Francis and Cupich Transcend Satire

With my warped sense of humor, I should have noticed this earlier, but Weird Dave of Ace of Spades, being weird, has noticed it. (There’s handy screenshots at the link.  Scroll down to “Satire is dead.”)

Pope Francis and Cardinal Cupich have transcended satire . . . or killed it.

First, on August 16^th, the Babylon Bee posted “Pope Says He Will Address Sex Abuse Scandal Once He’s Finished Talking About Climate Change.”  It began:

In his first public statement on the horrifying, devastating report on sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, Pope Francis stated he would address the controversy in detail once he’s done talking about climate change for a few more weeks.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church claimed he is deeply concerned with the tragic report, but is “just too swamped” with work fighting climate change, criticizing capitalism, and advocating for other issues of social justice to talk about the repulsive report at the moment.

Now that is satire, just to be clear. . . . Or it was satire.

For ten days later, after the Vigano statement, Cardinal Cupich made this statement as I’ve noted:

The pope knows we have a bigger agenda. We have to speak about the environment, about the poor, we have to reach out to people who are marginalized in society. We cannot be distracted at this moment,” Cupich said.

Elsewhere, Cupich was quoted, “The Pope has a bigger agenda. … He’s got to get on with other things, of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on with the work of the church. We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.”

That is not satire. . . .  Really.  I’m dead serious.  It is not satire.

Beyond that, I’ve got nothing.  How can satire survive that?

Perhaps we need a new feast day?  The Feast of the Translation of Holy Satire?

Cardinal Cupich Doesn’t Like You Distracting Bigots

Cardinal Blase Cupich is not happy with you bigots who think Pope Francis should resign or, at the very least, think Francis’ promotion of apostate predators and wolves should be thoroughly investigated.

“The pope knows we have a bigger agenda. We have to speak about the environment, about the poor, we have to reach out to people who are marginalized in society. We cannot be distracted at this moment,” Cupich said.

Yes, the Gospel, the purity of the church, and protecting the young are such annoying distractions from lib/left political activism.  And Vigano’s testimony is a really bad distraction:

Cupich described the contents of Archbishop Carlos Maria Viganò’s 11-page testimony, published Aug. 25, as a “rabbit hole” that he does not think the Church should be going down.

Yes, the church should ignore Pope Francis’ rehabilitation of Uncle Ted McCarrick and the appointment of Uncle Ted’s libchurch allies as Cardinals.  Nothing to see here!

And Cupich knows the real reason I and others dislike Francis:

“Quite frankly, they also don’t like him because he’s a Latino,” said Cupich. Pope Francis was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to parents of Italian descent.

But don’t let that detail keep you from playing the race card, Cardinal.

Now there is a reason I mock Cupich’s statements other than that there are such easy targets.  Backed by the predatory Uncle Ted, this is the sort of libchurcher with which Francis has stacked the College of Cardinals. Therefore, if we are to have a robustly orthodox Pope in our lifetimes, it is not enough that Francis resign. The likes of Cupich, Wuerl etc. must be shown the door as well. 

But I have serious doubts that even Francis will resign.  I might get to that another time.

Abusing and Covering-Up Libchurchers Elected Pope Francis and Were Rewarded

Yes, I have been slow to respond here to the explosive statement of ex-Nuncio Archbishop Carlo Vigano for a number of boring personal reasons and for a not so personal reason – that statement was so candid and so from the inside that I doubted at first that it was authentic.  But by now it is obvious it is authentic.  And it is a must read.

Francis responded to the statement yesterday if it can be called a response:

“I will respond to your question,” says the pope in a video of the plane presser translated by LifeSiteNews. “But I would prefer that we first speak about the trip, and then other topics[.] … This morning I read that statement. I read it, and I will say sincerely that I must tell you all this – you [CBS] and all of you who are interested: Read the statement carefully yourselves and make your own judgment.I am not going to say a word about this.I believe that the statement speaks for itself, and you all have sufficient journalistic ability to draw conclusions.”

