PopeWatch: Jesus

25 April AD 2015
Donald R. McClarey

From the only reliable source of Catholic news on the net, Eye of the Tiber:

In an unprecedented move, more than 100 prominent San Francisco based Roman Catholics signed a petition and ran a full-page ad Friday calling on God to remove Jesus from the Trinity for fostering “an atmosphere of division and intolerance.”

The plea follows months of dissent within the archdiocese over Jesus’ emphasis on traditional, conservative doctrine, including asking all Catholics to accept that both sex outside of marriage as well as homosexual relations are “gravely evil.”

In their open letter to the God, Jesus critics say his morality-clause push is not only mean-spirited, but that it “sets a pastoral tone that is closer to persecution than evangelization.”

San Francisco Catholic Leonard Nibbi, who signed the letter, said the Second Person of the Trinity “is just causing a lot of discord, especially with the young people in the diocese.”

“The crux of our worry is that the faithful are going to become very disenchanted and stop going to church because they don’t like the message that Jesus sent when he preached the kingdom of God some 2,000 years ago,” Nibbi said.

According to a source familiar with the drafting of the open letter to God, the frustrated Catholics first considered running the ad weeks ago. They held off while they appealed to saints, including John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene, to address their concerns. When nothing came of that, they went public.

Incidentally, don’t expect Jesus to start soft-pedaling his opposition to same-sex marriage. He’s encouraging Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco to join him at a large march in Washington D.C. in favor of “traditional” marriage on April 25.

When asked about this, Pope Francis said, “Are they loco?”

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.