I think we’ve all had pretty much enough of the quislings and Vichys and their desperation, don’t you?

New What’s Up With Francis-Church policy:

Rejected posts and comments correcting the stupid crap of the papologists – the Akins, the Armstrongs (sorry Dave, I know we’re pals now), the Sheas, the Coffins, the Zeds – may come here and get an airing. Consider me a haven. A safe space, as the kids call it now. If you responded to something idiotic, dangerous, wrong, insane, contradictory, heretical or just plain stupid and got deleted, blocked or otherwise cast out, send me the comment in one of our WUWFC commboxes, together with the thing you’re responding to, and perhaps a link, and we’ll see about making it a post of its own.

Maybe at the end of the month, your own personal contribution to the Great Papologist Brushoff will be included as an official square in a new WUWFC papologist-excuse bingo card!

I’ll start.

Here’s one from Oakes Spalding, the author of Mahound’s Paradise blog, in response to Fr. Zed’s rather desperate assertion that the contraception comment on the plane was “meaningless.”

Zed scolds: Next, and this is important, I remind everyone that the Roman Pontiff doesn’t teach doctrine on faith and morals through off-hand comments to journalists ON AN AIRPLANE RIDE! So, relax about the contraception comment. It was meaningless.

Oakes responds: _“It’s not meaningless and it’s not funny. Pope Francis is doing great damage to the Church. Indeed, he’s currently doing more damage to the Church than any man now alive.

Cowardice is still cowardice, Fr. Z, even when it wears a facade of charity. And at a certain point, silence or obfuscation equals collaboration. Please think about this whether you delete this comment or not. God is watching, and His is the only opinion you should care about.”

~

Another friend – who actually holds advanced degrees in papal stuff from Pontifical Universities – adds the helpful factual information about how ex-cathedra statements work: _“In point of fact, a Pope *could* teach infallibly on an airplane, in a press conference, or anywhere else for that matter. Whether or not a statement is infallible (or Magisterial, for that matter), is determined by the type of statement, not by where it is pronounced.

“And, as many people have pointed out, the problem with the Pope’s statements is not whether or not they are authoritative or Magisterial (much less infallible). The problem is that he is making confusing statements that are misleading millions of people, and he refuses to correct or clarify those statements.

And while we’re on this point… the neo-cons for YEARS have been trying to argue, with regard to JP2 and B16, that Papal Teaching is incredibly important — meaningful, if you will — even if it is not ex cathedra. Now anything shy of an infallible definition is ‘meaningless?’

This is not how the papacy works.

Yes, we must discern different kinds of papal statements, and distinguish various levels of authoritative teaching. But the Pope, precisely because he is the Visible Head of the Church on earth, because he is the supreme teacher of the faithful, charged with ‘feeding the sheep,’ has a duty in prudence and charity to speak the truth, and preach the Gospel in a way that will lead the faithful to Christ, and will not lead them astray.”

~

New Papologist Bingo Square: “He doesn’t make ex-cathedra statements from airplane interviews, you stupid, scaremongering Trad!”

[All bingo squares are going to be understood to include the sufffix, which from now on, we will probably abbreviate to “yssmt”.]

~