Monday, November 13, 2017

Pope Francis: Enemies within; Friends without


This article occupied a tab on my Chrome browser for countless days until I made it a point to read it yesterday. What a sorry state the Catholic Church is in. To us outsiders it looked like they finally had a leader who could lead them into the 21st century but inside the secret society, they wanted him dead  instead.

Priests praying for the death of their Pontiff. How low can you get?

But within the church, Francis has provoked a ferocious backlash from conservatives who fear that this spirit will divide the church, and could even shatter it. This summer, one prominent English priest said to me: “We can’t wait for him to die. It’s unprintable what we say in private. Whenever two priests meet, they talk about how awful Bergoglio is … he’s like Caligula: if he had a horse, he’d make him cardinal.” Of course, after 10 minutes of fluent complaint, he added: “You mustn’t print any of this, or I’ll be sacked.”
I think Protestantism have its own similar problems but because of its diversity it is much harder to make out.

The good work of the churches is not being done at the top but anonymously and unheralded at the the bottom. Even if its heads fell off those who belonged to the their Lord will just carry on as usual and trust God to regrow the leadership layer. This is the way Protestantism has always renewed itself and stayed relevant. The Roman Catholic Church being hierarchical have no such luck.

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