“Is the Pope Catholic?” Since at least the 1950s, that rhetorical question has provided a reply to an equally obvious question. But nowadays, at least for one Catholic bishop, it’s a legitimate question that stands on its own.
On his Substack account in late August, Bishop Joseph Strickland, who served the Diocese of Tyler, Texas until last November, accused Pope Francis and his highest subordinates at the Vatican of apostasy.
In making his case, Strickland mentioned visions a Japanese nun experienced in 1973 “about an apostasy which would begin at the top,” he wrote. The Catholic Church considers those visions legitimate. But Strickland’s case relies on more than subjective criteria.
“Our national political system, the Vatican, and too many influential organizations around the world are engaged in a program that is nothing short of a twenty-first- century betrayal of Jesus Christ and His Church,” Strickland wrote. “Like the betrayal of Judas Iscariot almost two thousand years ago, this present-day betrayal is emanating even from those at the very heart of the Church and the state.”
Continue reading at The Stream