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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
Ah, Tyler. If there was any place I’d have expected to be in the news for this…no, I still wouldn’t expect Tyler.
Let’s see what Strickland actually said…
That second one is what makes me a little skeptical. Let’s try a site that isn’t quite so obviously partisan:
Now, I’m not an expert on Catholicism. It sounds like Strickland is making the kind of moves which would be untenable even in a secular workplace. If he’s so insistent that the Catholic Church has been invaded, undermined, and otherwise corrupted, perhaps he shouldn’t be calling himself a Catholic.
Pope Francis has a bit of a habit of replacing his critics as bishops of podunk.
Edit to add: The norm in the Roman Catholic Church is to almost never dismiss a bishop. Instead bishops are required by canon law to tender their resignations for retirement at 75 and the Vatican has ten years(not a typo) to accept it. How quickly they actually do so is a pretty good indicator of how badly the current pope wants the bishop in question to leave. Dismissing a bishop rather than accepting his retirement quickly is a rarest of rare scenario and doing it for criticism of a pope or his agenda was up until recently something unprecedented in living memory. Even archbishop Chaput and cardinal Sarah, prominent conservative critics of pope Francis who embarrassed him badly, were allowed to submit their resignation for retirement the normal way, albeit accepted extremely quickly.
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