Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome III: Illinois legislators co-opt pope to promote same-sex marriage.

ope Fran­cis Derange­ment Syn­drome is a psy­chosis that can man­i­fest itself in three dis­tinct and pecu­liar ways: as it were a trin­i­ty of non­sense not seen since Satan thrice tempt­ed God. It is impor­tant to know whether we show the clas­sic signs of PFDS, so that we may seek help in log­ic and in facts.

A YARDSTICK FOR LUNATICS

I. First, anti-Catholic Protes­tants may latch on to rumors that the pope is about to undo two mil­len­nia of Catholic teach­ing. They will then use those rumors as one more excuse to guf­faw: Oh, my Bible and tree! See, the Church is not real­ly unchang­ing! See, the pope is not real­ly infal­li­ble! He is in error! What have we told you all this time? These poor souls may become self-vin­di­cat­ed and insuf­fer­able. They may show signs of obses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­der about the pope.

Sec­ond, more-Catholic-than-thou tra­di­tion­al­ists may latch on to rumors that the pope is about to undo two mil­len­nia of Catholic teach­ing. They will then use those rumors as one more excuse to pan­ic: Oh, my incense and Latin Mass! See, the pope is about to destroy the Church! He is in error! What have we told you about Vat­i­can II all this time? These poor souls may become para­noid and morose. They may show signs of clin­i­cal depres­sion.

Third, pro­gres­sives may latch on to rumors that the pope is about to undo two mil­len­nia of Catholic teach­ing. In some cas­es, they even go so far as to invent the rumors them­selves. Either way, they will then use those rumors as one more excuse to run wild and roughshod. Oh, my incense and pep­per­mints! What do I see but that the pope is about to ful­fill all my fan­tasies! He is final­ly cast­ing aside mil­len­nia of error! What have I been telling the Church it need­ed to do this whole time? These poor souls may become euphor­ic and mud­dled. They may show signs of delir­i­um, and they may even suf­fer from hal­lu­ci­na­tions.

In this ongo­ing series, I have set out to doc­u­ment some case stud­ies of Pope Fran­cis Derange­ment Syn­drome. As it sad­ly hap­pens, there is too much PFDS in the world at large for me to be exhaus­tive, as though this blog were an ency­clo­pe­dia. But by record­ing some of the wilder man­i­fes­ta­tions, and very sober­ly set­ting the record straight on the pope’s ortho­doxy, PFDS may become eas­i­er to diag­nose and cure.

BEATNIKS AND POLITICS

Ear­li­er this month, Illi­nois became the six­teenth state to legal­ize same-sex marriage—whether by pop­u­lar vote, court fiat, or state leg­is­la­ture. (In truth, it is not mar­riage at all but rather the antithe­sis of it. Same-sex cou­ples do not so much want to “mar­ry” as they want to play a child’s game of make-believe and demand that the rest of the world con­firm them in their fic­tion. It is not enough for them to destroy truth; they must destroy mar­riage too. The names of the fif­teen oth­er offend­ing states can be found here.)

When an insane and wicked law such as this one is passed, one expects insane and wicked things to be said in its defense. Thus, as report­ed in the Chica­go Tri­bune, state rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Har­ris rhap­sodized like Liszt:

At the end of the day, what this bill is about is love, it’s about fam­i­ly, it’s about com­mit­ment. At the end of the day, this bill is about the vision that the founders of our coun­try had and wrote into the Con­sti­tu­tion, where they said that Amer­i­ca is a jour­ney.

That is mad­ness talk­ing. Does any­one know what Mr. Har­ris is talk­ing about? If so, will you kind­ly explain? Do his words even have mean­ing, or has mean­ing been aban­doned? Please, sir, inform us: Where in the Con­sti­tu­tion do you read that same-sex mar­riage was James Madis­on’s “vision”? Or where do you find hip­pie-inspired talk about “jour­neys”? And why must it always be “the end of the day” when we’re talk­ing about such mat­ters? Is night upon us? Will the sun nev­er come back up? How could “this bill” pos­si­bly be “about fam­i­ly” when same-sex cou­ples can’t cre­ate fam­i­lies? Does Mr. Har­ris know of a same-sex cou­ple who con­ceived a child? Would he please inform us who that cou­ple is? I am not try­ing to be cute; I know all about adop­tion, but would some­one please tell me why same-sex mar­riage is now a pre­req­ui­site for adop­tion?

