"You Better Get Right Over Here As Quick As You Ever Did Anything In Your Life and Apologize to Your Mother, Messiah Mister...."

I have to admit, I shared Eccles thoughts on this when I read it.

A pilgrimage does not end when we arrive at our destination, but when we return home and resume our everyday lives, putting into practice the spiritual fruits of our experience. We know what Jesus did on that occasion. Instead of returning home with his family, he stayed in Jerusalem, in the Temple, causing great distress to Mary and Joseph who were unable to find him. For this little “escapade”, Jesus probably had to beg forgiveness of his parents. The Gospel doesn’t say this, but I believe that we can presume it. 

Can we?
It is often a kind of passive-aggressive tack to apologize when one knows one has done nothing wrong and the person to whom one apologizes is aware that one knows it.
Is the Pope saying Jesus was being manipulative?
Or does he think He had something "wrong"? (i.e., "sinned.")
Or didn't do anything wrong but thought He had and so was mistaken in that?

Has Pope Francis been reading apocryphal infancy narratives with those Aw, Shucks, Boys'll Be Boys incidents of sinful odd behavior, like striking a playmate dead because the poor kid had bumped into Him, and blinding the neighbors who complained about it?
(As if, rather than Harry Potter being a Christ figure, Christ is a Harry Potter figure, Who hasn't yet learned the appropriate use of His powers, and that it's not nice to tease the poor, hapless muggles...)

Is it compatible with Christian belief to think that God sometimes owes his creatures apologies? that He screws up? that He from time to time needs to offer us, not the, Sorry if that bothered anyone, it wasn't my intention... that rolls off the tongues of celebrities and politicians so often and so easily, but a sincere mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa?

I'm sorry, I really do love him, but I wish Pope Francis would think through what he says a little bit more, before he says it.

The scenario he presented here feels as if it ought to end with Joseph telling the Virgin Mary to take care of it because, "He's not MY kid...."