Posted on 12/22/2016 2:36:58 PM PST by NYer
When Pope Francis delivers his Christmas message this weekend, he will do so not just as the head of the Catholic Church but as the improbable standard-bearer for many progressives around the world.
With conservative and nationalist forces on the rise in many places and with figures such as U.S. President Barack Obama and French President François Hollande on their way out, many on the left—from socialists in Latin America to environmentalists in Europe—are looking to the 80-year-old pontiff for leadership.
“Pope Francis really inspires a lot of people to want to fight. I’m pretty sure if he weren’t the face of the Catholic Church, he’d be out in the street with us,” said Bleu Rainer, an activist in the “Fight for $15” minimum-wage movement in Tampa, Fla., who traveled to Rome last month for an international meeting of grass-roots activists addressed by the pope. “He reinforces our issues and makes them moral issues.”
Yet the pope’s support for some liberal causes, rooted in traditional Christian concern for the poor and defenseless, has meant joining forces with some partners who reject major Catholic moral teachings. Critics also say that the church’s leader shouldn’t take such strong stands on political questions about which Catholics are allowed to have a range of views.
Pope Francis has taken bold positions on a variety of issues, including migration, climate change, economic equality and the rights of indigenous peoples. His June 2015 environmental encyclical “Laudato Si’ ” called for a sharp reduction in the use of fossil fuels and described global warming as a major threat to life on Earth. The document was also an indictment of the global market economy, which he said has plundered the planet at the expense of the poor and of future generations.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Catholic ping!
Is there no mechanism by which he can be removed before he does any more damage?
No, but hopefully he'll be slapped down by the cardinals so hard his teeth will fall out when they do a "formal papal correction" in January.
Papa, why hast thou forsaken us?
GRRR!
There are several mechanisms but they would place users in a state of mortal sin.
I didn't realize he was that old. Maybe God will hand him his eternal pink slip soon.
The fake Pope is the Marxist standard bearer for modern day communists.
He does not represent Catholics who still believe in Church teachings, however.
Did he ever oppose papal leadership while he was serving in Argentina?
s a lifelong Catholic I really wish he could be impeached.
“Pope Francis really inspires a lot of people to want to fight.
***
Oh, he has inspired a lot of us to fight — to fight his “social justice” agenda.
Short of being struck by lightning what is there to be done, really? The same Vatican that brought him in would have to be the ones who take him out? Not likely if that’s the case.
Praying you are right....
ping
In a sense, no. I.e., there is no process in Canon Law for the removal of a Pope.
There are, however, procedures that canonists and theologians have pondered, based on the principles that 1) that no one can judge a Pope (and therefore, no one can remove a Pope), but 2) a heretic cannot be Pope.
Thus, a group of Cardinals can declare publicly that Bergoglio has become a heretic, and is no longer Pope.
Bergoglio COULD insist that he is Pope until the day he dies, but there is at least the possibility that he would resign.
He made a very strong statement condemning Benedict’s Regensburg speech. It was noticed in Rome. I think Bergoglio even cancelled a scheduled trip to Rome shortly after.
He will never resign. And I have serious doubts that a majority of Cardinals would ever declare him a heretic. They are the ones who are responsible for electing this dubious Pope.
There’s no need for a majority of the Cardinals. (Since this process exists by natural law, rather than Canon Law, there is no “requirement” for a majority.)
The only “requirement” is that what the Cardinals declare be the truth.
Leader of the global left? Boy, that sure has an anti-Christ vibe to it.
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