Fake Pope Francis is removing all criticism of sodomy from the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy:
Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland, a prominent figure among traditionalist American Catholics and critic of Pope Francis for making the church more welcoming to the LGBTQ community, was removed from his post as bishop of Tyler, the Vatican has said.
In a statement released on Saturday, the Vatican confirmed that the decision followed “an apostolic visitation ordered by the Pope last June in the Diocese of Tyler,” but did not specify the reason.
“The Holy Father has removed Bishop Joseph E. Strickland from the pastoral governance of the diocese of Tyler, United States of America, and has appointed Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin as apostolic administrator of the same diocese, rendering it sede vacante.”
According to the statement, cited by the Vatican news, “as a result of visitation,” Bishop Strickland’s continuation in office was deemed “not feasible” and he was asked to resign on Thursday. Since the request was declined by the bishop, Pope Frances decided to remove him.
Now, I’m neither a theologian nor am I overwhelmingly concerned with the opinions of theologians. Nor do I take my own occasional contemplations on the subject terribly seriously; I am from the “glass darkly” school of theological thought. Though I do have my preferences, as I respect and admire Thomas Aquinas, have rather less regard for Augustine, enjoy both CS Lewis and Greg Boyd without taking either of them too seriously, and harbor naked contempt for Hal Lindsey, Joel Osteen, and John Piper.
The Kurgan makes his pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic perspective clear in a recently published article; to which I may or may not respond at some point in the next ten years depending upon my time and interest.
But, speaking of Roman Catholics, I do find myself wondering how the non-sedevacantists can bring themselves to defend this observably wicked man, whose actions are obviously reprehensible even in the eyes of heretics and pagans. And if the satanic rainbow flag is flying over Rome, in what sense have the gates of that particular church not fallen?
My chief criticism of all theology and all theologians is this: they tend to artificially narrow the art of the possible, by which I mean they usually assign divine significance to one of several possible interpretations of a phrase – often a phrase that has already been translated one or more times – and then deny all potential legitimacy to the other possible interpretations.
To my mind, balancing an entire theology upon an assumed metaphor is a precarious act indeed.
Evil observably exists. Mankind is observably fallen into evil. The world is observably ruled by an immortal being that hates Man, Jesus Christ, the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Living Word, is literally and observably the only hope of Man.
And that is the full extent of the theology I am willing to assert and defend.
UPDATE: An American Catholic emails to defend Fake Pope Francis
I am a Catholic Christian who has followed Bishop Strickland’s movement within the Church. He has been an ardent defender of traditional morality, and Pope Francis has not. However, I cannot fault Pope Francis for removing him. The bishop went to Rome and gave a speech on October 31 in which he read a letter calling Pope Francis a usurper and suggesting that the Pope is the Antichrist. If you go to corporate headquarters to denounce the CEO, you’re going to get fired, especially when you’ve already been given several warnings. Pope Francis takes his role of maintaining unity of the Church seriously, and in my opinion, he tolerates too much heresy to maintain that unity. However, I cannot fault him for taking action against a bishop who basically declared himself to be in schism and dared the Pope to do something about it.