So that was strange enough; but it soon became sin­gu­lar­ly wild. Monique Gar­cia and Ray Long—the authors of the Tri­bune article—made the stag­ger­ing claim that same-sex mar­riage advo­cates in the Illi­nois leg­is­la­ture “received addi­tion­al help from Pope Fran­cis.” The pope’s com­ments on not judg­ing homo­sex­u­als “sparked a wave of soul-search­ing by sev­er­al Catholic law­mak­ers.” I con­fess: I sit down astonied when I hear non­sense so non. In what sense did they “receive help”? Am I to imag­ine that the pope called Illi­nois Democ­rats on the night before the vote and said, “You have my papal bless­ing”?

It might have done these so-called “Catholic” law­mak­ers more good if they had for­gone the “soul-search­ing” in favor of some Cat­e­chism search­ing, specif­i­cal­ly para­graphs 2358 to 2359. Per­haps they might have read more than the medi­a’s wild and dis­hon­est para­phrase of Fran­cis’s words.

But no. Rep. Lin­da Cha­pa LaVia, claim­ing sans embar­rass­ment to be “a Catholic fol­low­er of Jesus and the pope,” said that Catholi­cism is about “love, com­pas­sion, and jus­tice for all peo­ple.” Which obvi­ous­ly it is, but when Ms. LaVia uses those words in defense of a bill that would legal­ize same-sex mar­riage, they are bled of any hon­est­ly Catholic mean­ing. In her usage, they are lit­tle more than vague bro­mides that can jus­ti­fy what­ev­er sin may please you today. Am I real­ly to believe that love, com­pas­sion, and jus­tice have gone unful­filled in all of human his­to­ry before now? In the Cat­e­chism, we read that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is “objec­tive­ly dis­or­dered.” Is that unlov­ing? Is that uncom­pas­sion­ate? Is that unjust? If so, Ms. LaVia, then how is Catholi­cism about love, com­pas­sion, and justice—as you under­stand those words? Or do you under­stand those words?

But it was not just the pre­tend Catholics, like Ms. LaVia, who spoke on this theme. Rep. Ken Dunkin observed, goofi­ly, that “Jesus loved everyone”—a mere cliché, which no one dis­putes and is apro­pos of noth­ing ger­mane to this dis­cus­sion. Jesus loved the Phar­isees, but He still called them hyp­ocrites and sin­ners and asked them how they could pos­si­bly escape the damna­tion of Hell. Jesus loved the mon­ey­chang­ers, but He still beat them with cords. And when attempt­ing to return mar­riage to first prin­ci­ples, He said, “From the begin­ning of the cre­ation, God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). Jesus loved every­one, but nowhere did He sug­gest that lov­ing every­one implied sanc­tion­ing every­thing they want to do. Is that what “love” means to you, Mr. Dunkin? If so, you haven’t a clue.

Rep. Lou Lang suc­cumbed to an ethe­re­al haze in his efforts to chan­nel six­ties’ croon­er Jack­ie DeShan­non:

It is incon­ceiv­able to me in a soci­ety that is so des­per­ate for love and so des­per­ate for close­ness and so des­per­ate for peo­ple to live peace­ably with one anoth­er that any­one can turn their back on this leg­is­la­tion. All this leg­is­la­tion pro­pos­es to do is to let peo­ple be togeth­er in peace and in love and make the world a bet­ter place.

Again, “love” and “peace” are good things. But Mr. Lang fails to explain why same-sex mar­riage is required to achieve them. Am I sup­posed to believe that, with­out same-sex mar­riage, Amer­i­cans will con­stant­ly be at each oth­er’s throats with vicious­ness? Are we deal­ing with the state­ments of a ratio­nal mind here? Time and again, these leg­is­la­tors of evil in Illi­nois use words like “love” and “peace,” “com­pas­sion” and “jus­tice” as mean­ing-free dag­gers. With them, they stab the oppo­nents of same-sex mar­riage: as though they were in favor of hatred, war, vicious­ness, and tyran­ny. But if the word “love” is noth­ing more than a polit­i­cal weapon to achieve what­ev­er out­rage you dream, it is no won­der that so many peo­ple are laden with emo­tion about it but lazy and defi­cient in their under­stand­ing of it.

