The conservative hardline faction in the Vatican has long been trying to hinder Pope Francis’ reforms and their latest consternation is with the Pope’s inclusive position on transgender people. Bishop Joseph Edward Strickland has long and consistently opposed Pope Francis’ more inclusive position towards gay and transgender people, but worse still, he used his position as a cleric and bishop to build his own media personality and even got involved in politics by supporting Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020. He also wants to revive the Latin Mass because according to him, it draws more people to the church.
Now, Bishop Strickland is no longer bishop after Pope Francis fired him in an unprecedented and very rare move by a Pope. Strickland has not been defrocked but he has lost his title and role as Bishop of Tyler, Texas. Apparently, Bishop Strickland has tens of thousands of supporters in the US due to his media and political activity, and he even has his own radio show – something grossly irregular given that clerics are supposed to be doing work for their community and not promoting themselves and their opinions on their own media shows. Now, that he is no longer bishop, Joseph Strickland will have plenty of time to promote his homophobic ideas.
Some Catholics seem to be losing their mind lately given that they have decided that they are wiser than the Pope and should have autonomy over the Christian doctrine. Yet, the Pope is infallible and his authority over his flock is handed by God. Devotees are expected to respect the Pope with absolute humility and grace – his authority is divine and hence called the Holy Father. I don’t make the rules of the Church. Anyone opposing and fighting Pope Francis in the Church is creating a schismatic scenario as has always happened in history whenever internal disputes against the Pope intensified. There is no rational and fundamental grounding to many orthodox Catholic beliefs and the Pope’s authority serves as a heavy anchor for the faith – this is how the Catholic Church works. Those who don’t like it can always join other religions, and after all the US is full of batshit crazy cults that would probably be more appropriate for Joseph Strickland.
Pope Francis has been adding a healthy coterie of intelligent loyalists at the Vatican and expelling someone like Strickland sends the message that a direct challenge to the Pope’s authority is not acceptable and not tolerated. Such a decision also helps get rid of some of the bigoted clerics who have ended up in important positions in the Church by favoritism and preferential treatment and not because of meritocracy (he was a friend of Pope John Paul II).
Let’s put it in simple terms. A cleric who staunchly makes it his mission to revive the Latin Mass shows a great and absolute ignorance of Christianity and the Catholic religion, because, in fact, Latin has no real value within the Catholic religion other than being coincidentally, the old and classic language of the geographic region where the Pope’s seat eventually ended up located. So, the Latin language tradition in Catholicism was more political than essentially religious, so it’s clear that whoever obsesses with this stuff is not only wasting time but exhibiting absolute stupidity over the religion they are supposed to teach and promote.
The New Testament was written for the first time in Greek. It was only translated into Latin, at a later stage.
In reality, this is the state of the majority of Catholic clerics – they are not really taught Bible studies – their capacity to read the Bible is reduced to Googling Bible quotes and giving superficial, and often infantile explainers about them. Most of the clerics, including Joseph Strickland have 0 knowledge of the ancient and religious languages – Greek and Hebrew. Their understanding of Christianity is superficial and strictly based on doctrine and what they have been told by colleagues and superiors. Clerics like Bishop Strickland deceive their followers by speaking authoritatively about holy texts they know very little about – but they feel they can get away with saying anything irrespective of what it means to core religious beliefs. It is no exaggeration to say that if you have watched Father Ted, you have also seen a very simplistic yet realistic portrayal of the main and different IQ specimens among the Catholic clerics.
It’s also shockingly surprising to see such internal opposition to the Pope just because he is being more inclusive to the LGBT community. It’s incredible how many bigots still linger in the Catholic Church. Of all things, they want to pick up a fight with the Pope over LGBT inclusion, not his position on Russia or something more materially controversial.
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