Douthat: No Catholic Is Fooled By Francis
On the Ex-Synod: “Francis has convened a discussion that is supposedly open-ended, dialogic, the Holy Spirit blowing where it wills — but in practice seems intended to provide cover for Francis himself, the only real decider, to bring the Church more into alignment with the culture of the post-sexual-revolution West.”
On sex abuse: “The pattern where accused abusers or abuse enablers somehow stay in favour as long as they’re understood to be on Francis' team is a familiar one in this pontificate, and the Church’s polarisation means that mostly conservatives complain about it, while the secular [= oligarchs'] media’s sympathy for Francis limits the frenzies that would have attended similar scandals under Benedict XVI.”
On Catholics: “The conservative rebellions against Francis have proved self-limiting so far, because of the self-contradictions involved in conservative resistance to papal authority and the lack of effective mechanisms for such resistance short of actual schism.”
On Francis’ doublespeak: “It’s clear that case-by-case exceptions will be welcomed only as a means to further change on the entire array of contested points. On the conservative side nobody is actually fooled by what the Vatican is doing (or reassured by the sententious invocations of the Holy Spirit).”
Picture: © Mazur, CC BY-NC-ND, #newsDjbqshtinc
