Pope Francis has to be understood in the light of Matthew 11:16-19. He doesn’t have any ability to change doctrine or to establish practices that contradict doctrine, and he knows it. But he also knows that Sexual Revolution 2.0 has made people deaf to what the Church is saying. So he has switched to playing the pipe to get people to tune in. In an odd way — as the lengthy screed above shows — it’s working.
Here’s the truly dangerous and depressing part: a bad pope can’t chance the Catholic creed, but he can change the Catholic culture.