Sorry Cardinal Nichols

Few things in our Church have astounded me more than the news yesterday that Cardinal Nichols has written to the Pope, on behalf of Catholics of England and Wales, thanking him, of all things, for "his steadfast defence of Church teaching".

THE WHOLE WORLD is talking about the FACT that the Pope is ANYTHING but clear and steadfast, let alone defending Church teaching, but Cardinal Nichols chooses these words???

To be honest, it reminded me of a politician trying to pretend that the government haven't just done something that they have clearly just done. 

The problem with this sort of attempt at wool-pulling-over-eyes is that it can only serve to destroy his credibility with anyone who still thinks they can trust him.

Is there anyone -ANYONE who would agree with the statement that Cardinal Nichols makes in this letter?

It is utterly insulting to think that he would write this given the present situation.

I have tweeted as much to the Cardinal with the hashtag  #noninnominemeo

If you agree with me on this, I would encourage you to tweet to the Cardinal yourself @cardinalnichols or retweet my tweet to him by clicking on this link and hitting "retweet".

Dear God if only these men would do what they are supposed to and actually preach the faith!

As if to illustrate this precise point, there's a brilliant satirical piece on Eye of the Tiber today which has been posted all over social media, you've probably already seen it. It is entitled Pope Francis Signals Possible Openness to Just About Anything At This Point and goes on to explain:

Pope Francis has said that he is open to the possibility of permitting basically anything to address the serious issues facing the Church, unless that thing is not in line with what he thinks.

During an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, Pope Francis said that traditions and things that date back to times before his election to the papacy would not stand in his way.

“We need to think about whether it could be a possibility to begin allowing things that we’re not used to allowing,” he said. “If so, we would need to determine what those things are.”

This is not the first time Francis raised eyebrows with comments regarding allowing something that had not been allowed before, or that gave hope to a group of people that thought he would allow something even though he would not.

Francis recently discussed the possibility of allowing female deacons, saying theologians should study the example of Scripture.

“What did this mean at that time of the Bible? What does it mean today? Seriously, though, I don’t know. Someone please study things and tell me the answer to the things that you studied. In the meantime, I will keep saying things might be permitted until I am told that they are or are not possible of being permitted by me. I beg that you don’t take long because I’m not going to wait for an answer. If confronted with a question, I will say that it should be investigated. After that, I will leave it to you priests, bishops, and laymen to explain to everyone how I was misunderstood and how my words are always taken out of context.”

Quite!