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Obviously he can<\/a>.\u00a0 Will he?\u00a0 It remains to be seen.\u00a0 The problem isn\u2019t that you have to believe in a vast, global conspiracy on the part of almost every human being on the planet to dismiss the idea that Pope Francis identifies with liberal values and the Marxist inspired ideals common to Latin American liberation theologies.\u00a0 The problem is, the Pope himself seems intent on living up to the various rumors.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

True, he hasn\u2019t changed actual church teaching.\u00a0 But you don\u2019t have to.\u00a0 As I explained here some time ago<\/a>, Catholic apologists made it clear that even if the Church in the Middle Ages tortured the living hell out of people, officially it never taught it was right.\u00a0 According to actual doctrine, the Church was all about turn the other cheek and love your enemies.\u00a0 Just because the church,\u00a0popes, bishops and church leaders seemed to put their stamp of approval on the torture and killing of those in the Church\u2019s way was irrelevant.<\/p>\n

If that is true, then it suggests that the Pope doesn\u2019t have to change church teaching.\u00a0 He can simply repackage it in a way to conform it to the modern trends of the moment.\u00a0 The teaching itself will remain the same.\u00a0 But how we live it, teach it, breath it, pray it, and follow it on a daily basis will look just like the world around us, much in the same way the Church looked like the world around it in the 13th and 14th centuries.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Like Morpheus might have said to Neo: \u2018No Neo, I\u2019m not telling you that the Pope is going to change church teaching.\u00a0 I\u2019m telling you that when he is through, he won\u2019t have to.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope that\u2019s all unfounded concern and worry.\u00a0\u00a0 And let\u2019s hope that in the coming days, Pope Francis goes out of his way to show how unfounded it is. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"