Vatican City, May 13, 2017 / 02:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The following is an unofficial transcript of the in-flight press conference on the papal plane returning from Fatima to Rome on May 13, 2017.
Greg Burke: Thank you Holiness, they were 24 very intense hours, as you said, for the Lord, 24 hours for Our Lady. It’s apparent that the Portuguese felt very touched when you said, “We have a Mother,” that they feel this in a special way. 100 years ago Our Lady didn’t appear to three important journalists, she appeared to three shepherds, but we’ve seen how they with their simplicity and sanctity were able to make this message reach the entire world. The journalists make the message arrive – it is seen from the number of nations from which they come – and they’re very curious about this trip of yours. If you’d like to say something first, great…
Pope Francis: First of all, good evening. Thanks. And, I’d like to respond to the first of the possible questions, so we can do things a bit more quickly. I’m sorry when we’re at the halfway point and they come to tell me that it’s snack time… let’s do them all together. Thanks.
Greg Burke: Good, let’s begin with the Portuguese group, with Fatima Ferreira of the Portuguese TV Radio
Anna Elza Ferreira (Redevida de Televisao): I don’t know what I think about sitting in front of the Holy Father. Well, first, many thanks for this trip. Holy Father, you came to Fatima as a pilgrim, to canonize Francisco and Jacinta in the year that the apparitions mark their 100th year. From this historical point of view, what is left now for the Church, for the entire world? Also, Fatima has a message of peace. Holy Father, you are going to receive in the Vatican in the coming days, the 24th of May, the American president Donald Trump. What can the world expect and what does the Holy Father expect from this encounter? Many thanks.
Pope Francis: Thanks. Fatima certainly has a message of peace. It’s brought to humanity by three great communicators that were less than 13 years old, which is interesting. Yes, I came as a pilgrim. The canonization was something that wasn’t planned from the beginning, because the process of the miracles was in progress but the all of a sudden the export reports were all positive, and it was done – that’s how the story was told – for me was a very great joy. What can the world expect? Peace. And what am I talking about from now on with whomever? Peace.
Ferreira: And what remains now of this historic moment for the Church?
Pope Francis: A message of peace. And I’d like to say one thing … before disembarking I received scientists from all religions who were doing studies in the Vatican Observatory at Castel Gandolfo, including agnostics and atheists. And an atheist said to me, “I’m an atheist.” I won’t tell you from what ethnicity or place of origin he was – he spoke in English. And at the end, he asked me, ‘I ask you a favor: tell the Christians that they should love their message of peace more.”
Aura Miguel (Radio Renascença): Your Holiness, in Fatima you presented yourself as the “bishop dressed in white.” Up to now, this expression applied rather to the vision of the third part of the secret, St. John Paul II, the martyrs of the twentieth century. What does it mean now, your identification with this expression?
Pope Francis: The prayer, that, I did not write it… the sanctuary wrote it… but also I have tried because they said this, and there is a connection with the white. The bishop of white, Our Lady of white, the white glow of the innocence of children after Baptism and innocence… there is a connection to the color white in that prayer. I believe – because I did not write it – but I believe that literally they have tried to express with white that desire for innocence, for peace… innocence: to not hurt the other … to not create conflict, the same.
Miguel: Is it a revision of the interpretation…
Pope Francis: No, but that vision … I believe that then Cardinal Ratzinger, at that time prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, explained everything clearly. Thank you.
Claudio Lavanga (NBC News): Thank you. Holy Father, yesterday you asked the faithful to break down all the walls, yet on May 24 you meet a head of State who is threatening to build walls. It is a bit contradictory to your word, but he also has – it seems – opinions and decisions different from you in other topics, such as the need to act to confront global warming or the welcoming of migrants … Thus, in light of this meeting: what is your opinion of the politics that President Trump has adopted so far on these topics and what do you expect from a meeting with a Head of State who seems to think and act contrary to you?
Pope Francis: The first question … I can respond to both… I never make a judgment of a person without listening to them. I believe that I should not do this. In our talk things will come out, I will say what I think, he will say what he thinks, but I never, ever, wanted to make a judgment without hearing the person. The second…
Claudio Lavanga: What do you think about the reception of migrants?
Pope Francis: But this you all know well…
Claudio Lavanga: The second instead is what you expect from a meeting with a head of state who thinks contradictory to you?
