Speaking of electric Praetorians...

Recently, one of the pope's unpaid Yankee spin doctors issued his first statement on the pope's destructive "You probably aren't married--but that couple shacking up might be!") blurtations on marriage.

I won't link to him, but if you're curious, he blogs at Patheos and has a cringe-inducing long sword logo at the top of his page. 

As I said, he didn't discuss the original statement, nor does he acknowledge the pope's assertion that cohabitation can be real marriage.

In any event, this particular electric Praetorian asserts that the real problem is not the actual statements themselves. No, of course not. 

No, rather the really damaging thing is that Catholics don't accept the fact that it was supposedly just a misstatement, and one (at best partially) "corrected" by a post-hoc Orwellian transcript scrubbing.

Never mind that the no-doubt increasingly-retirement-yearning Fr. Lombardi only discussed the Minitrue treatment because journalists brought the bowdlerized transcript to his attention.

Nope. The Blurts Heard 'Round The World are shruggable, since such were (partially) altered without comment or explanation.

Something tells me that if this writer were verbally referred to as a "Cincinnati-area Scientology official" he would not be, shall we say, entirely mollified if he were to be handed a "transcript" that said "Cincinnati-area resident." 

It should not be hard to explain that such damaging blockbuster statements cannot be "recalled" that way, much less repaired.

As a Michigan jurist said in another context: that which is "announced with flourishes and fanfare at noonday should not be revoked by a pennywhistle trill at midnight."

But that's what the Vatican tried to do.

Apparently, however, in the Age of Francis, we all have to learn that the problem is not Francis's words and actions, but rather our reaction to his words and actions. And those reactions must account for the memory-holing of the historical record.

In other words, tighten your cilice and shut up.

It's the end of marriage as we know it--and he feels fine.

Some additional thoughts on the pope's latest joy-buzzer pronouncement.

1. You'd think that the total failure of the Church's sanctifying mission with respect to the sacrament of marriage would not be brought up offhand in response to a question, but would be front and center, an all-hands-on-deck moment. And it would be delivered in a tone of horror, not with the offhand sadness of an American who just saw a CNN report about a typhoon hitting Bangladesh. 

2. In fact, you'd think that he might have hit us with this crucial supposed fact during, I don't know...one of those Synod on the Family confabs we just suffered through twice during the past two years? 

"Oh, hai, guys--I think we might want to talk about the fact we're running nullity factories in every diocese in the world, and might want to do something about that. Sound good?"

Did he? Did anyone? Cardinal Kasper did, but it too was offhand, and not during the Synod. And he was sneered at by the pope's electric Praetorians...who again proved to be as reliable as a rain dance.

So, apart from that, was this Church-shaking fact broached? Nope. 

3. Another ideal spot to maybe enlighten everyone about this continuing disaster would have been in Amoris Laetitia, but... again, nada.

4. Finally, he's been a priest for nearly fifty years. He's part and parcel of this explosion of allegedly invalid marriages. But do you see the slightest glimmer of a mea culpa, of ownership here? Nope. Apparently, like typhoons, bad things just happen to good bishops.

So, if you're wondering about why I don't take the "great majority of marriages are null" blurtation seriously, there you go. Taken together, he's just engaged in the equivalent of dorm-room spitballing.

I have a new line to greet my Catholic buds with.

"So, how's married life treating you? 

Oh, that's right: I need to ask the shacked-up couple down the street!

So, how's probably-not-married life treating *you*?"

I know--yuck yuck. 
 
The progressive joy-buzzer papacy continues to inspire. I wonder which of his flock he'll express his abiding contempt for in July?

Stay tuned!