The "Us vs. Them" Pope

There are good reasons why someone like Cardinal Raymond Burke would have made a terrible pope. At the crux of the matter there is the marked tendency he has shown to treat issues like ideological footballs which he would try to pick up and power down the field down his opponents throats. Now, that might make some sense when dealing with forces like a highly partisan and unfriendly to hostile to Catholicism press corps, like the one we suffer from here in the United States. Where it makes little to no sense is in the pastoral work of the church, where to do so is to divide the Church into issue groups, some labelled "friends," others labelled "enemies."

Unfortunately, if such is true of a Cardinal, it's is more true of a sitting pope and Pope Francis seems to have forgotten that fact, if he was ever aware of it at all. It has been the policy of many traditionalists to give Francis the benefit of the doubt, but it is becoming increasingly clear that he sees the world, and as a result the Church, as being filled with combating ideological camps. He's President Bush standing in front of us all and saying "you are either with us or against us." That Francis is being lionized by people who love neither the Church, nor the real flesh and blood human beings that make it up, and seems to be actively seeking their approval, makes me sad beyond words.

It's not that I didn't know it was coming. It's sort of like your own demise. It's one thing to acknowledge one's inevitable end. It's another to see it looming up before you.

A New Venture

And now for something completely different...



I've actually been contemplating putting together a philosophy tinged podcast which would kind of be like an audio version of James Burke's Connections, only infinitely more trivial.