That is a prob­lem of itself, but what is gen­uine­ly offen­sive is the dis­hon­est and wicked abuse of the pope and the Catholic Church by those who seek to achieve their evil in his name, and hers. These leg­is­la­tors of evil ought to be ashamed. They won’t, but they ought.

TURN ON, TUNE IN, TURN YOUR EYES AROUND

But before we take up what Pope Fran­cis said to occa­sion this new burst of derange­ment, let us look at what he had already said, on pri­or occa­sions, con­cern­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of mar­riage and the cam­paign for same-sex mar­riage in Argenti­na. In June 2010, in a let­ter to Dr. Jus­to Car­ba­jales, here is what then-Car­di­nal Bergoglio said:

The essence of being human tends to the union of man and woman as rec­i­p­ro­cal real­iza­tion, atten­tion and care, and as the nat­ur­al way of pro­cre­ation. … Mar­riage pre­dates the state … and pre­dates any leg­is­la­tion and even the Church itself. Hence the adop­tion of the bill in ques­tion would sig­ni­fy a real and grave anthro­po­log­i­cal set­back.

Mar­riage (com­posed of male and female) is not the same as the union of two per­sons of the same sex. To dis­tin­guish is not to dis­crim­i­nate but to respect; to dif­fer­en­ti­ate, to dis­cern, is to val­ue with pro­pri­ety, not to dis­crim­i­nate. …

Let us be care­ful that, in try­ing to assert and look out for a pre­sumed right of adults, we do not leave aside the pro­pri­etary right of chil­dren (who should be the only priv­i­leged ones) to count on mod­els of father and moth­er, to have a Dad and a Mom.

These are strong and def­i­nite state­ments.  Mar­riage is exclu­sive­ly the union of one man and one woman and is “the essence of being human”; same-sex mar­riage, by con­trast, would rep­re­sent “a grave anthro­po­log­i­cal set­back.” If mar­riage “pre­dates the state[,] … any leg­is­la­tion[,] and even the Church itself,” it fol­lows that its def­i­n­i­tion is fixed. Mar­riage has an exis­ten­tial real­i­ty; it can­not be changed by the vagaries and whims of pop­u­lar sen­ti­ment.

Car­di­nal Bergoglio is at more than pains to empha­size: Mar­riage has an exclu­siv­i­ty; it bears a dis­tinc­tion and a dif­fer­ence, and to uphold that dif­fer­ence “is to val­ue [it] with pro­pri­ety.” But to change the def­i­n­i­tion of mar­riage (as though one could) is to be destruc­tive of both mar­riage and chil­dren, who deserve a father and a moth­er.

But Car­di­nal Bergoglio wrote anoth­er, and more fre­quent­ly-quot­ed, let­ter, this one to the Carmelite Nuns of Buenos Aires. Here is some of what he said:

The Argen­tine peo­ple will face, in the com­ing weeks, a sit­u­a­tion whose out­come may grave­ly injure the fam­i­ly. … What is at stake here is the iden­ti­fy and sur­vival of the fam­i­ly: father, moth­er, and chil­dren. At stake are the lives of so many chil­dren who will be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against in advance, depriv­ing them of the human mat­u­ra­tion that God want­ed to be giv­en with a father and a moth­er. At stake is the out­right rejec­tion of the law of God, engraved also in our hearts.

… Do not be naive: [this] is not a sim­ple polit­i­cal strug­gle; it is [a] destruc­tive attempt toward God’s plan. It is not a mere leg­isla­tive project … but a machi­na­tion of the father of lies [who] seeks to con­fuse and deceive the chil­dren of God. …

Today the coun­try, in this sit­u­a­tion, needs the spe­cial assis­tance of the Holy Spir­it that he may put the light of Truth in the midst of the dark­ness of error; it needs this Advo­cate to defend us from the spell of so many sophistries with which this legal project seeks to be jus­ti­fied, and which con­fus­es and deceives even peo­ple of good will.

These, like­wise, are strong and def­i­nite state­ments. Car­di­nal Bergoglio does not incline toward bland words. To accept same-sex mar­riage, he says, would be “naive.” Same-sex mar­riage would “grave­ly injure the fam­i­ly.” It is “an out­right rejec­tion of the law of God.” It is “a machi­na­tion of the father of lies” that can be jus­ti­fied only through “the spell of so many sophistries.”

