My latest column: “Why Change Is Francis’ Only Constant”

July 27, 2023

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK

Many pundits and Vaticanists are scratching their heads and wracking their brains in the attempt to make sense of Pope Francis’ cardinal picks, the appointment of Fernandez to the doctrinal dicastery, the high turnover rate of personal secretaries and other oddities of his pontificate. Of which there are many.

You cannot make sense of nonsense, however.

When the plan is apparently to undo all plans, turn the Church into an unorganized mess, overwhelm the Catholic system with non-Catholic and anti-Catholic distractions, substitutions and inversions, the use of reason is useless in making sense of it all.

Catholic writers who have confidently for years made a living explaining for the benefit of other Catholics the inside scoop on the Church are at loggerheads with Pope Francis.

The only word I have been able to come up with to explain the unexplainable is “overwhelm.” What do I mean?

Pope Francis, and those surrounding him who currently pose no threat to him and therefore are for the time being still useful for his purposes, is overwhelming the entire Catholic “system” to the breaking point. He has made it clear from the very beginning that his plan is to “change the Church so it cannot be changed back.”
We owe it to ourselves to accept that at face value. In particular because it explains well that the personnel, policies, traditions, customs, precedent, all of the revered Roman, Vatican, and ecclesial methods are overturned at whim in order to serve the goal of change for the sake of change.

But what is being changed? And why?

Pope Francis wears white as all Popes have since Pius V. The Curia still goes by the old titles of secretary of state, for example. Cardinals are still cardinals. The word “Catholic” is still used. Although for quite a long time already increasingly since Vatican II it may mean many different things depending upon who is speaking. Mass is still offered at the high altar in St. Peter’s, and sometimes by the Pope depending upon the latest vagaries of his declining health. Many of the old Catholic, Roman, and Vatican touchstones remain in place. Wednesday audiences, Sunday angelus. For many Catholics it seems, at a superficial level, that the old Church as always is still “there”

What is being changed? And why?

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