Courtesy Note

Dolphin Mobility highlighted my Itinerary post, and I do not have enough of a British accent to transmute an Italian "grazie," into a proper British English thank you, even with a modicum of astonishment. 

My recent posts have been rough around the edges, and this is not simply due to a well worn anger at being disenfranchised, since I am battling toxic stress with aging technology, and my ambivalence about Francis swinging the pendulum too far to the left is not beyond the penetration of those columnists still getting paid, but I can whittle a few more planks down to size:

As superlative as JP2's stature was during his tenure, neither he nor his administrators had a good answer for the sexual molesters in problem dioceses, and Benedict may have retired because he was caught between pastoral doctrine, re: predators are sinners and still human, and redress for the victims, and Francis'es election may have been passing the buck on the extension of JP2's  administration.

Hence, Francis may feel his is a reactive papacy to placate the left, which wants a more progressive Vatican less prone to authoritarian crackdown. My response to this is counter-intuitive, in light of my attacks on disability empowerment models, but we need Roman Catholicism and its conservative moral stricture against apostasy, because progressives are on a suicide pact, and Roman Catholicism's firmament against that is a better alternative than ISIS, which is something Western liberalism inflicted on itself.

In much the same way that a substantial minority of those harmed by NCIL members face limits on what reforms can repair within the paradigm, sexual abuse victims cannot simply upend a faith that the Apostle Paul nearly willed into being single-handedly after his conversion. Certainly, the Church is a human institution, but it is an institution whose historical continuity is worth fighting for, and passionately defending.

To those at Dolphin however, I owe you. I feel less alone this morning. Big hug on this side of the pond.