With the norm-demolishing, nationalist-establishment civil war in America’s Republican party, we sometimes lose sight of what the other great disruptor is doing over in Europe.
I’m talking about Pope Francis, of course, and his attempt to drain the Catholic Church’s swamp.
I used to think of Francis as the David Souter of Rome. But the deeper we get into his papacy, the clearer it is that he’s incredibly similar to President Trump. Francis doesn’t read, or seem overly concerned with policy or theology. He’s dismissive of long-standing traditions and established theological “experts” and instead wants the Church to be more populist. He’s prone to speaking off-the-cuff and without the pieties of formality. He likes to bully his subordinates instead of building consensus. He has a knack for searching out hot-button issues where he can sow division rather than building consensus. He has an incredibly healthy sense of his own executive acumen.
No wonder Francis and Trump hate each other: They’re the same person.
And things have been hopping with Francis the Orange. If you’re into the Catholic thing (yswidt?) you may remember the dubia—the document presented to Francis by a group of cardinals earlier this year asking His Holiness for an audience so that they could get him to clarify a number of … questionable? … statements he has proposed. Francis ignored the cardinals, not even deigning to give them an acknowledgement that he had registered their concerns.
Well now the pope has been presented with a “filial correction.” This is a church document, signed by a number of priests, bishops, and theologians and the full, proper title is kind of glorious. It’s titled Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis, which translates roughly to: A Filial Correction Concerning the Propagation of Heresies. Yes, that’s right. The pope is propagating heresies.
And just so you understand how big a deal this is, there hasn’t been a filial correction since 1333. We’re talking the better part of 700 years.
The good news (yswidt, again?) is that the petitioners allow that the pope may have been propagating heresies unintentionally! The writers insist that they make “no judgment about Pope Francis’s culpability in propagating the seven heresies” and that it is “not their task to judge about whether the sin of heresy has been committed.” So there’s that.
And, even better, the Pope hasn’t destroyed papal infallibility because he hasn’t enshrined any heresies as dogmatic teachings. (Yet.)
But that’s about the end of the good news. So take that as a reminder that not all populist revolutions are good things.