As we have seen above, the “spell of sophistries” includes unteth­ered appeal to “love,” to “fam­i­ly,” to “peace,” to “com­mit­ment.” When used by the leg­is­la­tors of evil, these words are indeed meant to cast a spell. They are meant to elic­it mere emo­tion and to dis­cour­age any ratio­nal thought.

But you will ask: How is it that the same per­son who has said all these things could pos­si­bly be cit­ed as an “addi­tion­al help” to leg­is­la­tors seek­ing to pass laws per­mit­ting same-sex mar­riage?

OCCASIONS, PERSUASIONS CLUTTER YOUR MIND

A rea­son exists, and it has to do—not with any incon­sis­ten­cy with the pope—but instead with a fun­da­men­tal and impor­tant mis­un­der­stand­ing of the teach­ing of Christ and His Church. There is a strong ten­den­cy in our cul­ture to con­fuse words like “what you do is sin” with “I hate you.” As a result, when the pope says that gay peo­ple are not to be judged but loved and respect­ed, suf­fer­ers of PFDS inter­pret him to mean that the Church now approves of gay sex and gay mar­riage. We treat a per­son­’s actions and the per­son him­self as though they were the same. But it is not thus in Catholic teach­ing.

So with that in mind, let us look at what Pope Fran­cis, in his more recent words, actu­al­ly said. On August 19, in an inter­view with Fr. Anto­nio Spadaro, he said this:

The church some­times has locked itself up in small things, in small-mind­ed rules. The most impor­tant thing is the first procla­ma­tion: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the min­is­ters of the Church must be min­is­ters of mer­cy above all. … The rig­orist wash­es his hands so that he leaves it to the com­mand­ment. The loose min­is­ter wash­es his hands by sim­ply say­ing, ‘This is not a sin’ or some­thing like that. In pas­toral min­istry we must accom­pa­ny peo­ple, and we must heal their wounds.

Now, we should make note here of one sim­ple thing: The Church can hard­ly be a “min­is­ter of mer­cy” to peo­ple who have not sinned. To be a “min­is­ter of mer­cy” rather implies that sin has tak­en place. But what the Holy Father says is that priests must be nei­ther “rig­orists” who small-mind­ed­ly say “the law, the law” with no heart for mer­cy, nor “loose min­is­ters” who deny that sin is sin. Rather, the law of mer­cy means to heal the wounds that have been caused by sin. A pope who thought that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and same-sex mar­riage were just fine would not talk in such a way—as did Christ—about sin, mer­cy, and the heal­ing of wounds.

Fran­cis con­tin­ues:

Dur­ing the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homo­sex­u­al per­son is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By say­ing this, I said what the cat­e­chism says. … It is nec­es­sary to accom­pa­ny [gay peo­ple] with mer­cy. When that hap­pens, the Holy Spir­it inspires the priest to say the right thing.

Again, at this point we should make note If Fran­cis is telling us to “accom­pa­ny [gay peo­ple] with mer­cy,” he seems to under­stand that they need it. If homo­sex­u­al acts were not sins, how is it that homo­sex­u­als are in need of mer­cy? Mer­cy is to say, “Your sins are for­giv­en”; it is not to say, “Go, and sin some more.”

And to see that Fran­cis’s words are no more than the con­sis­tent teach­ing of the Catholic Church, we can turn to no less an author­i­ty than the Cat­e­chism itself, in para­graphs 2358–2359:

2358. The num­ber of men and women who have deep-seat­ed homo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies is not neg­li­gi­ble. This incli­na­tion, which is objec­tive­ly dis­or­dered, con­sti­tutes for most of them a tri­al. They must be accept­ed with respect, com­pas­sion, and sen­si­tiv­i­ty. Every sign of unjust dis­crim­i­na­tion in their regard should be avoid­ed.  These per­sons are called to ful­fill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Chris­tians, to unite to the sac­ri­fice of the Lord’s Cross the dif­fi­cul­ties they may encounter from their con­di­tion.

2359. Homo­sex­u­al per­sons are called to chasti­ty. By the virtues of self-mas­tery that teach them inner free­dom, at times by sup­port of dis­in­ter­est­ed friend­ship, by prayer and sacra­men­tal grace, they can and should grad­u­al­ly and res­olute­ly approach Chris­t­ian per­fec­tion.

