Poor Little Professor, First That Pope, Now This One

Learn to live with disappointment...

Poor Candida Moss, author of Oh Those Silly Christians Insisting On Being Christian , (soon to be followed by, Oh Those Silly Christians Insisting On Being Christians, Volume II: The HHS Years,); is shocked, shocked, I tell you.
Pope Francis is Catholic. He may actually believe in some unchanged and unchanging Church teaching.
What the Francis?!??#??!?!!?
He is not "as liberal as his image suggests"!!!!!! To be fair to Miss Moss, it was the headline writer who said that.
But "his image'? really? by "image," do you mean the way the chattering classes have insisted on portraying him on very little evidence?
So, you fabricate and promote a concept and then pshaw and moan that um,... it's not true, as if it were Reality's fault for not consulting you before it decided to be?

Because before she was shocked by this, only a few months earlier she was shocked by traditionalists, or conservatives, or some bogeymen of hers, "calling out the Pope [Francis,] when he’s not Pope-y enough."
And they were going to go into schism! No, really! They MIGHT! Well, they could.... Well, prolly not but you never know, (crossing fingers and wishin' on eyelashes and clovers and shooting stars...)

Look, I get it. When you earn your bread and butter quinoa and grapeseed oil by writing Things, it's an absolute necessity to have Things.
You know, to write about.
So sometimes, out of necessity you might just have to make Things up, right?

Cardinal George Pell unnecessarily reminded his congregants not only that Pope Francis is the 266th Pope, but also that “history has seen 37 false or antipopes.” Antipopes? Does Cardinal Pell intend to hint that Francis isn’t a true Pope?

I dunno, DOES he?
Not according to the report to which you had actually linked in that earlier piece.

“The role of the successor of St. Peter has always been vital to Christian and Catholic life, especially as the touchstone of doctrinal fidelity and as a resolver of disputes, pastoral as well as doctrinal,” the cardinal wrote.
“The church is not built on the rock of Peter’s faith,” he wrote, “but on Peter himself, despite his faults and failings.”
“Pope Francis is the 266th pope and history has seen 37 false or antipopes,” he wrote.
“The story of the popes is stranger than fiction,” the cardinal wrote, and today “we have one of the more unusual popes in history, enjoying almost unprecedented popularity. He is doing a marvelous job backing the financial reforms,” he wrote
Cardinal Pell concluded his written remarks with a prayer “I was taught as a child: May the Lord preserve the Holy Father, Pope Francis, and give him life. Keep him safe on earth and deliver him not up into the hands of his enemies.”

Ya know, I think maybe if you make your name by writing Things, sometimes you ought to read Things.

Mudblood Catholic on Why He Is a Catholic

NewToMe blog, 'sgonna supply some very interesting reading ahead.

[I]f it is precisely the discharge of the office [of Pope],not the character of the man, that receives the graces promised by Jesus, then we may -- in my opinion, should -- expect everything not covered by those graces to go wrong, even with the Popes, sooner or later. Following Peter's career, I'd say that most of them went wrong sooner, and generally later as well. I think, too, that that applies to the Church as a whole. Romano Guardini, a theologian of the last century who influenced many important figures in the Church (such as Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis), once said, "The Church is the Cross upon which Christ is crucified; and who can separate Christ from His Cross?" I think that is exactly the right way of looking at it. I might say, as a sort of supplement, that, in the Church, everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, but that there is a scarlet cord of truth that will not break, and from that scarlet cord the whole house hangs as the city crashes down around it.
And that is why I am not greatly perturbed by the real wickedness of the Church.

The man is a good writer, interesting thinker, and communicates at a level that my obtuse self can get soemthing out of.
And addresses matters with which we've all struggled.

And On the Very Same Subject, What Cardinal Burke Actually Said

In Crux, it is reported via headline that the great Cardinal Raymond Burke was so disloyal as to say that the "Catholic Church under Pope Francis is a 'ship without a rudder.'"

In that article that follows, it becomes clear that what he really said was that people have expressed to him their fear that the Church under Francis is a "ship without a rudder," and that reassurance is required of the Holy Father.

How hard is that to understand, John?

How is a Cardinal telling the Pope that the latter may not realize how confused and worried some folks are, and advising the Pope that or even how he ought to take care of it, "attacking" the Pope?

When I was in school, I used to babysit for a family with three, (mostly horrid,) girls.

One day when I arrived the mom had to teach me a new routine for putting the toddler to bed.

A few nights previous, her older sister had taken a flashlight and made giant shadows of her hands appear on the ceiling over the bed of the little one, who was now terrified.

So my job was to take a flashlight, take her to bed, turn off the lamp in the room, and train the flashlight on the ceiling, in the closet, under the bed.... see? nothing there! all safe!

Did the mother think there was something horrible lurking there? did I, in demonstrating that there was no monster in the closet at that time, indicate my fear that sometimes there was?

Of course not.

Nonetheless, didn't I, didn't the mother, (didn't the bratty big sister,) have an obligation to allay the toddler's fears?

When it comes down to it, we're all children frightened of what might be in the dark.

With Apologies to (the Noted Anti-Catholic, (whoops, should that be Catholic-Tolerant?) Bnjamin Franklin

(... although his level of tolerance is a matter of some dispute?

 “Our ancestors from Catholic became first Church-of-England men, and then refined into Presbyterians. To change now from Presbyterianism to Popery seems to me refining backwards, from white sugar to brown.”)

Those who would give up essential Truth, to purchase a little temporary semblance of Unity, will end up with neither Truth nor Unity. 

Not referencing anything in particular, just letting my thoughts wander...
But I miss Benedict.
Everyday.
Every. Day.

Deathbed Conversions

Are there any stories about people asking to become Baptist on their deathbeds? or Unitarian?

I've stopped reading much fiction, (unless you count online news, ;oP) but i used to be voracious, or varocious, as a Jeopardy contestant once described herself, and while there seem to be man such Catholic cases in literature as well as real life, I can't recall anything else.

Or did anyone ever vow, that if they escaped some dire strait they would enter any Church other than the Catholic one?

Funny thing, doncha think?

"To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant"

...as Blessed John Henry Newman so famously said.

Swedish mega-church founder Ulf Ekman has announced his intent to enter, along with his wife, into communion with the Catholic Church.

(Actually, translations of reports, and I most certainly do not speak a single word of any Scandinavian language, differ on whether his announcement at Sunday service was that they "would" or that they "had.")