“Honor your Father”: Do not berate or attack the Pope in front of his other children

When you fail to cover your Father in his nakedness or to honor him, confusing and conflating his person and failings with the office he holds in the Church, you place a stumbling block in the path of his children who witness the attack.

Many people are struggling in their faith at this time. Turning the Pope, or any Bishop or priest, into a scapegoat with an angry public rant only makes it more difficult for the “little ones” whom Christ loves to gain access through Him to the graces of salvation which come from the Heavenly Father of all.

Those who are struggling to swim in stormy waters do not need additional excuses to drown. Children do not want to reject their parents or the Faith of their fathers. Turning a father in Faith, however, whom all God’s children must approach for the sacramental life, into a scapegoat or object of hate and derision, only makes it easier for them to do so.