If I were created a Cardinal and dispensed from the canonical requirement to be ordained a deacon or priest – my vocation is as a layperson – this is how I would counsel the Holy Father on the first anniversary of his pontificate.
“Holy Father, the first thing you must do is correct Francis, because only the pope may aptly correct a pope. There is no need to judge his motives. But he often caused confusion and distress, and his attempts to unify often seemed rather to divide.
“In at least one matter, you must correct him clearly, deliberately, and self-consciously. I advise that you change the Catechism’s treatment of the death penalty back to where it was before. Francis’s insertion of ‘inadmissible’ was autocratic and unhelpful. He purported, with this change, to correct his immediate predecessors, Benedict and John Paul II, who were fully satisfied with the text as it stood. Do you, then, in union with these other Pontiffs, correct Francis, and restore the Catechism to its state of unalloyed truth.
“With this one change you signal, then, that you are aware of the problem, and you give the faithful confidence that, going forward, you will deal with like matters firmly and prudently.
“You also cast doubt on the premise that a change, especially an apparently relaxing change, is a genuine ‘development.’ Sometimes a change may simply be a mistake, which will need to be reversed. This one act will deflate the pretensions of those who wish to use Newman to change Church teaching. It will remove much of the toxic confusion caused by Amoris laetitia chapter 8 and Fiducia supplicans.
“We know that casuistical moral theologians, who mischievously want to change Church teaching, especially in sexual matters, always start in the classroom with the death penalty, domestic slaves, and usury, as cases in which the Church has supposedly changed her teaching. Francis emboldened these wolves in sheep’s clothing. As the guardian of the Deposit of Faith, you have a serious responsibility to protect the sheep against them.
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