphatically say, “NO!”

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