Creepygate: Revolt Of The Pussycats?

It’s not that we had not been warned…

 

S.Armaticus has his, as usual, very perceptive views about what is happening with Creepygate. The article links some “pre-poop” affirmation of Bishop Fellay to Edward Pentin’s very recent interview to Regina.

Both sources indicate, more or less, the same: opposition to Francis (and, by extension, support for the Dubia) is far more widely spread than the very limited number of voices who have spoken for the Four Cardinals would let you believe. Pentin goes as far as to say that as the play is now, it is not unreasonable to assume that very many of those who have not intervened in defence of Poop Francis are, in fact, ipso facto opposed to his position.

I am not Pentin or Bishop Fellay. They talk to a lot of people. They might know more than they can (or want to) say.

However, from my keyboard on the other side of the Continent I cannot avoid thinking:

1. How can it be that there are bishops or cardinals thinking that waiting for Francis to appoint more and more poop cardinals and poop bishops, whilst hoping that he dies soon, is the way to go? Are we really at such a level of dumbness that we believe problems go away from themselves if we hope very, very hard?

2. In the same way as Fellay and Pentin talk to bishops and cardinals, the latter most certainly talk among themselves. If they are nearly as many as the sources seem to indicate (Fellay says up to 30 cardinals; basically instant death for Francis’ Poop-ificate; the number of bishops would then be a multiple of that), they most certainly know it themselves and are fully aware of their devastating strength. Would, then, the smartest thing to do not be this: the issuing of an ultimatum to Francis, with the alternative (however flowery put) between caving in or being declared a heretic?

Whilst right is more important than numbers, two dozen cardinals have quite a different impact than four, and two dozen cardinals backed by 100 or 150 bishops are game, set and match.

3. I understand Pentin’s reasoning: questioning the Pope’s orthodoxy (which is what, all diplomacy aside, the Four Cardinals are plainly doing) is such an extreme measure that all those who consider the Pope unjustly accused would speak out, surely? Well, yes and no. Yes, they do not consider Francis an orthodox Pope. No, there is no indication they would be ready to risk persecution or even inconvenience for the sake of truth. Amoris Laetitia was published in April, and as I write this the bishops and cardinals who have openly criticised it can be counted on two hands. No St Crispin’s Day lot, this one.

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We will see how this pans out. Certainly, Francis’ propensity to shoot himself in the foot is helping our cause, and the more nervous he gets, the more mistakes he will make. But I don’t see on the other side anything even vaguely resembling determined Christian troops; and those bishops who decide to shut up now will, if that Francisthing hits the fan, probably decide to keep shutting up in order to “avoid a schism”.

If things come to the point where Francis is officially, publicly rebuked, I expect only a tiny minority to speak against him, and there will no doubt then that all those who shut up are helping him to stay in power. However, if such an open and public rebuke were to happen it would never be a game of numbers: this papacy would be shattered in one thousand fragments, and Francis would never recover from it.

We will not have a Francis declared heretic and self-deposed through his heresy, or a Francis forced to resign to avoid such an event. But we will have a papacy mortally wounded, and unable to recover credibility for as long as Poop Francis lives; which, apparently, even a lot of people in purple and red hope will not be long.

M