And overnight, Vigano’s statement received important confirmation:

Meanwhile, the Catholic News Agency (CNA) obtained a brief statement from Monsignor Jean-François Lantheaume, the former first counselor of the nunciature in Washington, whose job it was to inform Cardinal McCarrick of the sanctions imposed on him by Pope Benedict XVI. Lantheaume, who declined to give an interview, merely confirmed the veracity of Viganò’s report.

“Viganò said the truth. That’s all,” said Lantheaume, in a written response to CNA.

A number of traditionalist catholic sites are covering this closely.  (The twitter of Rorate Caeli is particularly impressive.)  And I do not want to duplicate their efforts. So I will try to restrain myself as this unfolds to pointing out some aspects that may be below readers’ radars or are in some other way value-added. 

First, it must be noted that there is an ugly pattern here as pointed out by Damian Thompson:

This is becoming clearer in my mind.
Danneels: complicit in sex abuse, campaigned for Bergoglio.
McCarrick: sex abuser, campaigned for Bergoglio.
Bergoglio becomes pope. Both men – mirabile dictu – are rehabilitated.
THIS STINKS.

— Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) August 26, 2018

In other words, key libchurchers who abused/enabled abuse/covered up abuse backed Bergoglio for Pope and, behold!, were rehabilitated after the election of Francis.  Not only that but, as Vigano’s statement states, they become influential in the appointment of other libchurchers, some/most of whom are also tied to abuse.  I hope no reader is so naïve as to consider all this a coincidence.

Uncle Ted McCarrick himself has been quite open about throwing his influence behind the election of Bergoglio.  And, lo and behold, his record of abuse, very well known in the Vatican, and the restriction of him by Pope Benedict was then [Anglican Understatement Alert] overlooked.

This mafia-like pattern is one reason it would not be enough for Francis to resign.  The libchurchers who conspired to elect a Pope who would favor them and sweep their sexual abuse and cover ups under the rug must be done away with as well.

But I will likely say more about that another time.

Bishop Jack Iker to Retire in 2019

I hate to see Bishop Iker retire soon.  We need more bishops like him.  The man is a hero to me. 

But he has announced his intention to retire at the end of 2019 and has called for the election of a Bishop Coadjutor.

Beyond that I am at a loss for words.

We Want Not Words, But Wuerl! UPDATED

It took a while, but Pope Francis has issued a letter “to the people of God” concerning the abuse of minors in the Roman Catholic Church.  I’ve read it, but not closely enough to parse it.

I have good reason for my negligence. Unless Pope Francis repents of being a libchurcher and pledges to remove libchurchers from positions of power, his words are close to pointless.  For, as I and others have pointed out, it is the dominance of libchurchers in key areas of the Church of Rome that has enabled its widespread sexual predation.

If Pope Francis’ concern is worth anything, he will give us not mere words, but Wuerl.  He will accept the resignation of Cardinal Wuerl.

What? Wuerl resigned?  Yes, back in 2015 when he turned 75.  Pope Francis could accept that pro forma resignation (as he has oh-so quickly when certain orthodox prelates reached resignation age).  And it would be a perfect resignation to accept. For not only has Wuerl presided over abuse and likely helped cover up the predations of his friend Uncle Ted Cardinal McCarrick, he is practically a prototype of a libchurch abuse-enabling bishop: 

He has suspended and intimidated conservative priests, and has even blocked conservative bishops from offering sacraments in his archdiocese, while doing almost nothing to combat the numerous shenanigans administered by Jesuits at Georgetown University. 

Of course, far far more needs to be done than accepting one resignation. Far far more libchurchers must have their church careers ended for the Roman Catholic Church to recover from their wolfish predations.  Nonetheless, more words mean little at this point.  Don’t give the faithful more of your words, Francis.  You talk too much anyway.  Bring us the mitre of Cardinal Wuerl.  Not words, but Wuerl!

Yes, Your Holiness, we know you don’t like capital punishment.  So the head need not be attached to said mitre.  At least it doesn’t have to be.

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MORE:
Here’s a taste of Wuerl in action if you can stomach it: hard on orthodox priests, easy on predator priests.

