We certainly have a confusing Pope in Pope Francis. I love his humility. I love his gentle as a dove approach to communicating. I love that he reminds everyone about ways to LIVE their Catholicism. I love when he comes right out and defends the Faith. I love how he shines with love for people and seeks to connect with them everywhere he goes. However, I am scandalized by some of his off-the-cuff comments that can be spun any way the media and ideologues wish!
I have been giving much thought to this post by Fr. Z on Fr. Z’s Blog. It includes a video by Michael Voris over at Church Militant TV. Many people commented and there is a good bit worth reading in those comments.
I agree with M. Voris that there is a lot of questionable stuff going on and that the two extremes of response to it are neither one healthy. I also agree that our Church is having a rather serious crisis and that few Bishops are doing anything to fight it.
Assuming God is in control, I believe the following to be true as well: Pope Francis gives potential heretics plenty of opportunity to show their errors publicly which ought to be a useful bit of data for the next Pope and appears to be waking up the Bishops of orthodox belief that they need to be assertive for orthodoxy. Clever as a fox? I do not know, but I am certain God knows.
Dear Lord, please send us many Bishops like St. Athanasius! Bless and protect Pope Francis and turn the heterodox back to the faith and to full orthodox belief. +Amen.
Yea! I actually quite agree with this. I find our Pope quite difficult to gauge. Yes he is right about the poor, the peace, the joy, the need for all of us out there evangelising. yes he is right about the fraternity the love of the unborn, the elderly, the margenalised. But those other statements which lack knowability is indeed disconcerting. Yea! I agree I am challenged and yes it too could be a good thing. But nevertheless the pope does have quite a few baffling statements needing large batteries of logic to sanatise them. He does also make more statements which are very clear and orthodox. Strange one, you know it could turn out that years down the line we finally have an aha! moment and find ourselves saying ‘ah now I see what he meant!’