I dont understand why liberals started a love affair with the Pope, and now I don't understand

[Skinner]

18. In an enormous and diverse organization like the Catholic Church...

...change comes slowly. I do not believe that any pope -- no matter how liberal -- can or would change the actual doctrine of the Catholic Church quickly. The Pope is a political office, just like every other world leader, and I think a pope increases his chance of success by being a skilled politician. For better or worse, some amount of planning, gamesmanship, behind-the-scenes maneuvering, and rhetorical hint-dropping is necessary in order to smooth the way for the BIG CHANGE.

You can see a similar pattern with the Supreme Court's approach to marriage equality -- they signaled where they were headed, then they gave the country many years to get used to the idea. When the decision was finally handed down, nobody was particularly surprised by it. In fact, it seemed inevitable and right.

So I think many of us hear the rhetoric coming from Pope Francis, and saw some of the shuffling of cardinals and whatnot, and we saw this pattern of signaling a possible change on gay rights in the future.

The meeting with Kim Davis seems to go against the direction he was signaling on gay rights -- toward greater respect and less judgment ("who am I to judge?&quot -- so it is not surprising that people are disappointed. It disappoints me, too.

Having said that, I'm not sure that meeting with Kim Davis means he has no intention of changing church doctrine on gay rights. The truth is that none of us knows where he hopes to eventually end up. But if he does want to change church teaching on homosexuality, the meeting with Kim Davis might actually be a shrewd political move -- a signal to conservatives that if the church teaching on homosexuality does change, they will be able to remain somehow as conscientious objectors within the church. Throwing them a bone like that would make an all-out revolt less likely I think.

But as I said, we don't know where all this is heading. Someday we may be able to look back and make sense of it.