With the WARNING that it’s difficult reading, here’s more details on how easy he was on predator priests.

He. Must. Go.

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UPDATE:

And maybe he will soon.

The Washington Post confidently declares that it is "unlikely" Wuerl will resign soon. I'm hearing something different. A source close to Wuerl reported to me that he is telling people around him that he is resigning.

— George Neumayr (@george_neumayr) August 21, 2018

 

One of Pope Francis’ Friends Lets the Truth Slip Out

With the current abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, it may be easy for some to miss its even bigger problem – the lack of faithfulness to traditional catholicity.  And as I noted in my last post, that lack of faithfulness has led to other problems, including endemic sexual abuse.  These problems have all been made worse by the lack of faithfulness of the current Bishop of Rome.

A fervent friend of Francis, Fr. Thomas Rosica has let slip the extent of that lack of faithfulness: 

Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants, because he is “free from disordered attachments.” Our Church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.

When a furor promptly and rightly broke out, the remarks were revised.  But, too late, alert people remembered. 

There is a book out about Francis called The Dictator Pope.  Some may find its premise overwrought and even I hesitate to call Francis a dictator (although I can call him a lot of things).  But if the Church of Rome “is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture,” and Francis has acted in that manner in changing the catechism on capital punishment among other matters, that is a bit dictatorial, no?

Fr. John Hunwicke notes what a grave situation the Church of Rome is therefore now in.  I will let him conclude.

Bergoglianism has been encapsulated in an even more extreme form than this by the cynically blasphemous observation of the jesuit "General" that the Lord's Words were not captured on camera, and by Fr Rosica's boastfully candid admission that the Church is now entirely at the mercy of a pope to whom neither Scripture nor Tradition are prescriptive. Such exponents appear to offer a model of Christian teaching ministry unknown even to the heretics of earlier ages. Here we have not a heresy, but the supraheresy. Earlier heresiarchs may have monkeyed around with, and perverted the sense of, both Scripture and Tradition, but, I think, never before have we had the diabolical claim that a major heretical teacher is quite simply free from any control whatsoever within the Word of God whether written or orally transmitted. When I use the term 'diabolical', I mean it in the fullest possible sense. The fingerprints all over these preposterous claims are unmistakeable.

Understanding the Rot in the Roman Catholic Church

Like most of you, I am sickened by what a Pennsylvania grand jury has exposed about abuse of minors in the Roman Catholic Church.  But what most do not understand is the abuse is largely the fruit of a corrupt and liberal hierarchy.   Yes, there are outwardly conservative clerics who were involved in the abuse and/or cover-ups. But the abuse would not have gotten to be endemic without it being enabled by libchurchers.

Peter Kwasniewski is one of the few who gets it and is not shy about saying so:

The ring of criminal Nancy Boys is the same ring that has been sedulously working for decades to undermine the integrity of the doctrinal, moral, sacramental, liturgical Church. These men – McCarrick, McElroy, Wuerl, O’Malley, Mahony, Cupich, Tobin, Farrell, Lynch, Weakland, Paglia, Maradiaga, their lovable mouthpiece James Martin, Thomas Rosica, and far too many others, including ones who have passed on to their eternal fate, such as Lyons, Boland, Brom – are the same ones who have destabilized and adulterated catechesis, theology, liturgy, and most obviously the Church’s commitment to the unchanging moral law, as we saw in the Amoris Laetitia debacle and all that surrounded and succeeded it….

These are not just men of bad moral character; they are apostates, and they are trying to remake the Church in the image of their own apostasy. The Church has been smashed up in front of our eyes in slow motion for decades and few can even begin to admit that we are now faced with a Church in actual smithereens. The Nancy Boys have conducted their campaign of demolition with a kind of imperial sway. It is not this or that aspect of the Church that is corrupt; the rot is now everywhere. It is a rot on which the McCarrick Ring still sups, like maggots feasting on a corpse. For this reason, to hear well meaning people say Bergoglio must impanel some investigative body to set things right is Alice in Wonderland lunacy. It’s like putting Himmler in charge of Nuremberg….

