When I was a child back in the Sixties, I loved to watch reruns of a 1950's television program, The Life of Riley, starring William Bendix, a sitcom about a hapless fool who was forever screwing everything up and who would proclaim at some point, "what a revolting development this is!" Riley had the wisdom to recognize his mistakes, but other than that, the resemblance to "the Pope" is striking.
From The American Conservative
By Rod Dreher
Not The Onion:
Nearly 500 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a German church, beginning the Protestant Reformation that led millions to break with the Roman Catholic Church and ushered in more than a century of conflict and war.On Monday, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis will participate in a joint Lutheran-Catholic worship service in Sweden this October, kicking off a series of events planned for 2017 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.The effort to mend relations with Protestants has been on the agenda of many popes before Francis, but it is a delicate endeavor. The worship service in Sweden was billed by its sponsors, the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation, as a “commemoration,” not as a “celebration,” in order to avoid any inappropriate note of triumphalism. Some Catholics have criticized the notion of a pope celebrating the anniversary of a schism.
Ya think? This is insane — just as insane as if Lutheran leaders showed up at a worship service to “commemorate” the Counter Reformation. I’m all for efforts to make peace among our broken Christian communions as best we can, in part because we need each other more than ever. I don’t begrudge Protestants celebrating the Reformation at all, though I think it was a terrible tragedy (as was the Great Schism separating the Roman and the Eastern churches). It is appropriate for Protestants to celebrate throwing off the yoke of Rome. But why on earth would a Pope join in an official event marking that celebration? And he really thinks calling it a “commemoration” for the sake of diplomacy matters? Send the Lutherans your regards, offer them your prayers, but good grief, man, you are the Roman pontiff!
