The problem in a nutshell…

The Reporter (boo!  hiss!  unclean!  All praise and honor to the Genetic Fallacy–which frees us from having to listen to anything outside our ideological bubble!) remarks:

So the news the traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli had proclaimed Aug. 19 as “unbelievable” turned out to be anything but. Not even the “formal correction” of Cardinal Raymond Burke, but a lesser “filial correction” by a tiny minority with heavy leanings towards the Society of St. Pius X.

I’m talking about a 25-page letter issued Sept. 24, in which a few dozen Catholics say Pope Francis has committed heresy, pointing to the teachings on family life he offered in his 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”).

It is difficult to know where to start on this one: the hypocrisy or the risible accusations of heresy against the Holy Father. I’ll go with hypocrisy.

The most glaring — and comically ironic, considering the famous footnote 351 of Amoris Laetitia — is the deliberate omission in footnote 21 of the signatories’ letter of a crucial quote from Pastor Aeternus, the First Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.

The letter writers directly quote either side of the passage but omit this portion: “Indeed, their apostolic teaching was embraced by all the venerable fathers and reverenced and followed by all the holy orthodox doctors, for they knew very well that this See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, in accordance with the divine promise of our Lord and Savior.”

Now the question must be asked: why did they omit that? Simply because to have included it would have destroyed in one stroke their entire premise of heresy against the pope. It beggars belief they thought nobody would notice. Can they seriously accuse the pope of “omissions” after that?

A reasonable question. Not unlike the question of how you can claim fidelity to the Tradition while perpetually making war on the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church since 1965.  I’ve never understood it. As a former Protestant, I recognize that bad smell.  No thanks.