The former doctrinal chief of the U.S. Bishops Conference (USCCB) has written a forceful letter to Pope Francis, criticizing the pontiff’s “intentionally ambiguous” teaching, derision of conservatives and resistance to constructive criticism.
Capuchin Father Thomas Weinandy, who was named to the Vatican’s International Theological Commission by Pope Francis himself in 2014, told Crux that he only wrote the letter and eventually released it for publication after much prayer and discernment, as Pope Francis often recommends.
“If I did write something, I wanted it to be of help to Pope Francis, to the Church, and to the faithful,” he said.
Although Weinandy wrote the letter last July, he only made it public after he received assurances from the Vatican that it had been delivered to the Pope. He chose publish the letter, he said, because it “expresses the concerns of many more people than just me, ordinary people who’ve come to me with their questions and apprehensions.”
“I wanted them to know that I listened,” he said.
In the letter, Father Weinandy lists five points that illustrate the “chronic confusion” that seems to mark the Francis pontificate, namely, intentional ambiguity, disdain for doctrine, the naming of heterodox bishops, sowing division in the Church, and vindictiveness in the face of criticism. READ MORE
