This from the New York Times' Ross Douthat:

"My dear professors!

"I read with interest your widely-publicized letter to my editors this week, in which you objected to my recent coverage of Roman Catholic controversies, complained that I was making unfounded accusations of heresy (both “subtly” and “openly”!), and deplored this newspaper’s willingness to let someone lacking theological credentials opine on debates within our church. I was appropriately impressed with the dozens of academic names who signed the letter on the Daily Theology site, and the distinguished institutions (Georgetown, Boston College, Villanova) represented on the list.I have great respect for your vocation. Let me try to explain mine.

"A columnist has two tasks: To explain and to provoke. The first requires giving readers a sense of the stakes in a given controversy, and why it might deserve a moment of their fragmenting attention span. The second requires taking a clear position on that controversy, the better to induce the feelings (solidarity, stimulation, blinding rage) that persuade people to read, return, and re-subscribe.

"I hope we can agree that current controversies in Roman Catholicism cry out for explanation. And not only for Catholics: The world is fascinated — as it should be — by Pope Francis’ efforts to reshape our church. But the main parties in the church’s controversies have incentives to downplay the stakes. Conservative Catholics don’t want to concede that disruptive change is even possible. Liberal Catholics don’t want to admit that the pope might be leading the church into a crisis." READ FULL REPORT HERE


REMNANT COMMENT: What's this? No apology? No groveling? No boot-licking? Who is this strange man and from what planet does he hail?  

(If and when they banish him from the Old Gray Lady, I hope Mr. Douthat will consider coming our way. The Remnant is small but it's becoming a rapidly-expanding refugee camp for homeless Catholic writers who want to speak the truth in a world growing increasingly allergic to it.)

This from our friends over at Rorate Caeli: "Yes, he said it over the phone to his favorite journalist, Italian editor Eugenio Scalfari of La Repubblica (the Pope's favorite newspaper), in a conversation on October 28, revealed by the latter in an editorial published this Sunday.

"There is no reason to doubt its general accuracy. We are way past the time of doubting the general accuracy of the Scalfari quotes. Not now, that the papal interviews to Scalfari have been published on the Vatican website, that they have been occasionally published by the Vatican publishing house (LEV) itself - for instance, as part of the book to the right." READ FULL REPORT HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: Gee, do you suppose this is true? Can't be. Must be another bad translation. Or more likely, it's just a lot of evil, leftist, communist media spin. We know our Pope Francis would never say such a thing. He's on the side of the angels, and, HELLO!, he's super humble.

And if the atheist Scalfari is a liar, why would the Pope keep giving him interviews? I mean.... right?

This just in from George Neumayr at The American Spectator: "The scandalous synod on the family skidded to a stop last weekend in Rome but not before Pope Francis got in a few more licks at conservatives, whom he caricatured in his final remarks as heartless.The speech was notable for its nastiness, displaying the very lack of charity he routinely assigns to conservatives. The synod, he said, had exposed “closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families.”

"He continued: “It was about trying to open up broader horizons, rising above conspiracy theories and blinkered viewpoints, so as to defend and spread the freedom of the children of God, and to transmit the beauty of Christian Newness, at times encrusted in a language which is archaic or simply incomprehensible.”

"Under the lightweight leftism of Pope Francis, the question “Is the Pope Catholic?” seems less and less rhetorical. Previous popes, reading the remarks above, would conclude that the speaker held to the theology of liberal Protestantism." READ ARTICLE HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: You know what? Having just returned from Rome, and knowing from on-the-ground experience how spot-on correct Mr. Neumayr is, our comment this morning is lifted right from a subsequent paragraph in this same article:  

"All the tortured throat-clearing from pundits about the “nuances” of Pope Francis is very unconvincing. He is not nuanced at all. He is an open left-wing Catholic, perfectly comfortable with the de facto heretics within his own order and inside his special cabinet of cardinals. Cardinal Walter Kasper, whom Pope Francis has identified as one of his “favorite” theologians, and Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Germany, who is one of his closest advisers, stand to the left of Martin Luther.

"Well, say the pope’s desperate propagandists, Francis may not possess a deep mind but at least he has a big heart. If so, it seems to bleed for everyone but orthodox Catholics, whose fidelity to the faith under secularism’s ceaseless encroachments is treated with contempt.

"Like many modern Jesuits, Francis often sounds like he loves every religion except his own."

Right on, Mr. Neumayr! If and when you begin to lose venues in which to publish the unvarnished truth as you've done so expertly here, please consider the columns of The Remnant wide open to you.

Michael Matt interviews Dr. John Rao on the Summorum Pontifical Pilgrimage in the shadow of the Synod on the Family in Rome. God help us all.

Michael Matt in Rome comments on today's Synod on the Family press conference which lets the cat out of the bag. This Synod is Pope Francis's attempt to create a new Church--a new synodal Church that will listen to sinners and marginalize saints. Mater? Si! Magistra? Forget about it! SHOW MORE

Michael Matt reports from Rome on the last days of the Synod on the Family. Is the Pope's project all about changing the entire central ruling authority of the Catholic Church, too?