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Michael's avatar

Large swaths of the Catholic laity and clergy in countries like Ireland and Germany seem to consider it axiomatic that a Catholic Church that pivots to embracing women priests, married priests, same-sex marriage, contraception, abortion, etc. will regain its erstwhile relevance and popularity in their nations. There are a couple big problems with this. (1) Various protestant sects, including state churches in Scandinavia, have already adopted these liberal innovations, and no sort of renaissance followed. In fact, declines in participation accelerated. (2) Does not a Catholic Church that jettisons its unpopular but venerable positions run the risk of alienating its core group of faithful who still support those teachings? In other words, the disaffected won't come back, and the devout will feel betrayed and be tempted to leave too.

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Nathaniel L's avatar

A striking fact of this pontificate, made all the more striking by the unprecedented creations of cardinals from far flung and marginalized parts of the world, is that Francis has not created cardinal a single diocesan bishop from Eastern Europe.

Konrad Krajewski, a Pole, and Michael Czerny, a Czech by birth, are curial officials.

I should be clear that I have no problems with Francis' diversifying the college of cardinals, in fact I quite support it. But it is a little interesting, one has to admit, that the church in eastern europe has been noticeably left out.

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