Some will want to claim that Fran­cis has been incon­sis­tent and whimsical—now say­ing this, now that. But they who do so are deal­ing in false dichotomies; their argu­ment is dif­fi­cult to sus­tain against the Cat­e­chism, which says those very same “incon­sis­tent” things, and in the very same pas­sage: that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is “objec­tive­ly dis­or­dered”; that homo­sex­u­al per­sons are called to “chasti­ty” and “dis­in­ter­est­ed friend­ship,” not mar­riage; but that they are nev­er­the­less to be treat­ed with “respect, com­pas­sion, and sen­si­tiv­i­ty.” Fran­cis nev­er said that we may not judge the sin­ful actions of homo­sex­u­als. What he did say was that we are for­bid­den to judge the heart of a per­son whom Christ died to redeem and whose bur­dens are known to God alone. To be able to dis­tin­guish between the one and the oth­er is a sign, not of incon­sis­ten­cy, but of Catholic matu­ri­ty.

And the pope, after all, was speak­ing of homo­sex­u­als “of good will,” who seek the Lord. Fran­cis does not sound to me like he was talk­ing about obsti­nate sin­ners who march in the gay pride parade. Should one not assume that he has in mind those who ful­ly under­stand the dis­or­der of their own affec­tions, who car­ry that cross every day, but who seek to live chaste lives and do the will of God?  There is a vast dif­fer­ence between say­ing, “I am called to love my gay neigh­bor” and say­ing “I am called to approve of what he does.” But who among us will claim to be com­plete­ly free of dis­or­dered affec­tions of one kind or anoth­er? I know I’m not. But I do seek the face of God. Should I not encounter mer­cy? Did Christ not die for me? Then how is it dif­fer­ent with the homo­sex­u­al?

TO DIVIDE THE COCKEYED WORLD IN TWO

Nev­er­the­less, some smug souls who left the Catholic Church years ago—yes, I refer to the man in Pitts­burgh, our old friend, the polem­i­cal rogue John Bugay—seem to imag­ine that they are just the ones to advise the pope, and straight from their blog­ging base­ments no less. Thus on Novem­ber 15, Mr. Bugay wrote this arti­cle, enti­tled “On the Need to Artic­u­late Things Clear­ly.”

He begins his post with the fol­low­ing back-hand­ed com­pli­ment: “In truth, Fran­cis’s state­ments have been con­sis­tent with Church teach­ings, even when butchered and mis­un­der­stood and mis­rep­re­sent­ed.” When an anti-Catholic begins that way, you know you bet­ter keep a sharp eye on the rug. And in this case, Mr. Bugay does not make us wait long. Before the prover­bial ink is dry, he tells us that the butcher­ing of the pope’s words is the fault of—wait for it—the pope him­self! Fran­cis “needs to be more atten­tive,” Mr. Bugay urges. Fran­cis needs “to clar­i­fy things bet­ter” and “more strong­ly affirm and artic­u­late Church teach­ings.” Oth­er­wise “this sit­u­a­tion will get worse, spread­ing major errors through­out the Church, the coun­try, the cul­ture, and the world.”

You would almost think that Mr. Bugay was lob­by­ing for a job in the reformed curia. But I’m afraid I do not get it. Does not Mr. Bugay think that the Church is already full of “major errors”? Is he not skilled enough at mis­rep­re­sent­ing Church teach­ing, and the pope’s words, with­out any help? And why does he imag­ine the pope has the pow­er to stop those who are deter­mined to mis­rep­re­sent him, how­ev­er clear or unam­bigu­ous he is? If Fran­cis said, “Church law clear­ly for­bids the mar­riage of same-sex cou­ples,” the media would report: “Today, Pope Fran­cis lament­ed the anti­quat­ed char­ac­ter of canon law. Should the church update its old rules? Let us turn now to our experts.”

For here is the dirty lit­tle secret. (Or so I sus­pect.) Not one of the leg­is­la­tors in Illi­nois, and not one per­son in the media, is con­fused a whit about what Fran­cis has said. No one is in doubt about the clear teach­ing of the Church. They may not under­stand the log­ic and beau­ty behind it; they may not agree with it; but they know what it is. They do not mis­rep­re­sent Fran­cis because Fran­cis has cho­sen his words poor­ly. They mis­rep­re­sent him because they are dem­a­gogues. They know that peo­ple are less cer­tain about the ortho­doxy of Fran­cis than they were about the ortho­doxy of Bene­dict XVI, and they are tak­ing advan­tage of that. If Fran­cis is not going to be the pope of pro­gres­sive fan­ta­sy, the game is to pre­tend that he is. The game is to dri­ve the Church into an hys­te­ria, for amuse­ment, while lib­er­als get to the busi­ness of tick­ing items off their evil agen­da.

