Can. 335: When the Roman See is vacant or entirely impeded, nothing is to be altered in the governance of the universal Church; the special laws issued for these circumstances, however, are to be observed.
Pope Queeg?:
So, the Church is USS Caine. Pope Francis is Captain Queeg. Bloggers are Fred MacMurray. Their readers are the officers of the wardroom and crew.
There is no doubt that Pope Francis is not a very good captain. If he commanded a minesweeper, yes, he would steam over his own cable while towing gunnery targets. He would panic and drop the dye marker early. He would conduct an obsessive, self-congratulatory, yet deluded investigation into missing strawberries. And, yes, he might endanger the ship during a typhoon.
And if the Bear got him on the stand, he would fall apart and start playing with his ball bearings because he would be unwilling to give straight answers to direct questions.
However, the Bear only now realizes what a lousy analogy this is.
A U.S. Navy ship captain would never be allowed to ignore–much less rewrite–Navy regulations, the UCMJ and the law of the sea. The captain of even a minesweeper could not declare that “God wills diversity of navies” and sail off for the Black Sea to join a Russian exercise. With the great authority of the captain comes equally great accountability, instead of zero temporal accountability. Even the captain of an aircraft carrier can be relieved for poor judgment, as we recently saw with the USS Theodore Roosevelt’s skipper. He must maintain the dignity required by his command. He does not serve for life. (Or until he decides to step down but stay aboard as “Captain Emeritus,” which would be really confusing.) Even on a large ship, a captain could turn a blind eye to only so much homosexual abuse of enlisted personnel by his officers, and none of the victims would be adolescents. No ship captain would get on the 1MC and make rambling and confusing off-the-cuff remarks about important things.
And, of course, no ship captain can screw up so badly that he puts a big chunk of the population at risk of going to Hell.
It’s sort of weird: the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics gets away with crap that would see the skipper of a minesweeper relived of duty in a heartbeat.
So, forget this post. The Bear apologizes for yet another waste of your time.
Go here to read the rest.
Yes, Captain Queeg was mentally ill, “Pope” Francis is possessed by the devil.
It seems like we keep trying to find pithy analogies from history or literature. But none seems to really satisfy. As the Bear indicates the supernatural element of the pope’s role makes the difference.
I agree re: Michael comment – occult influence and manipulation seem to be coming more apparent. Things that have been hidden are being revealed. The so called “progress” of the sinister (meaning from the left) is part of its self exposure.
Frankly, I had forgotten about him until you mentioned him. These days, he has almost no relevance to any Catholic’s life. For instance, and to somewhat quote him, I don’t think he dares promulgate any doctrine. He values his temporal life too much. Instead, he’s content to be the crazy atheist friend we all seem to know who simply says things for effect, but always changes the subject when he’s losing any discussion.