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Notes -
Is The Pope Catholic? No Really
Rumors are swirling that Pope Francis will demand the resignation of Joseph Strickland, the popular conservative bishop of Tyler, Texas. He is notable as the only bishop to personally attend the protest against the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at Dodgers Stadium. Meanwhile, bishops in Germany are now openly blessing same-sex couples in direct violation of Catholic doctrine. A cursory search reveals no disciplinary action against any of these bishops in response. By their fruits you will know them. In rationalist terms, this is called revealed preference.
This would be less of a problem for religions like Mormonism that allow for continuing revelation. Contrary to popular belief, the Pope is not a prophet. He can not walk out onto the balcony of St. Peter's and say, "Sorry guys, just talked to Jesus. The second coming is canceled." He would be immediately recognized as a fraud. He is bound* both by the deposit of faith and the dogmatic pronouncements of the church.
This leads to an interesting Ship of Theseus problem. The Catholic Church has had it's parishioners, officials, and doctrine replaced. Is it still the Catholic Church? It's not even just the gender stuff. Here is Pope Francis participating in a literal pagan ritual. I have seen him apologize for the residential school system, but I have yet to see him apologize for violating the first commandment.
*in theory lol
I just heard about this, I have no idea of the context, and I imagine there is a metric ton of insider politics going on.
But taking everything at surface level: the thing is, the pope is the boss of you - and that applies as much to the conservatives as the liberals. If the Germans are fucking around (sigh) they're in the wrong. But equally so is Bishop Strickland if he's saying the pope isn't the pope or something.
He can't walk off and set up his own alternate, traditional diocese. I don't know if that's what he is doing, or what is going on, but the pope - until the synod of bishops or somebody agrees that he's not - is the pope. The Lefebvrites are just as much in schism as the WomenPriests. And the thing with a lot of the 'we're the orthodox remnant' splinters is that they often go off the rails to be every bit as liberal, or even more so, than the original protest.
Look at the Dutch Old Catholics - split off over papal infallibility, over the centuries have moved to be functionally Protestant.
Why not? There have been multiple competing Popes at the same time before.
Antipope 2023.
Antibishops are just schismatics or indeed heretics. If he wants to be one more Protestant splinter, fine. But I don't get that impression of Strickland, and I hope this settles down. You can't just as good as call the pope a heretic and not expect to get a smack on the nose for it.
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