Selective Disciple: Pope Francis the Softie shows that he can come down hard... on conservatives

Point one: Archbishop Joseph Strickland in Texas was recently removed from his office by Pope Francis. Strickland has been critical of what appears to be a more lenient Vatican unwritten policy towards the LGBT+ movement. He also was critical of the lack of discipline of our American President, 

"Last year, when the Vatican defrocked ultra-conservative U.S. anti-abortion priest Frank Pavone for 'blasphemous' social media posts and disobedience to bishops, Strickland was one of the few American bishops to defend him publicly.

'The blasphemy is that this holy priest is cancelled while an evil president promotes the denial of truth and the murder of the unborn at every turn, Vatican officials promote immorality and denial of the deposit of faith and priests promote gender confusion devastating lives...evil,' Strickland wrote on the platform then known as Twitter." - Reuters.

There had to be more,  

"Strickland indicated in an interview with the ultra-conservative website LifeSiteNews that one reason (for being in trouble) was his refusal to implement Vatican directives to restrict the use of the old-style Latin Mass favoured by some conservatives."

 The NYT also recently published a story about Strickland (subscription required) which probably tipped the scales against him.

 Point two: Same sex blessings will be allowed in a Roman Catholic diocese in Germany. Recall that I reported two years ago that 100 Catholic churches across Germany offered blessings to same-sex couples on March 10, 2021 according to the NYT, Now,  Anglican Ink reports that one Bishop is making it official, 

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Speyer in southwestern Germany has given permission to his clergy to bless same-sex marriages and the marriages of divorced and remarried.

In a 2 Nov 2023 letter to clergy and lay pastoral workers Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann said the ceremony would not be a sacrament and must “differ from a church wedding ceremony in terms of words and signs and should explicitly reinforce the love, commitment, and mutual responsibility in the couple’s relationship as an act of blessing.”

The bishop called for the creation of a pastoral rite that would provide for the blessings “for various couple situations (remarried couples, same-sex couples, couples after civil marriage).”

The bishop stated: “Both with regard to believers whose marriages have broken down and who have remarried, and especially with regard to same-sex oriented people, it is urgently time — especially against the background of a long history of deep hurt — for a different perspective to find a pastoral attitude inspired by the Gospel, as many of you have been practicing for a long time.”

“That’s why I campaigned for a reassessment of homosexuality in Church teaching in the synodal way and also voted for the possibility of blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. I stand by that. I hope that on the path of the global synod this pressing question of our time can also experience positive development.”

While the recently concluded synod on synodality in Rome did not address the issue of same-sex blessings, Pope Francis responded to a dubia, a question, from five conservative cardinals asking for a statement on the licitness of same-sex blessings.

The pope said it was a matter of pastoral prudence to “properly discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more people, that do not convey a misconception of marriage.”

“Decisions that may be part of pastoral prudence in certain circumstances need not be transformed into a norm,” Francis wrote. “In other words, it is not appropriate for a diocese, a conference of bishops, or any other ecclesial structure to authorize constantly and officially procedures or rules for every type of affair.”

There was no discipline of the mass disobedience of March 2021 in Germany. I am betting that there will be no investigation into the actions of the German Bishop, and he will not be forced to resign by his Archbishop or by Pope Francis. 

This should serve as a warning to those thinking about swimming the Tiber that the virus has already spread to Rome and that resistance will be put down even by a softie like Pope Francis.