Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's Catholic royalty now. I see a bishop's mitre in a decade. If John Paul or Benedict were still pope, his ascent would be even more assured.

But not under this ridiculous anti-Pope smh.

The prior popes packed the Cardinals ranks, the Curia and the bishop seats with doctrinaire conservatives, the same way Reagan and Bush II packed the U.S. courts. That's how the U.S. Conference of Catholics Bishops for a time practically became an adjunct of the Republican Party. I hope that Pope Francis gets a few more years to mitigate this, with more appointments of his own. But it's true, that if the next pope is a snap-back conservative, Father Paul Scalia will move up the ranks quickly.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a devout Catholic and this thread is terrifying.

Seriously. Then again, perhaps you and I are not "buying our fair share of the Arlington Catholic Herald", apparently a responsibility we're skipping out on?