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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
It should be noted that he is firing Bishop Strickland for insubordination -- Strickland accused Pope Francis of having a program to undermine the deposit of faith, Strickland signed on to a letter that called Pope Francis a heretic, and then when Strickland was initially subject to a disciplinary investigation he doubled-down rather than apologizing. Catholic bishops are not allowed to criticize the Pope that way, calling the Pope a heretic undermines people's faith. Any boss in the world would fire a subordinate for such a behavior.
It is true though, that the Pope does seem excessively lenient toward the German bishops. Part of this may be that German bishops have been a bit more subtle in not directly picking a fight with the Vatican.
Overall, Francis has not actually betrayed or revoked the deposit of faith or Church dogma. In his own writings, he has upheld Church teaching on the disordered nature of homosexual, the invalidity of "gay marriage", and the impossibility of changing one's sex/gender.
It is true that in more informal settings he has made ambiguous statements that seem to wink at a more progressive, or even heretical view on key issues. Also, I do agree that his choices of which disciplinary battles to fight do reveal a progressive bent. The most charitable explanation is that he is trying to put a spin on things that the progressive media will find palatable, and thus give the Church more cover. The least charitable explanation is that he wants to change the Church teaching, but doesn't want to boil the frog too quickly so he walks right up tot he line of heresy without crossing it. Or for believers, he walks up to the line but cannot cross it because the Holy Spirit is still protecting the office of the Pope.
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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