Steve just reported, via friends in Rome:

Today on the plane press conference on the way back to Rome from Greece, Pope Francis was asked a very direct question about the exhortation:

Some maintain that nothing has changed with respect to the discipline that governs the access to the Sacraments for the divorced and remarried, and that the law and the pastoral practice and obviously the doctrine remains the same; others maintain instead that much has changed and that there are many new openings and possibilities. The question is for one person, a Catholic, that wants to know: Are there new concrete possibilities, that did not exist before the publication of the Exhortation or not.

His answer, though it went on longer, contained a straightforward affirmation: “I can say yes.” (““Io posso dire sì. Punto.” In English: “I can say yes. Period.”)

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I just got off the phone with a friend in the City, and we were trying to think of something to do, anything that might be useful to even say, at this incredible situation.

The other day I was having a nap, and I had a kind of half-waking dream that I was in Casa Santa Martha in the cafeteria that he affects to use, and he was having one of his patented hissyfits over some one opposing him, as you do, and I got up onto a table and just started shouting at him.

I have a kind of fantasy that stems from my frustration, that is growing minute-by-minute, with the people who are still saying ‘nothing to see here.’ I can think of little to say to them. What can you say to someone who refuses to acknowledge that gravity makes things fall down.

I have to write something about this for the Remnant which is what I’m going to be doing for the rest of the weekend (so, sorry, but this will be it until at least Monday). But it seems a bit redundant to me now. If this isn’t enough for the people we are trying to warn, I can’t imagine what would be.

As to what to do, my fantasy is this: a group of Catholics turning up at St. Peter’s Piazza, kneeling down on the sampietrini, praying the Rosary, holding a large placard that reads, “Pope Francis: repent your blasphemy!”

Maybe in five or six languages. Every day. Until he repents.

I know that Ann has taken up the habit of ending all her posts and correspondence with “Furthermore I believe Islam must be destroyed.”

To this salutary and eminently sensible assertion, I think I might add something similar to the end of all my public posts:

Pope Francis: repent your blasphemy!

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