The Pope is a thorough lib, but he is also not a very smart or well educated man, and like many such people, has a huge ego that is gratified by publicity. He is being manipulated by many people more leftist than he, and, strangely enough, has brought a lot of VII Golden Oldies back onto the stage. Many of them are actually already retired, but the VII Geezers’ Club of Theological Failures seems to be his go-to group.
Interestingly enough, he has two opponents: a few hyper-brilliant and hyper-learned people like Burke, and then the regular layfolk in the pews. Pope Francis was popular to begin with because he had a sort of warm and fuzzy approach, but now that the fangs have come out, many just average pewsitting people I know are way less enthusiastic and are actually very concerned about the Faith.
I liked him immediately - and it’s still hard to not like the guy.
I was more uneasy when he started expressing his views on economics. It wasn’t so much that I disagreed with him - but that he appeared to be assigning the worst possible motives to people he viewed as opposing him (motivated by greed - little concern for the poor ... Etc)
With one group he will say, “who am I to judge?”
And yet when it comes to capitalism? It sounds JUDGEY.
This whole thing with Cardinal Burke has raised by queasiness up a few notches.