A Plot Against Pope Francis Not Wholly Implausible?

Or so says Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith in the Catholic Herald.
I suppose that could mean many different things, mostly depending on how the good father would inflect the word "wholly" were he to speak his headline aloud.
One of the main intents of my partial Facebook/Twitter fast is to not comment on the Holy Father's words or actions, and more, to put a pause on my arrogant advice giving. I should say this up front, and I will avoid it, I hope.
But this struck me as wrong -

The fact that this “plot” has leaked could mean one of two things. It could be that the feeling the Pope should retire is now so widespread, that it cannot be kept secret – in other words there are too many people in on the plot. But it could mean something else entirely, namely that the plotters are very few in number and are airing their idea to see if it gains traction. Their idea might be to launch a snowball that then turns into an avalanche in the way of which nothing can stand.

I can think of a third possibility.
Could it not have been brought out in the open by one who does not wish its success, to make it less likely to happen?
I read somewhere once that Alan Sheperd was the first American astronaut because John Glenn had been selected to be.
What? you ask.
Apparently, President Johnson, who had some say in the matter, was so furious at the news having been leaked that he chose to rub the noses of the leakers or the media in it by making them wrong, even if it meant not doing what he had wanted to do in the first place. (Another axiomatic "nose" comes to mind, something about cutting and spiting, but I digress.)
And there is also the shining of light on cockroaches, who then freeze, in the hope that if they make no further moves they will remain unnoticed and safe.
Hmmm... I do not mean to insult those who might wish to compass the Holy Father's resignation, so instead of insects, let me instead compare them to valiant French partisans engaged in near-suicidal espionage against the Nazis under cover of darkness.
Shhhh... ne bougez pas un muscle. Le gardien vient de faire ses rondes, il va éteindre la lumière dans un moment et aller pour le café.
And even the "near-suicidal" may not bee so far-fetched... Guam, anyone?

Drat. I said I wasn't going to do that.

Does it take "guts" to admit, "“Il Papa ha sbagliato”?.... or Grace?

Interesting, interesting interview with the German novelist, (and sometime liturgist, and certainly liturgical theologian,) Martin Mosebach, regarding Amoris Laetitia, the dubia, and papal duty.

It occurs, with who-knows-who turning their attention to and getting their mitts on the current Missal and its translation, I know he's an Extraordinay Form guy, but perhaps Mosebach would consider a sequel to Heresy of Formlessness?

Or even a contemporary papal history, The Papacy of Formlessness?

Hagen formlessness!

("Hagen falta de forma?")

Amoris Laetitia - Pope Francis Explains It All For You

Wait now, what?
No, of course not. But the request has been made, the dubia submitted.

Out of “deep pastoral concern,” four cardinals have taken the very rare step of publicizing five questions they have sent Pope Francis in a bid to clear up “grave disorientation and great confusion” surrounding his summary document on the Synod on the Family, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love).
The cardinals — Italian Carlo Caffarra, American Raymond Burke, and Germans Walter Brandmüller and Joachim Meisner — sent the five questions, called dubia (Latin for ‘doubts’) to the Holy Father and Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on Sept. 19, along with an accompanying letter.

You've gotta admire the charitable persistence of these men.
And this seems an apt quotation with when considering what the ambiguities we so far have concerning the Holy Father's document:

The Church is intolerant in principle because she believes; she is tolerant in practice because she loves. The enemies of the Church are tolerant in principle because they do not believe; they are intolerant in practice because they do not love.

-- Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.

US Bishops Laud Amoris Laetitia's 'Hopeful, Positive Tone"

The USCCB says they like the "hopeful, positive tone" of the Holy Father's post-synodal exortation on marriage.
What a joyful optimism must the Holy Father enjoy, to be hopeful and positive about unions, 50% of which he guesses are invalid.
I just don't think it is "myopic" to see the contradictions and ambiguities that rise almost to the level of error, nor do I think to call attention to them indicates a lack of love for or obedience to the Pope.

I had a friend in theatre who used to say of appearing in a lousy vehicle and still giving the best performance you know how, "It's like draggin' a dead horse around the stage and pretending it don't stink."

The USCCB has set itself the task of dragging a rather noisome animal there.
God bless them.

