Well, he did it. . .

All hell will surely break loose now that Francis has, in effect, vetoed Benedict XVI and prohibited the Extraordinary Form or Latin Mass.  He was rumored to be dotting the i's and cross the t's on exactly this when his hospitalization made some wonder if he would pull the trigger and on what he might pull the trigger.  Now he has done it.  A living pope emeritas has been slapped in the face and been made to eat his words.  What will happen now?  Francis has zagged where Benedict zigged and the rest of the world looks on with amazement.

The then Cardinal Ratzinger said it:  "Rites ... are forms of the apostolic Tradition and of its unfolding in the great places of the Tradition. ... After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters ... the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word ... The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition."  It took thirteen years but now Francis has vetoed these words and acted as a monarch and dictator to seal the breech of continuity between Vatican II and what went before and, for all intents and purposes, abrogated the Latin Mass.  The king is dead.  Long live the king.

Herein lies my problem with Rome.  Rome is, at least to this outsider, not all that different from Protestantism after all.  Rome is not a homogeneous with one doctrine and one faith and one liturgy but an umbrella of two rites competing for the attention and loyalty of the faithful.  Rome is not some monolithic block of tradition but whatever its current pope says it is.  Rome is not a conciliar body that pays deference to Scripture and preserves its voice but a pontiff who can act on a whim and demand fealty to him that should be reserved for Scripture.  And now this Pope is saying that the Holy Spirit spoke through Vatican II and, it would seem, speaks through him to preserve the Spirit's voice and work.  In other words, Francis has placed himself over not only Scripture and tradition but over the Church as the only one who speaks for God -- even to undo what others before him might have said.

Francis decided that Jesus' words were wrong in the Our Father.  Francis opened the door to synodality and acts more like an autocrat than many of his predecessors.  Francis raised the possibility of women as deacons (and even priests) but refuses to say where he is going with this.  Francis promised financial transparency and accountability but refuses to hold his cronies accountable.  Francis complained about the rigidity of priests and then is absolutely rigid in the way he operates.  Francis talks to journalists and individuals while the whole of the Vatican waits to know what is on is mind.

Honestly, I have no real stake in the Latin Mass.  I have been to one or two in my entire life.  The Latin Mass is not something that would attract me to Rome.  But what troubles me most about Rome is that the disconnect between the Rome prior to Vatican II and the Rome after it.  I complain about this in my own tradition and the complaint is magnified as I look at Rome.  Its doctrine develops, Scripture is not its final word, its theologians routinely regard the Scriptures as mythology or symbol instead of fact or history, its popes contradict each other (not simply over centuries but in less than a decade and while both live), and its liturgy is routinely offended by progressives with impunity while conservatives are castigated.  What is anyone on the outside supposed to think?

After two popes who were serious about theology and seemed to take Scripture more seriously than Rome has seen for a while, Francis was chosen by his peers in a vote that is supposed to have been the work of the Spirit.  If that is the work of the Spirit, no Protestant has to run to Rome to find the same foolishness.  And it is precisely this kind of thing that any Protestant who might be looking to Rome is going to find there in spades.  The cowardice of bishops in the wake of pandemic closures and sexual abuse cover ups does little to encourage anyone inside Rome or on the outside to believe that there are men waiting in the wings to repair the leaks Francis has caused in the so-called bark of St. Peter.