You can say what you want about Pope Francis, and many do. We have grown used to soundbites lifted from off-the-cuff remarks, second hand accounts of midnight phone calls, and semi-reliable digests of interviews with nonagenarian atheists all making the news, followed by a maelstrom of interpretation and counter-interpretation before an eventual “clarification” comes out of the Vatican press office amounting to little more than “We don’t think any of you have it quite right”.
While it is normal for the writings of popes to be turned over, discussed and examined for clues as to what they really meant, it isn’t normal for this to happen while they are still alive and on Twitter. The paradox of Francis is that, for a Pope who speaks his mind more freely than any other, none of us actually know what he is thinking about a whole range of subjects, from the divorced and remarried to curial reform.
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