“The slimeball faux Pope speaketh.”
I don’t know if you are Catholic or not, but I agree with this characterization (although it contradicts his other statement about insulting someone). My only question is why Catholics call him the fake pope. He was elected by a lawfully assembly of the Cardinals, wasn’t he? If so, then he is a successor of Peter according to Catholic dogma, right? If that is the case, then he “has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he can always exercise this power freely.” Vatican II.
He’s the real pope, I think, and I think that has real-world implications for the catholic institution, doesn’t it? Conservative catholics today remind me of the Zell Miller type Democrats, who eventually have to get out of the institution because it is going a completely different direction.
It's a good question. A few people I have read on this say that if Benedict left his office under duress, then his resignation wasn't valid and therefore Bergoglio is not the Pope. There have been times in the past where papal elections have later been nullified because of some irregularity. Believe me, I'd LOVE for this to be the case because he's been so destructive, it seems like the easiest thing would be to call him an anti-pope and that's the end of this madness. But while a lay person can have his beliefs on that, all it is is a private opinion. It'll take a Council and a future Pope to sort it out officially--like when Pope Agatho ratified the anathemas on Pope Honorius.
He does, yes, have supreme power over the temporal part of the Church BUT he has zero power over Christ who is its true head and zero power of the Holy Ghost who is its beating heart. The Pope cannot create or delete a sacrament. He cannot nullify a dogma. He cannot contradict the faith passed down from the ages. His power is only a confirmatory and strengthening power of what was divinely established...not a power of revolution and change.
If Bergoglio were to just come out and say "homosexuality is ok now", he would be rightly called a heretic and pretty much lose his office by that very fact.
I agree with you this has real-world implications. And I think your intimation is, although you didn't say it, "See! Protestants were right all along!"
To that I say: it's early yet. Keep watching this. If you see the Catholic Church fall and crumble apart from this mess, then it showed itself a mere human institution that can fail like the rest.
If, however, as I believe, in one of its darkest hours you see the Catholic Church rise to the occasion, expel the heretics, and reassert its allegiance to Christ triumphantly and unconditionally, then that is evidence that, like we've always said, there is a Divine protection over it, and the gates of Hell will never prevail against it.
The question is how many Catholics are actual liberals
Quite a few apparently worldwide at least
Where I grew up they were in general more socially liberal than say Pentecostals or Missionary Baptist were ....much more
Catholics have tended to vote democrat until very recently
That may be an urban perspective more than religious historically
And lately a racial perspective as in US Hispanics
Ironically I think the Catholic Church in Africa is the most doctrinaire