Why am I not surprised that protestants attack me for criticizing a protestant pope? He's their hero.
(Tony)Palmer and Bergoglio had intense discussions about Christian separation, using the analogy of apartheid in South Africa. They found common ground in believing that institutional separation breeds fear and misunderstanding. Bergoglio, whom Palmer called Father Mario, acted as a spiritual father to the Protestant cleric, calming him (he wanted to make me a reformer, not a rebel, Palmer told me) and encouraging him in his mission to Christian unity.
At one point, when Palmer was tired of living on the frontier and wanted to become Catholic, Bergoglio advised him against conversion for the sake of the mission.
Whatever "mission" Bergoglio is on is not the commission Christ gave to his Apostles.
What was being done was comparison of many (including yourself, to some extent) criticizing not only Pope Bergoglio, but a great deal of what has transpired within Roman Catholicism -- that has been widely objected to by more than a mere few -- since (and chiefly including, it could be said) Vatican II.
You were being "attacked"? Ha. That's laughable.
What was being done was comparison of many (including yourself, to some extent) criticizing not only Pope Bergoglio, but also criticizing a great deal of what has transpired within Roman Catholicism since (and chiefly including, it could be said) Vatican II.
Doing so is being more "like" Martin Luther than many appear to realize -- wanting to return to original teaching and traditions.
Luther himself had attempted to look upon what had more originally been within the wider more truly universal (thus actually 'catholic' as active verb) Church from the barest first beginnings of the Church.
Not being able to rely upon ECF's, and the like --for reason those can be found to be in some regards, in disagreement with one another when writings compared side-by-side, and those ECF's could be found in yet more disagreement (often only seemingly slight -- but still at times quite theologically significant disagreement) with scholastics closer to Luther's own era, Luther turned towards scripture as ultimate authority, yet when doing so was not "inventing" some new doctrine as much as more fully fleshing out what was in earliest centuries of the Church more common way of thinking among churchmen. It was one of those things that for the most part went without saying.