Jimmy Akin on the absurd charge of heresy against Francis

Go to the 50 minute mark or so. Well done, Jimmy.

This absurd letter is the latest coup attempt by Reactionary crazies.

How crazy, you ask?

Here’s a guy on Twitter who is keeping tabs on some of the loonier stuff being aired by those hoping for the overthrow of Francis:

“It would be good for a secular Italian nationalist and a Protestant empire to force the Pope out at gunpoint and replace him with someone more racist, because I’m a catholic” https://t.co/SbjEIqyzDJ

— MechaBonaldMkV��� (@IgnatiusUnderh2) May 1, 2019

Lest that sound exaggerated, it’s important to grasp that things like this coup are not emerging out of a vacuum, but really tightly wound up with stuff like Steve Bannon’s push to silence Catholic witness and promote far right ethnonationalism.

Note that this letter, like Vigano’s assault on Francis last summer, was carefully coordinated with such dubious lie factories as Liesite News and such sketchy Francis-haters as 1 Peter 5. The usual suspects have leapt upon this letter and are, yet again, ginning up panic over it. The people who used to yell, “The Church is not a democracy” at their culture war enemies are now yelling, “Who will save us from this satanic tyrant?”

The elevation of a few Reactionaries to the judge, jury, and executioners of the Pope is assisted by the National Catholic Register, who hit the high notes of hubris with this amazing ultimatum over on Facebook: “The Dominican priest is one of 19 academics and clergy calling on the world’s bishops to admonish the Pope and publicly reject heresy or face losing the papacy.”

And over what? Nothing. He used a ferula so he’s a satanist. Somebody give him a stole and he used it, so he’s gay or something. Give me a break. They want schism over nothing but their own lust for power.

Henry Karlson has their number.

This is the latest manifestation of the toxic Celebrity Culture approach to the faith that has infected postmodern conservative Catholic culture. Instead of listening to the Church, you go out and find some folk heroes that tell you what your itching ears want to hear and then threaten the Pope to knuckle under to them or “face losing the papacy”. It’s a power play and it is ridiculous.