The Pope Is Dead. Long Live the Papacy.
I remember distinctly the day Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope. Working for a diocese, I was in the middle of a meeting with an older woman and a deacon. They wanted to know if they could start a support group for families with members who were same-sex attracted. The woman’s son was a practicing homosexual, and she wanted to support him in his lifestyle (i.e., endorse sin). I was in the process of putting the kibosh on this idea when we were interrupted, “White smoke!”
Like most American Catholics, I had no idea who Jorge Bergoglio was, so I was open-minded about the new Francis pontificate. But before long I was having misgivings. Only a few months into his pontificate, Francis uttered the infamous “Who am I to judge?” line, and just a few weeks later, that older woman and the deacon were back in my office, insisting that the Church had changed. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to have their pro-LGTBQ group? Even the pope was on their side now!
Picking up my kibosh where I’d left off, I explained why the group they envisioned could not be approved by the diocese, giving an explanation of what the Church actually teaches about sexuality as a rational basis. I concluded with the soon-to-become-familiar “I think what Pope Francis really meant was…,” but I did have an uneasy feeling that this pontificate was going to make my job a lot harder. Little did I know.
A social convention dictates that we not speak ill of the dead. The deceased person can’t d
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