There are scads of articles out there in the press (Newsweek, for example) painting a discouraging picture of BXVI, but I think they actually have little substance Iand are to marginalize him by simply dismissing him. Newsweek criticized him for not travelling enough, for example; what’s “enough,” and where is it written that any Pope has to go globe-trotting?
BXVI proceeds in a very slow and deliberate way, but he does proceed. He built up the case very carefully in Italy, for example, having a special study on the Church, legislation, and natural law, and then issuing a paper, so that the Italian bishops could then declare that anyone who voted for same-sex “marriage” was violating Church teachings and thus excommunicated. He is very thorough, and I think we’ll see the same thing here when he turns towards the US. But we’re in a difficult situation, with many difficult “leaders,” and I think he has to proceed carefully and with confidence that what he is doing is iron-clad from a doctrinal and canonical point of view.
Interesting. How has the Italian government received that? I imagine if a similar thing were done here, there would be calls to revoke the RCC’s tax exempt status (well, more calls I guess).