Popes virtually never actually say something that can\u2019t be squared with the Tradition.\u00a0 Just about the last time it happened was the monothelite heresy, when Honorius expressed some incautious opinions in a private letter.\u00a0 Beyond that it\u2019s a pretty rare occasion.<\/p>\n
And yet, there are frequent panic attacks about the Pope throughout the past 40 years.\u00a0 Not just this one.\u00a0 Ever since Popes became a mass media phenom (basically with JPII) there have been Reactionary freakouts about the Pope just about being on the imminent edge of quite very possibly betraying the Tradition.<\/p>\n
JPII was somehow screwing everything up with World Youth Days and being a rock star, and welcoming break dancers and Assisi Peace Prayers\u00a0and opposing the war and\u00a0opposing the death penalty.\u00a0 Benedict was likewise screwing things up with the unapproved pieces of Caritas in Veritate<\/em>, and opposing the death penalty and saying use of a condom was not always and everywhere a ticket to hell.\u00a0 And now, Francis is causing tons for freakouts with his interview and various other words and deeds.\u00a0 He will cause a lot more.\u00a0 And *none* of it will actually be unorthodox or incompatible with the Tradition.\u00a0 It will just be offensive to Reactionaries.<\/p>\n Of course, not *everything* the Popes have done had led to Reactionary bedwetting about the imminent death of papal orthodoxy.\u00a0 Sometimes, the freakouts come from the left.\u00a0 So when the pope reaffirms that the Church can\u2019t ordain women, still defends innocent human life, still affirms the integrity of marriage and the family and so forth (and the left panics that the Pope \u201chates\u201d women and gays and minorities and wants everybody dead from AIDS) the same people that were freaking out about the heterodox Pope are suddenly complaining about how the MSM and the liberal elite totally misunderstand the Pope (and talking about how the dissenters need to be kicked out and the Church purged and purified and shrunk to exclude these enemies within).<\/p>\n The lesson to be learned from this is not \u201cThe Popes are unpredictable and mercurial and can\u2019t trusted\u201d but \u201cWhen the Pope articulates parts of the Tradition Reactionaries like, the cry from Reactionaries is that the media does not understand the Church\u2019s teaching and dissenters should be kicked out.\u00a0 However, when the Pope articulates parts of the Tradition Reactionaries don\u2019t like, the cry from Reactionaries is that the Pope is a garrulous old fool\u00a0 and egotist whom\u00a0 the NY Times are both radically misunderstanding and understanding perfectly, because he is selling the Church and True Catholics[TM] down the river. (It goes without saying that the critic spouting off about the heretical Pope is neither garrolous nor an egotist.)\u201d<\/p>\n For a huge number of Catholics, the last thing the Pope is, is a teacher<\/em>, and certainly not a teacher imparting new ways of thinking to the faithful.\u00a0 Not \u201cnew teaching\u201d mind you.\u00a0 Old teaching\u2013apostolic teaching\u2013to believers who have no intention of allowing the gospel to impinge on their political categories, slogans, shibboleths and bumper stickers.\u00a0 A huge number of Catholics don\u2019t want the Pope to be a teacher.\u00a0 They want him to be a flag.<\/p>\n At present, the Left is waving him as a flag, having totally misunderstood him to somehow mean that the Church is now blowing off the Pelvic Issues.\u00a0 But the Reactionaries are doing the same thing, taking for granted that the Left\u2019s read on him as finally embracing heresy as they have perpetually panicked would happen.\u00a0 Neither the Times crowd nor the Reactionaries are listening to him, hearing him, learning from him.<\/p>\n My prayer is that we will actually listen<\/em> to him.\u00a0 He has very important and beautiful things to say to us and I am deeply grateful to God for him and for the Tradition that, believe it or not, he is articulating, not perverting.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Popes virtually never actually say something that can\u2019t be squared with the Tradition.\u00a0 Just about the last time it happened was the monothelite heresy, when Honorius expressed some incautious opinions in a private letter.\u00a0 Beyond that it\u2019s a pretty rare occasion. And yet, there are frequent panic attacks about the Pope throughout the past 40 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[374],"class_list":["post-47489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pope-francis"],"yoast_head":"\n