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The Pope will not find a safe way out of the box he has out himself in.

I humbly disagree.

The Pope will eventually get what he wants, because this is all about following the money.

The Catholic Church in developed countries is experiencing a demographic cratering. I have seen the figures from my own diocese, and they are sobering. Registered Catholic parishoners, Mass attendance, collections, all down by big double-digits in just over a decade.

Very significant numbers of Catholics have stopped coming to Mass because they are divorced, whether through any fault of their own, or not. Rather than deal with being shunned from the sacraments, or put through a humiliating annulment process, most just stop showing up. Large numbers of these then join nondenominational churches where they TITHE.

And therein lies the rub for the Vatican. They are determined some how, some way, to woo these people back to the Catholic Church and get them contributing to OUR collection baskets again.

Those of you saying "there's no way the Cardinals will allow this to stand" are the same ones who said "no way the Supreme Court will ever allow Obamacare to stand." The Cardinals will ultimately go through whatever philosophical gymnastics that are required in order to justify this.

Attendance and finances are an important issue, to be sure. But there are some Cardinals, Burke is one of them, that doesn't seem to consider the "worldly" aspects when it comes to doctrine.

For them, it is not about marketing, it is about the soul of the church.