Lèse-majesté

Faith, did you ever see a name that said "Irish Roman Catholic" more strongly than "Michael Brendan Dougherty"? I have not. He writes an amazing opinion about the Church for National Review, basically saying Pope Francis is a doofus. Some key quotes:

Pope Francis is a gift to the Catholic Church, especially when he says something silly, clumsy, or even stupid. He allows serious Catholics to take the papal cult less seriously than they have been doing for generations. Overall, that’s a good thing.

Francis is now something less than a symbol of religion, or the living representative of Catholic faith on earth. He’s not a sign from God for all living in this moment. Through his own loquacity, he’s reduced himself to a stereotype that has become familiar to many Catholics: He’s the old liberal, who is just appalled by the young Huns entering his religious order.

Simply put, we don’t have to listen to popes when they are talking out of their rear ends. What Francis describes as an orderly procession of liturgical reform in the 20th century will very likely one day be seen as one of the greatest spams of iconoclasm in the history of Christianity.

And the fact that Francis is so wrong on this, as on many other things, will, one hopes, break the exaggerated papal cult once and for all. (snip) For that I’m grateful.

If anything, Dougherty may be too kind to this disciple of liberation theology. Not all CEOs are created equal, that's for sure.