DUE TO the wi-fi problem on my street, I was thinking of not writing anything this morning but I came across this article by Jamie Manson and was struck by this passage:
The church is in a remarkable position, one that it hasn't been in for centuries. We have a scenario that is akin to the rise of an anti-pope.
As most of us remember from high school history class, during the Western Schism, which began in 1378, there was a pope in Rome and an anti-pope in Avignon, France. But there was also a second anti-pope who took up residence in Pisa, Italy. The first Pisan anti-pope was Alexander V. He died early in his reign and was succeeded by another anti-pope, who, believe it or not, took the name John XXIII.
There have been more than 30 antipopes in the Catholic Church's history, and they typically had factions behind them who questioned the validity of the election of the pope in Rome.
Regardless of how cognizant Benedict is of what is going on around him, he has a vocal, well-oiled faction of radically traditionalist Catholics who do not accept the authority of the current supreme pontiff.
This widening fissure in the church is, of course, what comes with vesting one man with absolute, unchecked, quasi-divine power.
As can be seen from the scandalous behavior of traditionalist Catholic bishops and cardinals, Dolan, Burke, Strickland, and a large number of other American and even foreign cardinals, bishops, even priests, many of the same who have tried to set up the retired pope, Benedict XVI as an anti-pope as an assertion of the illegitimacy of good Pope Francis, are as all in on setting up Trump as an anti-president. Nothing much good came of the anti-popes of history, some of them were as corrupt as the worst in-Vatican Popes but few of them could outdo Donald Trump in his lavish corrupt depravity. While I have been extremely critical of Benedict XVI from even before he became Pope, minus the red shoes he loved to wear and his choices in other matters, he couldn't come close to Trump in corruption and vulgar disregard of Christianity.
I had thought I might comment on the substance of the article that passage comes from but I will wait to do that. I thought this should be pointed out. I think calling Trump the anti-pope would stick in the craw of the Republican-fascists among "catholic" neo-integralists (that's Catholic talk for "white evangelicals" among us) but it would take some explanation for most people, including many Catholics who probably never heard of the anti-popes. Calling him "anti-president" in lower case is probably more effective.
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