AMORIS LAETITIA CRITICS CONFERENCE'S PROMISED BOMBSHELL A DUD

When I was younger (much, much younger), I looked forward with great anticipation to the Fourth of July every year.  

My Dad would purchase fireworks and I would be given the luxury of having a pack or two of firecrackers all to myself to enjoy.  These I would separate with great care so that I could set them off one by one, rather than lighting the whole pack and having the fun end in a matter of seconds.

But, there would always be a dud firecracker or two which wouldn’t explode when the thin fuse was lighted.  That was always a disappointing experience.

Well, this past Saturday, critics of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetita (AL), convened a conference which they publicized would be a bombshell.  There's more about this conference in my article posted two days ago:  "Oh No!  Not Cardinal Burke and His Cronies Again!"

Up till now, Pope Francis’s strategy with regard to his critics has been to ignore them in the apparent hope that they would either go away or dwindle into insignificance.

As a matter of fact, two of the four Cardinals who submitted a list of five critical questions about AL in 2016 to the Pope, have since died: German Cardinal Joachim Meisner in July 2017, and Italian Cardinal Carlo Caffarra two months later in September 2017.

Even more disappointing to these neo-conservative reactionaries is the fact that few media outlets have failed to pay any attention whatsoever to their detailed dissections of AL and its footnotes.

And for some time, these tired voices of opposition have not found anything original to say.

Nonetheless, the pre-event hype surrounding this conference hinted strongly that American Cardinal Raymond Burke would present his oft-promised formal public correction of Francis.

There had been speculation the correction would be issued in the final declaration issued at the end of Saturday’s Conference, but instead the brief six-point statement restricted itself to rejecting the teaching of AL. The declaration didn’t carry any specific signatories, but was issued in the name of the “People of God.”

In the end, the conference was a dud and many of the reactionaries in attendance left expressing skepticism that a correction would ever be forthcoming.

At the end of the day, therefore, there seemed to be two conclusions from perhaps the largest gathering of critical voices on AL since it was issued two years ago.

First, the critics are not going away. 

Second, and more importantly, Pope Francis will remain calm and comfortable in continuing to ignore them.

So much for firecrackers and bombshells!