I realize that this is the Queen-of-Spin Nicole Winfield saying this, but I think it’s a relevant point:

“Italian Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, another leading conservative, has criticized [Amoris laetizia] as vague and confusing, and denied that it opened the door to Communion, since doing so would contradict previous church teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.”

It might not be what Caffarra said or meant, (I happen to think that Caffarra really is one of the actual good ones) but this logic really can be seen coming from an increasing number of desperate novusordoist priests and laity, and of course, it’s self-refuting nonsense. It’s circular logic: “The document can’t possibly have said that because if it did, it would be a contradiction of doctrine, and that can’t possibly happen, therefore it didn’t happen.”

See where I’m going with this? It is precisely this, the lack of intellectual fortitude, the cowardly retreat into mere blandishments and finger-pointing, that has plagued the Church for 50 years or more. It has created the ever-shrinking no-man’s land of “conservative” novusordoism. It has been applied to every aspect of the Church’s life, from the liturgy to the religious life to the priesthood and the Sacraments. “It can’t possibly be as bad as the Trads say because that would mean that things were as bad as the Trads say, and that’s impossible…”

Man up, people.

And since Nicole has some kind of aversion to including links to original materials, here is the One Peter Five exclusive interview with the good Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna. (Maybe Steve’s on a blacklist… it is to laugh…)

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