Ten Takeaways from the Pope’s Interview

It has been suggested to me that it may be helpful to pare down my less-than-exhaustive observations on the Holy Father’s interview to a simple list of the 10 takeaways, so they can be more easily shared, and read, along with an invitation to explore the much longer supporting text at another time. I agree. There’s something to be said for bullet points and brevity. (Not my gift.)

1. Pope Francis is very uncomfortable wielding authority.

2. As a result, this is a pope who is determined to seek refuge in the conciliar invention known as “collegiality.”

3. Pope Francis’ unwillingness to take up the mantle of Christ’s authority as vested in the Roman Pontiff has a profound, adverse, effect on his ecclesiology.

4. Perhaps this is why Pope Francis seems to imagine that a certain dichotomy, or at the very least, a noteworthy tension, exists between orthodoxy and orthopraxy; belief and practice; doctrine and spirituality.

5. Pope Francis apparently sees a Church that the overwhelming majority of the faithful have never experienced.

6. This pope, like his immediate predecessors, is utterly determined not to allow “the facts on the ground” to interfere with his view of the Second Vatican Council.

7. Pope Francis’ determination to praise Vatican II, and to treat it as if it alone constitutes the fullness of sure doctrine, has engendered in him an open hostility toward those who dare to embrace the doctrine of the faith as it was taught and lived prior to the confusion that was ushered in by the conciliar innovations, firstly, with regard to liturgy.

8. Pope Francis’ hostility toward traditional Catholics also has roots in his compromised ecclesiology.

9. Pope Francis appears to believe that Catholic teaching must be adapted to humankind, not vice versa. Likewise, he believes that Church teaching does not form the man; rather, the man forms the teaching.

10. Pope Francis is a modernist.

Conclusion

We must us fast and pray much for this Holy Father, that he may, by the grace of God, govern the Church according to His will.

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