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As you are probably aware, Pope Francis died on Easter Monday. The Church is without a pope and will be for a few more weeks.
I’m Catholic. I love the Pope. So I pray for the repose of the soul of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and I pray that the Church is gifted with a holy, wise, and courageous pope who will lead with moral clarity.
The pontificate of Pope Francis was one of chaos, confusion and lack of clarity. He signaled this early on when he exhorted the crowds at World Youth Day to “make a mess”.
The world fell in love with Francis. From his first utterance of “Who am I to Judge,” the world spoke of his “humility,” his “mercy” and his “love of the poor”. It was as if these qualities were absent from the Church and all previous popes. The world loved that Francis was all-in on climate change and wide-open borders. The world loved that Francis was to be a “reformer,” hoping that he would make the Catholic Church just another Protestant denomination.
It will be of great interest to watch the world speculate about the next pope. Francis has caused great damage and confusion. All Christians should be praying for our next pope because he is Christ’s Vicar on Earth. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (#881):
The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the "rock" of his Church. He gave him the keys of his Church and instituted him shepherd of the whole flock.
The world needs moral clarity. The world needs a holy, wise, and courageous pope.
Discussion (8)
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What the world "loves" and what they need does seem to be wholly different.
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I experience the Lutheran Effect. All my Baptist friends think I'm a Catholic, and all my Catholic friends think I'm a Baptist. The selection of the Pope matters because I'm called on by the unchurched (who have no basis for noticing sectarian issues) to defend what the Pope has just said.
JP II made this easy, even enjoyable. Benedict XVI did as well. What "the world" loved about Francis was that he occasionally blurted out things that seemed to support their materialistic secular world view. I had to pay more attention to him than I cared to.
I'm praying that the cardinals don't mess up this time as badly as they did the last. A Jesuit? Meh. A Communist? Oh, hell no.
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Is there a book I can read that tells a true story of how Benedict's papacy ended?
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"Jesuit"... "Communist" - you're being redundant.
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Not in this life.
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