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In looking for the facts regarding the claim about the Pope and libations in Africa, I found this article. I don't know much about the author, but it is an interesting read.

This author sees through a glass darkly. Thanks for your consistancy, Narses.

Michael J. Matt is editor of The Remnant. A fine article, thanks for posting it.

More than 4,500 words dedicated to criticizing the Pope and/or patronizing him.I really like the passages where this "oh,so catholic" individual talks about "loving" the Pope and goes on to describe him as a pathetic,tired,exhausted,pitiful,bent,stooped old man who seems to be unaware of what Catholicism is about.

I know that many Traditionalists don't pay too much attention to scripture but perhaps if they reread Luke 14:7-24,they might get some insights.The parable about the wedding feast might also be helpful as would the passages about the laborers,who were unhappy with their pay.

I can admit that I am not always happy with what the Pope says or does but he prays more than I do,he is smarter than I am and he has many advisors who know more than I do. When I add the fact that Jesus Christ clearly entrusted Peter and His Successors to lead the visible Church and promised the Holy Ghost would be with His Church until the end,I realize that to not follow Peter would be presumptuous and would eventually lead to despair.Both are sins.So I will remain on the "barque" and continue to fight those also on board,who seek to upend it.

Michael Matt is a member of the disgruntled curmudgeon wing of the Matt family who apparently believe that the Wanderer owned by the rest of their divided family is a progressive nuisance.

Hence the Remnant is the newspaper which serves those whose litmus test for orthodoxy is ever more irresponsible attacks on John Paul II, and ever narrowing and cartoonish attacks on anyone and everyone who refuses to play their game of Aren't I Orthodox, I disagree with practically everyone! Sometimes they even seem to wonder about themselves.

The Remnant is a willing home for the likes of Thomas Woods and Christopher Ferrara whose ever escalating hysteria is an embarassment to genuinely orthodox Catholics.

A picture of Woods, Ferrara and Michael Matt in a foxhole (no actual war but they like foxholes) comes to mind. Any one of them might say to the others: "You know there are only the three of us, me and the two of thee, left and sometimes I wonder about the two of thee!" Just another form of self-worship. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Actually, without getting into name calling and invective, I think the article expresses the genuine puzzlement that many of us feel.

There has never been an individual Pope who was more personally popular, partly because the media resources to "mass market" a Pope had never been present before now. It is also because this Pope has made an enormous effort at personal outreach.

But I will admit that I, too, am often puzzled by the substance of this outreach. Vatican II was, as the article points out, a very ambiguous event that was the source of very ambiguous documents. And this Vatican II papacy seems to me to have continued along the path of ambiguity in a way that verges on the unnerving.

So we have an enormously broad outreach - but a very unclear message.