Pope Francis: Always there are doors that are not closed. Look for the doors that are at least a little bit open, enter and talk about common things and go on. Step by step. Peace is handcrafted. It is made every day. Also friendship among people, mutual knowledge, esteem, is handcrafted. It’s made every day. Respect the other, say that which one thinks, but with respect, but walk together … someone thinks of one way or the other, but say that …. Be very sincere with what everyone thinks, no?
Claudio Lavanga: Do you hope to soften his decisions after the meeting?
Pope Francis: This is a political calculation that I do not permit myself to make.
Greg Burke: Thank you Holiness, now there is a change of places, Elisabetta Piqué is coming.
Elisabetta Piqué (La Nacion): Thanks first of all for this brief and very intense trip. We wanted to ask you, today is the centenary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, but is is also the important anniversary of a fact of your life that took place 25 years ago, when the Nuncio (Archbishop) Calabresi told you that you would become the Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires, something that meant the end of your exile in Cordoba and a great change in your life. Have you every connected this fact that changed your life with Our Lady of Fatima? And in these days that you’ve prayed before her have you thought about this and what did you think about? Can you tell us about that? Thanks.
Pope Francis: Women know everything, eh! No, I didn’t think about the coincidence, only yesterday while I was praying before Our Lady I realized that one May 13th I received the phone call from the nuncio 25 years ago. I don’t know… I said, well look at that. I spoke with Our Lady a little about this. I asked her forgiveness for all of my mistakes, also of a bit of bad taste for choosing people… but yesterday I realized this.
Greg Burke: Nicolas Seneze of La Croix is coming.
Nicolas Seneze (La Croix): Thanks, Holy Father. We’re returning from Fatima for which the Fraternity of St. Pius X has a great devotion and much is said about an agreement that would give an official statute to the Fraternity in the Church. Some even imagined that there would be an announcement today… Holiness, do you think that this agreement is possible in a short timeframe? And, what are the obstacles still? And what is the sense of this reconciliation for you? And, will it be the triumphant return for faithful who have shown what it means to be truly Catholic or what?
Pope Francis: I would toss out any form of triumphalism. None. Some days ago, the Feria Quarta of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, their meeting – the call it the Feria Quarta, because it’s the fourth Wednesday – studied a document and the document still hasn’t reached me, the study of the document. This is the first. Secondly, the current relations are fraternal. Last year, I gave a license for confession to all of them, also a form of jurisdiction for marriages, but even before the problems, the cases they had, for example, had to be resolved by the Doctrine of the Faith. The Doctrine of the Faith carries them forward. For example, abuses. The cases of abuse, they brought them to us, also to the Penitentiary. Also the reduction to the lay state of a priest, they bring to us. The relations are fraternal. With Msgr. Fellay I have a good rapport. I’ve spoken many times… I don’t like to hurry things. Walk. Walk. Walk. And then we’ll see. For me, it’s not an issue of winners and losers, it’s an issue of brothers who must walk together, looking for a formula to make steps forward.
Tassilo Forcheimer (ARD): Holy Father, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Reformation, Evangelical Christians and Catholics are able to walk another stretch of road together. Will there be the possibility to participate in the same Eucharistic Mass? Some months ago, Cardinal Kasper said: A step forward could take place already this year.
Pope Francis: There have been great steps forward, eh … we think of the first statement on justification, from that moment the journey has not stopped… the trip to Sweden was very significant because it was just the beginning and also a commemoration with Sweden… also there is significance for the ecumenism of the journey… that is, to walk together, with prayer, with martyrdom, with works of charity, with works of mercy. And there, Lutheran Caritas and Catholic Caritas have made an agreement to work together. This is a great step. But steps are always awaited. You know that God is the God of surprises. But we must never stop. Always go on. To pray together, to give testimony together and to do works of mercy together, that announce the charity of Jesus Christ, to announce that Jesus Christ is Lord, is the only Savior, and that grace only comes from Him. And on this path the theologians they will continue to study, but the path must proceed. And (with) hearts opened to surprises.
Mimmo Muolo (Avvenire): Good evening Holiness. I’m asking you a question in the name of the Italian group. Yesterday and today at Fatima, we saw a great witness of popular faith together with you. The same that is found, for example, also in other Marian shrines like Medjugorje. What do you think of those apparitions, if they were apparition, and of the religious fervor they have aroused seeing that you have decided to appoint a bishop delegate for the pastoral aspects? And if I can permit myself a second question I know is very close to your heart besides that of us italians… I would like to know, the NGOs were accused of collusion with the boat traffickers of men. What do you think of this? Thanks.