It is a package deal. This, above all, is what people need to see. The moral depravity, the doctrinal heresy, the liturgical devastation – all of it goes together.

Like I said, he is not shy, but he is right. The abuse and libchurch apostasy go hand in hand, so to speak.  Take Boston, Cardinal Law (spit), and Paul Shanley for example.  Before Shanley’s predations on boys became public knowledge, he was well known as a radical “street preacher” who opposed church teaching on homosexuality.  He even spoke in defense of pedophilia at a NAMBLA conference in 1979. So, even apart from his abuse, why did it take decades after that for him to be defrocked?

Damnable lib bishops, that’s why.  From a 2002 New York Times article: 

Bishop McCormack, who served as a top aide to Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston before his appointment to Manchester, oversaw the transfer of several priests from parish to parish even after evidence of sexual misconduct grew with multiple accusations made against them.

One of those he helped to transfer around the country was the Rev. Paul R. Shanley, who has been accused of the sexual abuse of more than 20 young boys and who publicly defended pedophilia at a 1979 meeting of the North American Man-Boy Love Association.

The rot goes all the way to Vatican. Rod Dreher reveals how Uncle Ted McCarrick became a Cardinal:

Back then, I received a tip from a priest who had gone on his own dime to Rome, along with a group of prominent US Catholic laymen, to meet with an official for the Roman Curial congregation that names bishops. It had been rumored at the time that Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Newark, was going to be moved to Washington, DC, and to be made a cardinal. This group traveled to Rome to warn the Vatican that McCarrick was a sexual harrasser of seminarians. The story this priest shared with me was that McCarrick had a habit of compelling seminarians to share his bed for cuddling. These allegations did not involve sexual molestation, but were clearly about unwanted sexual harassment. To refuse the archbishop’s bedtime entreaties would be to risk your future as a priest, I was told.

Rome was informed by these laymen — whose number included professionally distinguished Catholics in a position to understand the kind of harm this would cause –that McCarrick was sexually exploiting these seminarians, but it did no good. McCarrick received his appointment to the Washington archdiocese in 2000.

That’s some of the “smoke of Satan” in the Vatican Benedict warned about.

Roman Catholics in the pews, like the mainstream Protestant counterparts, have put up with these libchurchers for too long. Kwasniewski again:

We need the apostates identified, denounced, and removed. We need a reaffirmation of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith. To clean up this mess, we have to clean up more than the scandal of homosexuality, with all of its attendant horrors. We have to denounce and reject the apostasy that powerful and influential homosexuals and their friends have insinuated into the Church over decades. 

Although I applaud and pray for those orthodox who are committed to reforming the Roman Catholic Church, I do not share Kwasniewski’s optimism that it can be done.  For one thing, Pope Francis has stacked the College of Cardinals with the likes of Blase Cupich and worse.  So I fear Benedict may be the last robustly orthodox pope.  Further, reform would require an orthodox pope with the will power and energy to clean up the Vatican and the College of Cardinals.  Not even Benedict had that nor has any pope since Vatican II.

That’s the thing about libchurchers. If you don’t put them in their place early, they end up taking over the place . . . with damnable consequences.

The rot in the Roman Catholic Church has implications of great import for Anglicans.  But I will get to that another time.

Is ACNA Nearing Broken Communion?

Statements by key Forward in Faith bishops at the Fort Worth FiF meeting earlier this month beg the question of whether communion within the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) will sooner or later go beyond impaired to becoming broken altogether over women's ordination among other issues.

Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth’s statement was particularly strong:

“I am extremely dismayed, because the [ACNA] College of Bishops has decided to fudge the issue by allowing ‘two integrities.’ There are two practices, one is apostolic, universal, scriptural, the other is schismatic, rebellious, feminist and revolutionary. Begun by the Episcopal Church illegally and forced upon the Church.” 

