Francis obviously does not mean literally that “people have a tendency toward the sickness of coprophagia”—i.e., toward eating dung. Rather, he likens the tendency to gossip to a revoltingly inapt referent to which he is strangely attached. Perhaps he merely wished to throw around a couple of obscure words during his press interview of the week to show how etymologically astute and well read he is. But he has only succeeded in demonstrating yet again that he is a tone-deaf pseudo-intellectual so enamored of his own random thoughts that he has no idea of what an embarrassment he is.
The appropriate reaction here—aside from horror over the continuing damage this man is inflicting upon the Church and the papal office—is not anger but pity for an aggressively unfortunate soul. We must keep the eternal perspective in view and pray for Francis as ardently as we pray for our own salvation.
Yet I ask myself: Do we not find here another similarity between Pope Bergoglio and Martin Luther? (Even the Vatican Radio’s German outlet Facebook page has published—approvingly—the Luther-Bergoglio Internet meme created by a critic skilled in Photoshop).
Is it a coincidence that Martin Luther too had a preoccupation with feces? It was he who penned such gems as “I am ripe s---, so is the world a great wide a--hole; eventually we will part” and “I have shat in my pants and breeches; hang them on your neck and wipe your mouth with them.” (There is more here if you are interested). And it was Saint Thomas More who wrote of Luther that “he conceives nothing in his head other than stupidities, rages and insanities; [and] has nothing in his mouth other than sewers, sh-- and dung—with which he plays the buffoon more filthily and obscenely than any actual buffoon ever did.”
As Maureen Mullarkey has written regarding this stercoraceous eruption from the mouth of Mount Bergoglio: “This pontificate is a cornucopia of last straws.” Indeed, take your pick. Damian Thompson, protesting “the Pope’s bizarre rant about eating faeces” over at The Spectator, notes the widening disillusionment with this calamitous papacy before concluding: “The Pope turns 80 this month. A surprising number of Catholics are wondering whether this might not be an appropriate moment for him to retire. Count me among them.”
But Rod Dreher best captures the essence of the problem. In a blog post entitled “Poop Talk with Pope Francis,” he delivers this devastating one-liner: “The Vicar of Christ, ladies and gentlemen.”
Francis is determined to bring the papacy down to his level, and the whole Church along with it. To the extent humanly possible, the Church has become his plaything. The result is at once a demonstration of the power and the peril of the papacy.