Pope Francis: I’ll start with the first. I read in the papers that I peruse in the morning that there was this problem, but I still don’t know how the details are and because of this I can’t give an opinion. I know there is an issue and the investigations are moving ahead. I hope that they continue ahead and that the whole truth comes out. Medjugorje, all the apparitions, or the presumed apparitions, belong to the private sphere, they aren’t part of the public, ordinary magisterium of the Church. Medjugorje. Medjugorje. A commission was formed, headed by Cardinal Ruini. Benedict XVI made it. I, at the end of 2013 the beginning of 2014, I received the result from Cardinal Ruini. It was commission good theologians, bishops, cardinals, but good. Very good. And the commission. The Ruini report was very, very good. Then there were some doubts in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the Congregation judged it opportune to send each one of the members of this Feria quarta (Editor’s note: “Feria Quarta” is a once-a-month meeting in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during which current cases are examined) all the documentation, even those that seemed to be against the Ruini report. I received a notification – I remember it was a Saturday evening, late evening… and it didn’t seem right. It was like putting up for auction – excuse me the word – the Ruini report which was very well done. And Sunday morning the prefect received a letter from me that said that instead of sending them to the Feria Quarta, they they would send the opinions to me personally.
These opinions were studied and all of them underscore the density of the Ruini report. Principally, three things must be distinguished: the first apparitions, that they were kids. The report more or less says that it must continue being studied. The apparitions, the presumed current apparitions: the report has its doubts. I personally am more nasty, I prefer the Madonna as Mother, our Mother, and not a woman who’s the head of a telegraphic office, who everyday sends a message at such hour. This is not the Mother of Jesus. And these presumed apparitions don’t have a lot of value. This I say as a personal opinion. But, it’s clear. Who thinks that the Madonna says, ‘come tomorrow at this time, and at such time I will say a message to that seer?’ No. The two apparitions are distinguished. The third, the core of the Ruini report, the spiritual fact, the pastoral fact. People go there and convert. People who encounter God, change their lives…but this…there is no magic wand there. And this spiritual and pastoral fact can’t be ignored. Now, to see things with all this information, with the answers that the theologians sent me, this good, good bishop was appointed because he has experience, to see the pastoral part, how it’s going. And at the end he’ll say some words.
Muolo: Holiness, thank you, also for the blessing of my fellow citizens who thank you, they saw it and are very happy…
Greg Burke: Holiness, now if I can be the nasty one, we have done all of the language groups and…
Pope Francis: Time is up already?
Greg Burke: There’s a question, they tell me.
Pope Francis: One or two more.
Joshua McElwee (National Catholic Reporter): Thank you, Holy Father. The last member of the Commission for the Protection of Minors, who was abused by a priest, resigned in March. She, Ms. Marie Collins, said that she had to resign because the officials in the Vatican did not implement the recommendations of the commission that you, the Holy Father, approved. I have two questions: who is responsible, and what are you doing, Holy Father, to ensure that the priests and bishops in the Vatican implement the recommendations suggested by your commission?
Pope Francis: Marie Collins explained the matter to me well, I spoke with her, she is a good woman, but she continues to work in the formation of priests on this point… she is a good woman who wants to work … but she made this accusation, and she has a bit of reason… why? Because there are so many late cases, then in this period of lateness, because they accumulate there, you have to make legislation for this… what should the diocesan bishops do? Today in almost all the dioceses there is the protocol to follow in these cases: it is a great improvement. This way the dossiers are done well. Then there are the accusations…this is a step. Another step: there are few people, there needs to be more people capable in this area, and the Secretary of State is looking for, even Monsignor Mueller (Editor’s Note: Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), to present new people. The other day two or three more were approved… the director of the disciplinary office changed, who was good, eh, he was very good but he was a bit tired… he returned to his home country to do the same with his episcopate. And the new one is an Irishman, Msgr. (John) Kennedy, he is a very good person, very efficient, prompt, and this helps a lot.