Iker then said that Forward in Faith, the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Mission in North America “came into ACNA” believing “we’d go into a theological discussion of the issue and move the right way forward. Now we’re being told that we signed on to ‘two integrities’.”…

Speeches by retired Bishop William Wantland and Missionary Diocese of All Saints Bishop William Ilgenfritz were perhaps even stronger medicine.  Read excerpts over at Forward in Christ Magazine.

In any case, this does not sound like bishops who intend to stick around if the “two integrities” status quo in ACNA remains the status quo.  Having said that, I do not expect anyone to leave before next year’s ACNA Provincial Assembly.  And with the Diocese of Ft. Worth there is the additional consideration of continuing litigation with The Episcopal Church.  They may want a resolution of that before deciding whether to stay in ACNA.  (But please note that I do NOT have any inside information in that regard.  This is my thinking only.)

As Fr. Michael Heidt concludes, “Whether and to what extent the Anglo-Catholic bishops of Forward in Faith North America will be able to live in a state of impaired communion with ACNA over female ordinations remains to be seen.”

Did Pope Francis Really Change Church Teaching?

I promised to comment further on the change in the Roman Catholic Catechism on the subject of capital punishment now that the official Latin text is out. So I guess I should keep my promise.  But I do not have much more to add except to say that it is not as certain as I first thought that Pope Francis has changed official R. C. Church teaching, although I remain appalled at his arbitrary tinkering with the Catechism to turn part of it into an act of political lobbying. 

However, to avoid further ranting and to focus on the presenting question – it is unclear whether official Roman Catholic teaching has changed.  I say this for two main reasons.  First, there is a lot of debate among Roman Catholics whether church teaching has changed, which is a good sign.  Second, as Fr John Hunwicke has noted, the letter that accompanied the Catechism change is hedged and “not how the Catholic Church talks about grave moral offenses.”

My best guess is that whether the Catechism change really is a change in official R. C. Church teaching depends on what future popes do with it.

Please do not mistake that for optimism. Given how Francis is stacking the College of Cardinals, I do not expect another robustly orthodox pope in my lifetime at least.  But if this bit of pessimism and my earlier posts on the capital punishment change prove alarmist and mistaken, I will be most glad to be proven wrong.

Fr. Hunwicke on Pope Francis’ “Deathgate” UPDATED

I’ve been eagerly awaiting Fr. John Hunwicke’s observations on Pope Francis apparently changing the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on capital punishment.  Hunwicke has not disappointed me.  He rarely does.

First, to my surprise, he posits that the situation might not be quite as bad as I and others have feared.  For the official text of the revised R. C. Catechism has not yet been published.  Hunwicke:

I can't see much point in making substantive comments on the "changes made to the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) on the death penalty" until the new text is published. All I can so far find on the Internet are some vernacular versions.

This, in itself, I object to. The world has been given the impression that the Catholic Church has changed its teaching when nobody has the wherewithal to judge whether or not this is true. I can only call this sort of behaviour in matters of faith and morals disgracefully frivolous. Can it be that PF wants to make an immediate impression on world opinion without giving theological professionals the prior opportunity to weaken by their analyses that impact?

But Hunwicke expects that once the official Latin text is published, capital punishment won’t be so completely “inadmissible” after all. 

By the way, he is very much opposed to capital punishment, yet shares my concern about how this apparent change in teaching has come about.

…such an arbitrary change in a documentary henotikon, in which X has metamorphosed into not-X in a very few years, and without (as far as we know) a detailed collegial consultation with the whole College of Bishops (such as Pius XII conducted before defining the Assumption), leaves a very nasty taste in my mouth. It is because I have been driven to the unhappy conclusion that the present pontificate is manipulative and dishonest, that I wonder if this change in the CCC may be preparing the way for some of Senor Bergoglio's other private opinions and personal convictions to be given spurious Magisterial colouring.

That is my chief concern.  I doubt that Francis will confine himself to capital punishment in arbitrarily changing church teaching.

UPDATE: The official Latin text has been released.  I will comment at a later time.

More on Pope Francis Changing Catechism on Capital Punishment: “This. Is. Big.”

Yesterday I concluded that the arbitrary change in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Catechism on capital punishment “could be the beginning of something awful.”

