On the papacy of Pope Francis
You don't have to agree with Patrick Coffin -- and I do not agree with him -- to think that this video from Catholic Answers responding to his thesis is not adequate. Dismissing the cataclysmic internal upheaval we are experiencing, in a misguided attempt to calm the waters, could even cause scandal to the very people the hosts wish to reassure.
The errors of Pope Francis are not just ones of personal immorality or defects of prudence. We are beyond "you can affirm he is pope without defending everything he says and does" and well into "there is something fundamentally wrong here."
I think Pope Francis is Pope -- and is a bad pope. I have come under fire from self-appointed establishment watchdogs like Dave Armstrong for saying this, even though I'm specifically distinguishing myself from those who think he is not pope at all.
But I warn Joe Heschmeyer and Cy Kellett not to take a flippant attitude towards those who are rightfully disturbed and dismayed. People really are losing their faith or, in the case of potential converts (the presumed target audience of Catholic Answers), turning away from the one true Church, on account of the Pope's hermeneutic of confusion regarding matters of liturgy, doctrine, and morals. Using the pseudo-assuaging tone of "it's fine, everything is fine" will not make this profound anxiety go away.
It's true that we, the laymen and suffering faithful, will not decide these matters (and Patrick Coffin says as much in his video), but we are well within our rights and duties to require the bishops to decide -- to hold them to the sticking point.
It's flippant, and therefore inappropriate, given the gravity of the matter, to say that Jesus will figure it out and "don't worry about it." Jesus may want us to call our bishops to account, just as the laymen of the 4th century did, in the Arian heresy. Read your St. John Henry Newman. Learn your history. The most scandalously depraved pope of history never attacked the foundations of the magisterial office the way Pope Francis has, as I have written in my book God Has No Grandchildren.
And no, it was not Phil Lawler who said anything like that there is an imaginary crisis (around the 1 hour mark of the video). In fact, he is the one who has said that we are not in some merely cyclical blip of history, but at a significant crossroads, one that has to be confronted by all who are able to speak up.
(Part 2 here)