Actually, the title of this post is not as preposterous as one may think and we are certainly not trying to be (too)sarcastic, but let us take a look at this calmly and objectively.
Most medical professionals will agree generally that the number one killer we all face is stress. And in the Church today the number one creator of stress is the current occupant of Peter's Throne.
Ergo....the title of this piece.
The current Pope has, let us face obvious facts, left the Church in a state of disarray, not to say blind panic. From one day to the next we hear messages from his garrulous lips that are either mildly orthodox, of dubious orthodoxy and/or outright rubbish. No one seems to know if he has the intellectual capacity for his exalted position or if he just likes to talk, to say anything that enters his head, without much forethought. He cannot be pinned down. His words and actions are so "all-over-the-place" that no one can form a definitive judgment. I most certainly can't. He keeps everyone on tenterhooks or, worse, in a state of real fear for the Church. Dignity does not seem to be a concept he is too familiar with, so when an ordinary Catholic sees him putting on a clown nose they cringe with embarrassment for the Church,
and for him. These are not the actions of a grave or earnest man.
The stress Catholics are thus being put through on his account is not conducive to good health, physically or spiritually.
As every day brings us from him a new slew of banalities or emotional outbursts, giving us the picture of a man who is ruled by his emotions rather than his head, the ordinary Catholic wants to crawl underneath a rock and hide. What do we say to the non-Catholic who might think of entering the Church?
I don't know. I do know that the current Pontiff is doing an absolutely marvellous job at giving non-Catholics second thoughts about coming into a Church which allows itself to be headed by such a strange man. Those who convert based on the words and actions of Francis must think they are joining an organization that is nothing less than a large outdoor jamboree. Since seriousness has been rather conspicuous by its absence in many papal utterances why should a serious person consider the Church as that one Ark of salvation that they need to be in?
When engaging in conversation with like-minded Catholics there is no mistaking the fact that these people are massively stressed out by what they see going on in Rome. True, the machinations of our own virulently anti-Catholic society is also feeding that stress. But in past days when the world was going mad everyday men knew that they could count on the rock of Peter, their lifeline so to speak, to keep them from falling into despair. Today, however, they can no longer count on that lifeline as they watch a Church almost at the end of its tether, vacillating on crucial moral concepts and even dabbling in nonsense like "Climate Change". One Catholic said to me that she feels "hunted", like some Catholics of old, in Elizabethan times, who had to hide from the forces out to murder them. We are indeed being hunted, not only by the lunatics in government and media but by some of the hierarchy of our own Church ready and willing to throw us into the nearest pit.
Only when that lifeline is clearly repaired will Catholics be able to withstand what is inevitably coming against them.
Even in the Coliseum when the lions were about to pounce the Christians knew that their leaders would not abandon them, would help them and pray for them. In today's Church none of that is at all certain.
Hang on to your rosaries.