No, It Is Not True That "We Never Really Die As Long As Someone Remembers" Us

I understand such heretical nonsense, the denial of our immortal souls, in movies and tv scripts.
It's the warm-fuzzy of the Viaticum/Extreme Unction/Anointing of the Sick the way the  "unity candle" is the secular culture's warm-fuzzy of Matrimony, since it doesn't understand the sacramentality of marriage, but knows something is missing is missing without ritual.

Okay?
I understand that, I accept that.

But how is such   bull*  *t   finding its way into Christian thought and speech, into eulogies and sermons and saccharine poems on the back of memorial cards, even into homilies at Catholic funeral Masses?

Stop it.

Just. Stop. It.

So the lonely and friendless in this life will be even more so in the next? your continued existence is dependent on some other human being, and their managing to escape the scourge of Alzheimer's or senile dementia?
What a wonderful world...

(Yeah, yeah, all of this is compounded by "theological discourse" of the sort that may or may not have been conducted by an aging atheist and an elderly member of the hierarchy, but which has been allowed to stand uncontradicted by the latter:

Q: What happens to that lost soul? Will it be punished? And how? A: there is no punishment, but the destruction/annihilation of that soul.  All the others will participate in the beatitude of living in the presence of the Father. The souls that are destroyed/annihilated will not take part in that banquet; with the death of the body their journey is finished,) 

but what are you going to do?)

Back From the (Day of) the Dead, to Yet Another Correction From Poor Fr Lombardi

(No posting or polemics or presumptuous punditry, a day of fasting of a sort.)

When I read that yet again poor Fr. Lombardi had to make a statement, no he didn't say that, no he said that but what he meant was, yes he said that but it doesn't mean anything, no he said that but only to her not to you it doesn't count, yes that is what he said and I can't explain it...

It occurred to me, if Scalfari is publishing a book of his... fantasies? mistakes? whatever - shouldn't we all publish an anthology, "My Most Memorable Phone Call From the Pope"? 
(It would be too easy to debunk a claimed interview, since most of us have never met him, they could check passports and stuff, but who's gonna deny that he picked up the phone on a whim and gave me a ring? No, not on a Vatican account, the Holy Father used a burn phone.) 

We could invent anything we want, say that it's "fictionalized truth," or some such, in the Dunham/Scalfari makingcrapupandthenmakingexcusesonceyouarecalledonyourlies mold. 

I, for instance, remember well, (albeit not accurately,) that surprising day when Pope Francis got me on the horn, (sory, I dind't take notes or record it.)
The Holy Father told me not to worry about anything I might hear that he said, he's just stirring the pot but is planning to come out very soon with a three word, unequivocally magisterial encyclical -

 "Sin? It's Sinful." 

What did he tell you, when he called you?

Com'on, let's get these submissions in, there maybe be money to be made!

Dear, Dear, and Right After I Was Whining About People Overusing the Word "Attack"

Here is Steve Skojec reporting on a rather ignorant-of-the-subject-on-which-he-wishes-to-pontificate academic ATTACKING the wonderful Cardinal Burke by unjustly accusing the Cardinal of ATTACKING the Pope's actions.
(Actually, more than merely unjust, it seems like deliberate and knowingly false calumny.)

I think the academic might be the inadvertent Crocodile Dundee of religious Poppycockery reporting.....

"THAT's not an attack...

... now, THIS is an attack.

'Cause here ya got yer formal heretics, and here ya got yer garden-variety dissenters, and then ya got....

 Ross Douthat, (no, YOU do that!.... sorry, I think that every time I wonder how his name is pronounced,) had a piece over the weekend that engendered much wordy comment, not to say, blogerrhea.

Blah blah blah Francis. Blah blah blah heresy! Blah blah blah pope! Blah blah blah ultramontane! Blah blah blah doctrine not dogma. Blah blah blah where Peter is! Blah blah blah not always right! Blah blah blah schism! Blah blah blah Luther. Blah blah blah remnant! Blah blah blah calm down, Blah blah blah mottramism....
(I am caricaturing the commentary, not Douthat's excellent piece.)

 I was stuck by this -

The church’s orthodox adherents ..... are, yes, a minority — sometimes a small minority — among self-identified Catholics in the West. 

Is that true, do you think?  really?

I sometimes think that most "dissenters" in the Church are dissenters the way dogs are famously atheists, not because they have actually put any thought into it, or taken their first thoughts to a logical conclusion and realized what the actual consequences of some vague belief are.