Conservative Catholics question Pope Francis’s approach

[rug]

By Michelle Boorstein and Elizabeth Tenety, Published: October 14

Rattled by Pope Francis’s admonishment to Catholics not to be “obsessed” by doctrine, his stated reluctance to judge gay people and his apparent willingness to engage just about anyone — including atheists — many conservative Catholics are doing what only recently seemed unthinkable:

They are openly questioning the pope.

Concern among traditionalists began building soon after Francis was elected this spring. Almost immediately, the new pope told non-Catholic and atheist journalists he would bless them silently out of respect. Soon after, he eschewed Vatican practice and included women in a foot-washing ceremony.

The wary traditionalists became critical when, in an interview a few weeks ago, Francis said Catholics shouldn’t be “obsessed” with imposing doctrines, including on gay marriage and abortion. Then earlier this month, Francis told an atheist journalist that people should follow good and fight evil as they “conceive” of them. These remarks followed an interview with journalists this summer aboard the papal airplane in which the pope declared that it is not his role to judge someone who is gay “if they accept the Lord and have goodwill.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/conservative-catholics-question-pope-franciss-approach/2013/10/12/21d7f484-2cf4-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html

[Scuba]

1. Intolerance of tolerance.

[47of74]

2. I guess for conservatives all that stuff they said about the Pope being infallible...

...only applies when its some hardline conservative who is Pope and only when he says the correct things. Otherwise you get someone in like Francis and all that goes right out the window.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

4. You are aware, I hope, of the extreme limits on papal infallibility

I know that JPII tried to expand the limited definition of infallible teachings in his 1998 Apostolic Letter, Ad Tuendam Fidem (To Defend the Faith), by creating a class of "definitive" teachings which were de facto infallible, even though they fell short of being de jure infallible. (The term for this in "creeping infallibility".)

However, only when the Pope is speaking ex cathedra is he infallible, something that has happened exactly twice. See Section 25 of the Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium for a definition of what is infallible. Anything that does not meet the definitions given in LG 25 is ipso facto not infallible.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

3. From the story

Behind the growing skepticism is the fear in some quarters that Francis’s all-embracing style and spontaneous speech, so open as it is to interpretation, are undoing decades of church efforts to speak clearly on Catholic teachings.

Gotta love the bit about "speak clearly on Catholic teachings". I would re-write that as "speak the conservative party line".

Some conservatives also feel that the pope is undermining them at a time when they are already being sidelined by an increasingly secular culture.

Given the way that non-conservative Catholics such as me were treated during the last two papacies, my sympathy for their plight approaches zero as a limit. Perhaps if they were to have acted more Christ-like over the years, I might feel different.

[cbayer]

5. Not surprising at all.

Can you imagine the push back he is getting from within the bureaucracy?