Well what do you know, something actually worth reading in America, the Jesuit rag, not the country, in an article in which the Pope refers to his time of being in Dutch with his order, the Jesuits, as being his personal Covid. PopeWatch has long thought that the key to understanding the Pope is this time period where Pope Francis encountered punishment from his Order for his “my way or the highway” style of leadership of the Jesuits in Argentina and for being too Orthodox. From this PopeWatch believes that the Pope gleaned some lessons, including to ever have a smiling face to the public, and that he was never going to allow an attack on him for not being “Left” enough in the Church. His account is a fascinating read, including that during the time period involved he read all 37 volumes of Ludwig Pastor’s history of the papacy. That is a an odd detail since that is normally something only a history nerd like PopeWatch would do, and Pope Francis does not seem like a history nerd. That incident might rather indicate that ambition burned white hot, even at that low point in his clerical career. Go here to read it.
PopeWatch: Personal Covid
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Pope Francis: “These were my main personal Covids. What I learned was that you suffer a lot, but if you allow it to change you, you come out better. But if you dig in, you come out worse.”
Me: I think he dug in big time.
I thought Catholics already had a phrase to describe this sort of bottom of the barrel experience. What was it? Oh yes… ‘personal Calvary’. Pope Whats-his-name isn’t familiar with that one?
‘personal covids’, what B/S. God bless holy Benedict.
If he’s determined not to let anyone get to his left, then the Almighty help us all. The Germans are galloping to apostasy with their damnable Synod, and he’s at the helm.
It’s a shame the powers that be always feel the need to soften up, bend, twist, break or otherwise make more pliable the rigidity of the orthodox, yet never seem interested in firming up, straightening out, or reining in, the heterodox.