7. Private papal interventions are not magisterial teachings, not binding on faithful. But again, this intervention is actually "private."
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
8. It's a combination will provide grist for people who argue about the nature of papal authority for, oh, at least a thousand years.
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
9. But just a kind of governance strategy, a means to change the unchanging, is it brilliant? Or a little ridiculous? Or both?
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
10. Hard to tell. On the one hand, it's kept conservatives from consolidating in opposition: They draw lines, Francis dances around them ...
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
11. ... and his critics are left to bicker about his moves, what their Authority Level (TM) is, and where their own non-negotiables are.
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
12. So a crisis or collision is averted while change proceeds in stealth.
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
13. Except: At a certain point, the "stealthiness" is purely notional; everyone knows what's going on. And we've clearly reached that point.
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
14. And it's not clear that this kind of dance *ultimately* makes conservatives more likely to accept change than issuing it boldly.
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
15. Conservative Catholics are primed to accept papal authority. But now that authority has made it very clear that it's manipulating them.
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
16. In the long run I'm not so sure there's genius in that. But only God knows.
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Deeper issue is "what is the Church?" A mistake to think Church is just doctrines & not also lived practices of the faithful
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