Bishop Schneider and the "Diversity of Popes"

The bishops of Kazakhstan and Central Asia recently paid an ad limina visit to Rome, and Bishop Athanasius Schneider took the opportunity to explain to Pope Francis that God only permits, rather than positively wills, a diversity of popes.

These ad limina visits are generally seen as an opportunity for the pope to find out what is going on in the Catholic Church (he certainly won't find out by reading La Civiltà Cattolica) as well as to brush up his theology by talking to people who actually know something about it.

"Athanasius"? I don't believe it!

As the bishop explained, it is God's permissive will that the Chair of St Peter can be occupied by complete rogues as well as truly saintly men (and also some who have been given the title of "saint" because they were around at the time of Vatican II). Consider for example, the Borgia Pope Alexander VI: although, mysteriously, he was described by his successors Sixtus V and Urban VIII as one of the most outstanding popes since Saint Peter. (Spadaro! We told you to stop editing Wikipedia!) Or even Urban VI ("He lacked Christian gentleness and charity. He was naturally arbitrary and extremely violent and imprudent, and when he came to deal with the burning ecclesiastical question of the day, that of reform, the consequences were disastrous." No, that doesn't remind me of anyone. Honest.)

"There's a more modern pope who was surely elected in opposition to the Holy Spirit," continued Schneider. "I won't mention any names, but he is a Peronist dictator, pushed into office by the efforts of St Gallen, many of whose public writings and statements contradict those of his predecessors. Father Rosica - although he may have got it from someone else - says that he breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants because he is free from disordered attachments."

St Gallen. Is he to blame?

So, just as the diversity of religions is "willed" by God in the sense that He simply does an almighty facepalm when he sees the wickedness of the Quakers, followers of Jedi-ism, druids (insert your own favourite bad religion here) - leaving the smiting to another occasion - so also the diversity of popes must be accepted in the same spirit.

Return of the oat-fuelled fiends, by kind permission of God.