Is the Pope catholic (small c)?

First, does anyone care? Yes, millions do, with differing degrees of intensity. Catholics, first. One faction cheers, because they are anti-ecumenical, consider Orthodox and Protestant members to be buzzing insects that distract Catholics who must swat them. Or, more charitably, because they fear that ecumenism portends relativism, and Catholic truth too easily gets given away. Another faction has begun to speak up in criticism, seeing it as an abrasive, arrogant, mistimed, and itself distracting word at a time when people of faith ought to pull together against common enemies. No doubt between them are most Catholics who more or less have always taken for granted what the Pope said of the Church and Everybody Else, but will not be stirred or alienated: they know Christian neighbors who seem to be doing far more than "playing at church" in ecclesial communities. I'd add a fourth element: those who are enraged by such expressions and think that "it's the same old Ratzinger," the old ...  more