And Pope Benedict said nothing. Timidity, to put it politely, has no place on the throne of Peter.
No Surprise
- 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.
I do blame Benedict for Francis: first for resigning his office, and second for not raising bloody hell over T.C.
Knowing Francis’ character (or the lack thereof), my guess would be that it was made clear to Benedict that if he spoke out or made Francis’ life difficult in any way, Francis would in turn exact reprisals against any of Benedict’s friends and household, from Archbishop Ganswein on down.
As we saw after Benedict’s death, Francis went out of his way to treat those who’d been loyal to Benedict with an astonishing public display of petty, brutal score-settling.
PF must have had some fear as he didn’t go straight to his Dictator of Moral Relativism. I’ve had so many mixed motions about PB, anger, sadness etc. I mean, the Vatican sounds just as corrupt if not more than DC
Does a Church where ~70% of American Catholics don’t believe in the Real Presence, sees the reception of the Blessed Sacrament as a right open to all and doesn’t feel the need for confession really deserve a better Pope?
@Andrew:
”Does a Church where ~70% of American Catholics don’t believe in the Real Presence, sees the reception of the Blessed Sacrament as a right open to all and doesn’t feel the need for confession really deserve a better Pope?”
I’m as disgusted as you are with the miserable state of actual faith in Catholic teaching today. But we don’t deserve Christ’s salvific sacrifice, either. So I don’t think whether we deserve a true Vicar of Christ is the real issue. The real issue is, does Jesus Christ deserve to have the Church He founded treat Him and His believers in this way?
“I do blame Benedict for Francis: first for resigning his office, and second for not raising bloody hell over T.C.”
No one can live another person’s life for them.