this morning, one which mocked Catholic "doctrine" as being entirely nonsensical. I just didn't want to get into it, especially with someone who I doubt has the slightest notion of what Catholic doctrine is and how it differs from dogma or a pop cultural dog's lunch of Chick Publications' nonsense, for that matter. I think he thought it was going to upset me but, as he generally does, he missed.
As things progressed through a busy day I thought it was kind of funny because "Catholic doctrine" isn't what the Church is most importantly about, even for most Catholics, it's how we live that matters. I say that as I mention that that "Catholic doctrine" includes the social-justice doctrine that it's clear Pope Leo XIV has signaled will be a major focus of his papacy. If I had to choose between any secular doctrines, everything from market economics to a mixed system to the many socialisms that aren't absolutely wedded to a transcendent conception of human and other life I would say anyone who doesn't choose that "doctrine" is a fool.
Looking at RMJ's place he makes a similar point much more briefly:
I am always cheered by anything that advances people over other concerns.
It was when Good Pope Francis did that he got the right wingers, the Burke's the Sarahs, the Muellers, the Stricklands, Viganòs, and the EWTN, National Catholic Register (not to be confused with the generally excellent National Catholic Reporter) and the rest of the billionaire-millionaire financed "trad-cath" astro-turf LARP cult in a swivet. It got not a few of the Cardinal Electors in a swivet too, even some of them made it clear they didn't want someone who would carry on the work of Francis. Even some of those those who Francis showed his charity, such as the scandal plagued Cardinal Pell, turned on him because he cared more about People than abstract notions of purity in doctrine and dogma. Charity comes well down the list of concerns for such guys, even though it was the central teaching of Jesus. I would point out that one of the greatest ironies of the would-be "trad-Catholics" is that they're even more willing to overturn even the longest standing of those, like the U.S. Supreme Court in the hands of the American right, there is little apart from scolding other People over their sex lives that such are willing to overturn in service of their often blatantly corrupt ends. And when you mix in such stuff as American legal credentialing by the most elite of our secular universities, the trad-caths go full raving fascist loony.
The social media and other activity of the well-financed liars of the trad-cath right in the period between the papacy of Good Pope Francis and Pope Leo has been fully as bad as the worst of the Republican-fascist attacks on President Biden and then Kamala Harris, joined in by the commercial, secular media. I was glad to see that like Francis, Pope Leo has some familiarity with social media, he must be familiar with the worst of it. Which I don't think it will be possible to ignore. I hope, unlike Francis, that he is more willing to crack down hard on the lying cardinals, bishops, priests, etc. whose mother tongue isn't Church Latin but false witness. Such as Strickland and Viganò should have been shut down a lot sooner than they were. While I hope that such cases are handled with more justice than JPII and Benedict XVI often dealt with their critics, I hope Pope Leo understands the danger that they pose, not just to the Church but to secular politics in places where the cults that they sway exist. Doing justice is always a narrow path between caring about the rights of the individual and the danger they pose to the wider community or an innocent individual. I think, though Francis did, in the end, take means to protect the innocent, sometimes he should have acted faster.
I think RMJ said it best, though.
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