Floating on a Rift Down the River

The other day, on October 24, a three-week synod of Pope Francis meeting with bishops ended in what a Reuters news story described as "contentious."  The most notable end result was a slight relaxing of issues concerning divorce and re-marriage, but a continued blocking of any welcoming towards homosexuality.  

I was going to give a general description of the pope's final comments, which come across as quite critical, to the point of condemning the most conservative members of the church hierarchy.  But rather than put it all into my own words, I realized that the reporter, Philip Pullella did such a good job, that I might as well just quote him directly --

In his final address, the pope appeared to criticize ultra-conservatives, saying Church leaders should confront difficult issues "fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand."

He said the synod had "laid bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church's teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families".
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He also decried "conspiracy theories" and the "blinkered viewpoints" of some at the gathering, and said the Church could not transmit its message to new generations "at times encrusted in a language which is archaic or simply incomprehensible".

You can read the full article here., titled -- "Pope Francis Ends Synod By Excoriating Bishops With 'Closed Hearts' And 'Heads In The Sand'"

Considering the pontiff's position of infallibility within the church, one might think that such a tongue lashing on how to deal with the flock and their very real human issues could be a bit problematic to those on the far-right of the governing church structure.  While I know that there is a thin line between question of doctrine and what the pope is actually considered "infallible" over and not, what I am pretty certain of, though, is that if the pope had come down hard on the side of supporting the "ultra-conservatives," we'd be hearing everyone in the church must all follow the teachings of The Pope because he is a direct voice with Jesus and infallible.

Except when he sides with a more liberal compassion to all mankind.  Then...not so infallible.  Only partly infallible.

But that's for the church to work out these differences among themselves.