"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

It is reported that a day after the Pope told a divorced and remarried couple they could go receive communion, he said something about the indissolubility of marriage to a group of South African bishops.

I am told that such is significant.

Except that it isn't. Not really. My first reaction was "Whoop. De. Doo. Nothingburger."

Wha-?!!!! But he just said it! What more do you want, H8r?

Again, it's insignificant. Why? Because, in that Kasper presentation so volubly praised by the successor of Peter, the Cardinal from restive, pro-divorce Allemagne swore up and down how indissoluble sacramental marriage is before insisting that we had to give communion to those who remarried after a divorce. "Tolerating what we cannot accept," yadda yadda yadda.

So...in the Pope's mind, the phone call and his speech to the RSA bishops aren't inconsistent. Even though under every objective and reasonable standard they are, in fact, irreconcilable, they aren't to him.

Unless you share his understanding, you are misreading him.

Yes, I know--I'm out of communion and not worth listening to. Contradicting the spirit of Jesus and whatnot. Perhaps. But the problem seems to me that those who are celebrating this are just engaging those statements of Pope that reassure them that we're always going to have really good, prudent, smart and careful Popes, and shelving those that don't fit the template.

Even though we aren't promised any such thing.

Anyway--carry on.