Pope Francis way too conservative for the german part of the Church

[tseleehw]

What Cardinal Marx is doing here is actually making a very smart gamble. It may or may not pay off for him but he may be thinking it is worth the risk. He basically just gave the Congregation for Bishops the middle finger and put Pope Francis himself on the spot. He apparently either believes that Pope Francis is really, truly, on his side, or that he is too weak or reluctant to put his foot down here. Pope Francis has built his reputation for favoring clergy like Marx, and at least appearing to be open to radical ideas like he is proposing. It’s how he has maintained such favorable media coverage in secular publications. If he stands up to Marx here and quashes his synod he risks seeming authoritarian and “rigid”, something he has made a point to preach against at every point in his papacy. He also risks alienating a big ally. This will probably end in some kind of compromise that will allow the German synod to go forward with at least some of these controversial proposals. I hope I’m wrong.

Marx is also pulling a page directly from his playbook from the last time he clashed with the Vatican over the intercommunion proposal. He got the Pope to approve that by claiming that that too was “nonbinding” and that the individual dioceses could reject it if they desire (which is BS given that all but maybe 2 or 3 dioceses in Germany adopted the proposal word for word, it accomplished its goal that Marx intended). He’s trying to give the Pope an out and an excuse to lay down and let the Germans go forward. We’ll see if it works again.

 

[Maxirad]

If Pope Francis is that conservative, then why do “radical Catholic reactionaries” (Dave Armstrong’s term) keep bashing him?

 

[twf]

He’s not. Compared to the last couple popes, he is definitely “progressive”. Yet he’s still the Pope… and apparently very conservative compared to the standard of this German proposal.