Day's Links - 2016-08-29

The story that Pope Benedict resigned because he could not travel by plane certainly has a lot of legs left in it. Without a doubt it will occupy theologians for a long time to come.

The conspiraciy theories will also continue because on the face of it the account is incredible, in the true sense of the word. I am inclined to believe that Pope Benedict did not reveal everything but that does not make the scandal of what he is alleged to have said any less, given that the words attributed to him have not been denied, and the fact that he most likely actually uttered them. Whether he was forced into it or not makes no difference at this point in time.

Either way Mundabor is right when he writes of him "What a sad, tragic figure". What a sad period also for the whole Church.

One man who it seems is impossible to pin down is Fr. Allan J. McDonald, who one minute writes as the strongest defender of the faith and the next minute writes like a love-crazed pollyanna. The piece he wrote about a bishop in Australia giving us the Bergoglio treatment of extolling imaginarry success of NOChurch - which ministers to nobody essentially - at the expense of the pre-Vatican II Church - RealChurch - which actually ministered to everybody and spread the faith, saving souls, could just as easily have been written by an SSPX priest or adherent. He certainly spares no punches. The bishop seems most certainly deluded and seems very unfit for his post given how alien his opinions seem to be to reality and Fr. McDonald doest not take it easy on him.

The odd thing is that the next day people will complain about some scandal that Bergoglio has caused and he will be doing the contortion act around Bergoglio's words trying to show how they can be well-intentiond when a plain reading shows they are not. At that time it seems as though he has a blind spot for Bergoglio as wide as an elephant and tall as a giraffe, until he then writes a piece on Bergoglio showing just how false his mercy is and how he is the most judgemental pope ever, more or less in those words.

He really is tough to pin down - from pollyanna to staunch defender of the faith, not infrequently only an article or two apart.

It is easy to get the impression that there are actually two writers on the blog, but even that theory explodes when they both sign using the same signature.