I don’t know about Dreher, but the quotes from Ross Douthat make sense.
Maybe I should explain that I am a Catholic. I converted from Episcopalian back in the 1950s. I have been perturbed by all the nonsense that came in with “the Spirit of Vatican II.” The old Latin Mass was far better, and the churches were much fuller back then.
I say “the Spirit of Vatican II,” because I have read all the documents of the Council, and there are no heretical statements in any of them. But I think the Council was unwise. In the long history of the Church, some councils have been badly needed and very important. Others could have been skipped. Vatican II is one of those, for the most part.
I remain in the Church, and put up with it. But it saddens me to see our children so badly educated in their faith, and our fellow Catholics rarely attending Mass. But much as I would like to attend Latin Masses, I have stayed away from the Society of Pius X or Pius V. The Catholic Church is the one and only, and schism should be avoided.
God will protect His Church from error ex Cathedra, but there have been some bad or weak popes in the past, and I’m afraid that Pope Francis is behaving as kind of a jerk. Pope Benedict was great, and I’m still mystified why he retired or perhaps was forced into retirement. Deathly ill? Apparently not. His mind still seems to be working much better than Pope Francis’s, judging from an article I read a little while ago.
I hate to criticize the Pope, so I don’t often post much on these threads. But I think we need to be aware of whatever is going on—as far as we can.
The rumor is (for what it’s worth) that Benedict was too emotionally devastated by the scandal surrounding his (well really precipitated by) his personal butler and the Vatican Bank to continue his pontificate.