Listen to your self! How can the same hands the chastised me for my methods of defending the faith type those words? They may be lost, now, at this moment, but they, as you pointed out are children of God. A detached, academic interest in their opinion without even an attempt at helping them see the error of their ways is as damaging to you as their error is to them. You are far, far better than that!
The pope was setting up a game, as has been shown by his recent Ukraine venture.
He has an obligation to those souls does he not?
But I actually like your pope these days. I just don't want to bow to him.
Sigh...so near and yet so far.
What of others, who are outside, in the secular culture?
"There is no outside. There is no place where God is not, even now. Even those who do not know the truth of Christ are also created, beloved, and known by Him. He is closer to them than their own breath, though they do not know Him. We work together with God so that every person can come to saving knowledge of Christ, and be healed and transformed alongside us.
What has the culture to do with this?
Christ has compassion on those who are harassed and helpless because they do not know their shepherd. The culture is the ever-changing weather conditions that these sheep must endure, which they try to respond to as best they can, though they are confused and wounded. Protection and rescue of individual sheep is our primary goal. It is less worthwhile to try to change the weather. We may occasionally have isolated success, but it appears that every weather pattern will have both good and bad elements, and weather itself is bound to be a perennial phenomenon.
How can we convert the culture?
A culture cannot be converted. Only individuals can be converted. God knows how to reach each individual; every conversion is an inside job. We cooperate by listening attentively for God’s directions and speaking the right word at the right moment, doing a kind deed, bearing Christ’s light and being His fragrance in the lives of people we know. This is the level where things change, one individual at a time, as one coal gives light to another. When enough people change, the culture follows--though, again, the hope of ever having a perfect culture is futile. Our effectiveness as witnesses is not tested on the public stage, but by our private daily conduct. If we are not being healed at those levels, all we do for public display will be garbage. But only acquire the Holy Spirit and you will save a thousand around you (St. Seraphim of Sarov, died 1833)."