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As I was saying last time, before I was interrupted, Pope Francis is facing resistance to the fresh air and change of ethos he’s trying to bring about inside the Church.
And those with eyes to see can detect this opposition especially among the current crop of seminarians and younger priests, as well as a number of bishops.
“The resistance is coming from those that don’t want to change,” says Professor Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Sant’Egidio Community here in Rome.
In an interview some months ago, he pointed out that many regular folks all over the world were still enjoying a “honeymoon” with Papa Francesco. And he predicted that it would not wane quickly because it’s “much more substantial” than a mere “media phenomenon”.
Precisely because there is substance to changes the 77-year-old Jesuit Pope is trying to inculcate in the Church, especially his effort to wipe out clericalism, resistance to him has grown.
However, it is not fashionable or favourable (especially to one’s career) for clerics to go around bashing the Bishop of Rome. So they have to find another target.
This is exactly what happened during Benedict XVI’s pontificate when the former pope’s enemies chose his Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB, as their surrogate punching bag.
Those hostile to Pope Francis and how he’s governing the Vatican and the Universal Church have affixed the bull’s eye on the backs of any number of people close to him.
For example, in the first weeks of his papal ministry they tried to dig up dirt on some of Papa Bergoglio’s closest aides, only to see their poisonous arrows deflected by a shrewd and self-composed man who will not cave in to blackmail.
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Cardinal Walter Kasper is the latest and most prominent among those taking a hit for Pope Francis. Continue reading
– Robert Mickens update from the Vatican and around the world is back after a few months break. Robert is editor of new Catholic publication, Global Pulse Magazine.
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News category: Analysis and Comment.