THROW YOUR PRIDE TO ONE SIDE

There is a cor­rec­tive to all of this. But it is not for Fran­cis to “explain him­self bet­ter.” Rather, it is for Catholics to calm down and say to the news media, “Your words are false. Here is why.” In my view, deep bel­ly laughs at fools are also good for the soul. But the pro­gres­sives know this one thing: So long as there are Catholics who actu­al­ly will believe their false reports and slop­py para­phrase, so long as tra­di­tion­al­ists pan­ic and loopy sis­ters burn their wim­ples, they will con­tin­ue to lie about the pope. They will shut it only when we laugh at them and tell them to shut it. And that includes pre­tend Catholics like Lin­da Cha­pa LaVia and Nan­cy Pelosi. A Church divid­ed against itself is what the pro­gres­sives want.

For do not mis­take: It is not just John Bugay and his like. I have heard the Catholic who has said, “You know, if Fran­cis is going to be mis­in­ter­pret­ed, he bet­ter be care­ful what he says in these inter­views. He needs to show some com­mon sense!” As if Fran­cis (1) has any con­trol over being mis­rep­re­sent­ed by peo­ple who are deter­mined to mis­rep­re­sent him; (2) should just shut up about Church teach­ing because pro­gres­sives might mis­un­der­stand or mis­rep­re­sent it. And poor help­less fools that we are, we just don’t have the time to go fig­ur­ing it all out when the media lies to us.

I say this with love: There is a rea­son why there is a thing called the New Evan­ge­liza­tion. What is wrong with you clar­i­fy­ing things to the con­fused or the obsti­nate? What is wrong with you teach­ing Catholi­cism to Catholics? Why not make the ill-informed your tar­get, not the pope? If the Church mat­ters, if its teach­ings matter—and not just to this life but to our eter­nal soul—then make the time.

For we have a lot to tell this world. We need to define for them the gen­uine and Catholic under­stand­ing of love, of mar­riage, of the dig­ni­ty of the human per­son. They need to know that love is reci­procity; that it is being bound up in some­one who is oth­er. Reci­procity implies dif­fer­ence; and same-sex mar­riage, what­ev­er else it might be, is not love because it is not oth­er.

We need to define the nat­ur­al law for this world and explain why it is immoral and destruc­tive to use our bod­ies in ways they were not designed to be used. We need to define free­dom for this world and explain why it can only be found in the law of God and not in slav­ery to sin: The only free­dom that makes any sense is free­dom from sin.

And while we’re at it we need to explain why the com­mand to love and not to judge does not mean approv­ing or legal­iz­ing what­ev­er peo­ple can dream up. And we might as well define hap­pi­ness too and explain where true hap­pi­ness is found. Ulti­mate­ly, we need to explain why same-sex mar­riage is destruc­tive of the very things the leg­is­la­tors of evil say they are pro­mot­ing by it. It is destruc­tive of our bod­ies and of our lives; of fam­i­ly, of free­dom, of love; it is destruc­tive, in the end, of our soul.

I know that many of us are doing these very things and have been for a long time. But stay patient and cheer­ful in cor­rec­tion when­ev­er peo­ple con­tin­ue to err, as they will. Do not get jad­ed, and for the love of God do not make the pope a scape­goat for every­thing that is wrong in the cul­ture and the Church.  Those who want to blame the pope’s “unclear” words, or the “ambigu­ous” Vat­i­can II, are wrong and will always be wrong. The fact is, we live in a time that is con­fused. Clear­ing up the con­fu­sion, and reac­quaint­ing peo­ple with the beau­ty of truth, is not easy and does not hap­pen overnight. Keep at it. Make the time.

Let us be patient, and let us under­stand our own faith well enough to know that every­thing that Fran­cis has said is at the very heart of Catholi­cism. Let us get past this false dichoto­my of “lib­er­al” and “con­ser­v­a­tive,” and let us get past the fool­ish need to place one label or the oth­er on the pope. To be Catholic is to be beyond such mean polit­i­cal dis­tinc­tions, which are at the very root of Pope Fran­cis Derang­ment Syn­drome.