[Catholic Caucus] The College of Cardinals is on the Clock

St. Louis Catholic ^ | May 23, 2018 | The Tinman

[ebb tide]

It’s like this:

There is no hell; unsaved souls are simply annihilated.

God made you”gay”, thus the all good God makes souls to commit mortal sin, or else sodomy is not a sin.

Persons living in notorious adulterous relationships are sometimes doing the best God can expect from them in concrete circumstances and sometimes they should be allowed to commit sacrilege by receiving Holy Communion.

These are all positions attributed to Francis. The first two are alleged to be spoken by Francis himself, the other is contained in a mealy-mouthed footnote in an ostensibly magisterial document. These are all positions that neither he nor his official spokesmen have repudiated. These are all positions that have a deniability fig leaf of plastic-wrap opacity. They are all positions that nearly every person, Catholic or not, thinks Francis actually holds.

The point is that this is simply intolerable. Any Catholic can see it. Waiting for this man to die is not good enough. He is decimating the Church. What will be left when he goes away? Who will be left to vote for a better successor?

No. He must be confronted now. And by the only people with the authority to declare whether this man is a manifest, public heretic who has deposed himself by the authority of Christ. Too much ambiguity? I agree. The College of Cardinals must present a demand that the above positions attributed to Bergoglio be publicly repudiated by a date certain. Days, not weeks.

Days.

And then, if he does not so repudiate them, declare him deposed.

After that, and before a new conclave, elicit a clear statement of abdication (past or present), from Benedict XVI, to avoid any shenanigans on that front.

Cardinals, you are on the clock. Every day that goes by before you act is on you.

[dominic flandry]

This will not happen. The Cardinals will sit back and do nothing.

[Marchmain]

The Cardinals may be on the clock, but they are in their own special time zone.

[Verginius Rufus]

The cardinals who elected Pope Francis were all, or nearly all, selected by Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI (I don't know if any cardinals chosen by Paul VI would have still been eligible to vote in 2013). The cardinals who would elect a new pope would be the same, minus those who died or turned 80 since 2013, plus those selected by Pope Francis.

So how many of the cardinals at the next conclave will think that Pope Francis was a terrible mistake and how many will think that they should vote for another Francis?