Pope’s Foot-Wash a Final Straw for Traditionalist Catholics

[DonCoquixote]

86. Trying to philosophize?

The reason i sated my perspective was a "tragedy" is because:

you have one group of people who take the Pope to task for being too conservative; being liberal, I would tend to have a bias towards these folks, admittedly, as I want to see women priests, birth control, and less Gay bashing. This pope has firmly said he will not budge on either of those positions. This is point one, and I think even you coudl grant that.

You have one group, described in this article, that takes the pope to task for being too liberal: The piece quoted in the OP does a wonderful job explaning that..

So, we have a dilemma, does Francis run to the left, or the the right? He runs left, gains the support of the left..loses the right. He goes right, and loses the support of the left. There are many people that can argue left vs right, and in the process, bring up the old philosophical stuff like ad hominems, straw men, and other philospphy tricks used to naigate dilemmas.

But the tragedy is, Francis is not admitting that there is a dilemma in the first place. He is going on as if he can somehow wrap up things the left likes, like the ecumenical feeeling good of washing women feets, and, at the same time, hold on the churches stance against birth control, women priests, and homosexuals. The point is not that whether your argument is bad, it is that Francis does nto believe there is an argument to be made, and therefore, when the bull charges ahead, he will be clueless and flatlined.

As far as what happens afterword, keep in mind that this is the first time in 800 years that we have the chance for a pope "emeritus" to actively pick a successor. If Francis dies, and Ratzinger outlives him, he can offer input. The danger is that people know they face a dilemma, and they will want to know that they have some strategy, any plan, because no realplan to address the dilemma gets means being run flat over.