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Notes -
This one? The one that says the plain meaning of Francis’s statement in Desiderio Desideravi:
contradicts canon XI of session XIII of The Council of Trent:
because yeah, it does. Actually, forget “is the pope catholic?” Can the pope read? I’ve seen some bad interpretations of Revelation, but this one might take the cake. Here’s Revelation 19:9 in context:
It’s literally the opposite of what Pope Francis was saying. What the actual fuck?
The charitable interpretation of is that "wearing the wedding garment of faith" of course entails the things that faith in Christ and faith in the Catholic Church entails, that it entails righteous deeds, following Church discipline, purification, repentance, etc. It seems silly to require the Pope to explicitly say everything that faith entails every single time he talks of the importance of faith. Certainly Saint Paul did not so do. And yes, a bishop is required to interpret fellow Catholics charitably and only make accusations of heresy as a last recourse.
Now, in context, is this statement easy to misinterpret? Yes. Did Pope Francis purposely state things in an ambiguous way to try to nudge bishops into being less strict about denying communion? Perhaps. But as a bishop, Strickland needs to interpret the letter charitably and limit is criticism to warning about possible misinterpretations of the letter -- he should not straight accuse the Pope of teaching heresy. If you care, you can listen to a more thorough analysis of these letters from Michael Lofton.
That's more charity than the Salvation Army provides in a year, though.
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