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Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Mutiny in Rome

I've watched some YouTube clips of The Young Pope, a fictional drama about a youthful pope who's a throwback to antimodernist popes (e.g. Pius IX; Leo XIII) or even medieval popes (e.g. Innocent III; Boniface VIII). He's the dream pope of RadTrad Catholics 

It seems likely that the successor to Pope Francis will be another modernist who will continue in the same direction. For one thing, Francis keeps stacking the College of Cardinals with his theological soulmates.

But suppose, just suppose, they elect a Pius XIII type. How much could he roll back the inroads of modernism? On paper, the pope is virtually an absolute monarch. (Technically, he can't change dogma, but he can just claim a theological innovation or reversal is really a development of dogma.) 

But here's the catch: his effective authority depends on having subordinates willing to carry out his orders. If, however, the Catholic bureaucracy or deep state is dominated by mutinous subordinates, then he's pretty powerless to impose his will. A pope can give orders but he can't make subordinates follow orders unless enough subordinates cooperate. 

At present, the Catholic hierarchy and priesthood have so many sodomites and modernists that it's hard to see how, even if the College of Cardinals elected an aggressive reactionary conservative, he'd be able to implement his policies. There's a tipping-point beyond which you lose control. Mutineers can overpower their titular superiors through force of numbers. 

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