Rod Dreher gets this and spells out why very well.  I highly recommend reading his whole post.  He quotes Edward Feser at length in reviewing the teaching of scripture and the Fathers on capital punishment, which teaches that it is a legitimate tool of the state even if it should be used with great restraint.

Feser, anticipating that Pope Francis might change this longstanding church teaching on capital punishment, then wrote that doing so would be “effectively saying – whether consciously or unconsciously – that previous popes, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and even divinely inspired Scripture are in error.”

Dreher rightly asserts that this is exactly what Francis did and continues:

It seems to me that the Pope has crossed a bright line. He is denying, for the first time in nearly two millennia of Catholic teaching, and in direct contradiction to the Fathers of the Church, that the state has the right to impose capital punishment. That’s a meaningful difference from saying that the state has that right, but shouldn’t use it.

Even if you disfavor the death penalty, understand what this means: this Pope has claimed forthrightly that the Catholic Church taught error, but now, at long last, he has set the Church straight. From a traditional point of view, though, this means that the Pope is teaching error.

This. Is. Big.

Indeed it is.  And to clarify further, this is not just Pope Francis giving his opinion on capital punishment.  Hey, he’s a Libpope who likes to shoot off his mouth.  His stating his opposition to the death penalty is predictable.

He has gone far beyond expressing his opinion.  He has taken his opinion, which is contradicted by scripture, the Fathers, and many faithful today, and enshrined that opinion in the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, and that without the backing of a church council. (In fact, several have made that case that Vatican I forbids what Francis just did.)  Regardless of whether the subject is capital punishment, changing official church doctrine like this crosses “a bright line” that even Francis has not crossed before.

Both the tyrannical act and its implications are greatly alarming. Having pulled this doctrinal coup, does anyone think Francis will stop with only capital punishment? I fear for the damage he may do to the church in his remaining years.

This. Indeed. Is. Big.

Pope Francis Changes Roman Catholic Catechism on Death Penalty

First, the facts which Crux spells out well.

The Vatican announced on Thursday Pope Francis approved changes to the compendium of Catholic teaching published under Pope John Paul II.

“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church now says on the death penalty, adding that the Church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”

This is a departure from what the document, approved under Pope John Paul II in 1992, says on the matter: “Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”

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As it’s been re-written, the Catechism now also says that “Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.”

Yet today, “there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.”

“Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption,” says the Catechism now, as it was approved by Pope Francis.

It’s for this reason, and “in light of the Gospel,” that the Church teaches that the practice is now inadmissible.

Let me say that I consider capital punishment an issue on which faithful Christians can differ.  However, the weight of Scripture and of the Fathers leans very much for capital punishment in certain instances.  Steve Skojec reviews that background well.

Thus for the Pope to change the Catechism so that it is dead against all capital punishment is the height of arrogance, dismissing much scripture, the Fathers, and the consciences of many faithful.  That the Catechism is then twisted into a lobbying tool, e. g. the church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide” is outrageous and an attack on the consciences of those faithful who are convinced that there are times when capital punishment is appropriate. 

As Rorate Caeli points out, this is at the very least an egregious abuse of authority:

The current Pope has far exceeded his authority: his authority is to guard and protect the doctrine that was received from Christ and the Apostles, not to alter it according to his personal views. We are reaping the rewards of an unchecked hyper-clericalism: the same hyper-clericalism that allowed for abuses of people like Theodore McCarrick to go ignored and unpunished and now allows for the recklessness of the alteration of established doctrine received from Christ and the Apostles…. He is in open violation of the authority recognized to him by Christ and His Church throughout the ages: he has abused his authority by pretending to have an authority that he has not.

I cannot add much to that at this time. Well, I could rant and rave. But, looking at the bigger picture, it reveals a grave weakness of the Roman Catholic Church that such a man as Bergoglio could become pope and then be very hard, if not impossible, to depose.  I fear that he is now doubling down on his tyranny against the faithful in his final years.  This arbitrary change in RCC teaching on capital punishment, bad enough in itself, could be the beginning of something even more awful.