Then there is another thing: Sometimes the bishops send – if the protocol is okay, it goes right away to the Feria Quarta and the Feria Quarta studies and decides. If the protocol is not okay, it must go back to be redone. That’s why you think of continental help or in a continent or two … in Latin America, one in Colombia, another in Brazil, as pre-tribunals or continental tribunals… this is in the planning… but then it’s fine, they study it at feria quarta and they take away his clerical status. This goes back to the diocese, and the priest makes recourse. First, the application was studied by the same Feria Quarta that had given the sentence, and this is unfair. I created another tribunal and I put an indisputable person as the head, the Archbishop of Malta, Msgr. (Charles Jude) Scicluna, who is one of the strongest against abuses, and this second – because we must be just – the one who makes recourse is entitled to have a defender. If he (the defender) approves the first sentence, the case is over.His only option is a letter asking the Pope for pardon. I have never signed a pardon. I believe, I do not know, another question. This is how things are. We’re going forward. If Marie Collins was right on that point, we were also on the way. But there are 2000 cases piled up.
Portuguese journalist: I’m going to ask a question about the case Portugal, but I think that it can be applied to many of the Western societies. In Portugal, almost all of the Portuguese say they identify themselves as Catholics. But the way the society is organized, the decisions that we make, often are contrary to the indications of the Church. I refer to marriage between homosexuals, the legalization of abortion, now we’re going to begin discussing euthanasia. How do you see this?
Pope Francis: I think it’s a political problem. And that also the Catholic conscience isn’t a catholic one of total belonging to the Church and that behind that there isn’t a nuanced catechesis, a human catechesis. That is, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is an example of what is a serious and nuanced thing. I think that there is a lack of formation and also of culture. Because it’s curious, in some other regions, I think of the south of Italy, some in Latin America, they are very Catholic but they are anti-clerical and ‘priest-eaters’, that … there is a phenomenon that exists. It concerns me. That’s why I tell priests, you will have read it, to flee from clericalism because clericalism distances people. May they flee from clericalism and I add: it’s a plague in the Church. But here there is a work also of catechesis, of raising awareness, of dialogue, also of human values.
[…]
I wonder if Bergoglio has ever read the Epistles of St. Paul, who advised that some people should indeed be excluded from the Church? Maybe he never heard of Jesus of Nazareth either, who also spoke of separating the sheep and the goats.
Pope Francis said: “I am well aware that speaking of a ‘Synod on Synodality’ may seem something abstruse, self-referential, excessively technical, and of little interest to the general public…”
Agreed. So why spends millions for 450+ to get autumn vacations in Rome?
Pope Francis says the Synods show must go on because marginalized Jesuit friends like Fr. James Martin are working with the Holy Spirit to help the Catholic Church grow by changing its teaching on sodomy, like it did for slavery and ecumenism. https://catholicherald.co.uk/leading-u-s-catholics-clash-over-schismatic-synod-agenda/
Um, this sounds like a serious case of stuckedness.
Well, ‘scuzee Your Holiness, but those you have persecuted under TC, and The Dubia, and the FFI, and in and on, beg to differ…
Ironic that Pope Francis invokes Paul VI as the initiator of the Synod of Bishops. Bishops.
One thing he’s got right, that the S on S is of little interest to most Catholics, in spite of their supposedly having been encountered, dialogued with and listened to at every turn.
A number of things do not make sense to me.
1. Trying to make the works of mercy into a creed – they’re already part of our creed.
2. Building bridges like Greeks – when the Greeks came to Christ He moved swiftly to the Cross.
3. “Redefining structures and permanently eradicating sin possibilities through the poor” – preferential option for the poor never meant that and neither is that a true teaching of the faith.
4. Updating doctrine by minimizing it for sake of inclusivity and/or the universal service of the poor – is not the witness of the saints.
Pope Francis said of the Greeks in their approach to Jesus near the time of the Passion, that what the Lord indicated was “neither yes nor no”. I suspect that this “between memory and the future” -the between the yes and the no,- is what Pope Francis is trying to flesh out through the horizonless synod.
And I do not believe that it is what is meant by the incident in question.
The bridge building image is said to have come from James Martin. I do not know the point in time when it arose from him.
During 2014 I applied to a Jesuit University in the US midwest for an MA program in Literature and was eventually enrolled in mid-2015. In my application essays I had used the image of bridge building to indicate a mode of getting my thoughts from one place to another in tackling ideas between secular subjects that I ordinarily find very difficult. I had made some references to my faith mixed in with the essays.
If someone has felt “inspired” by what I wrote to interpret the image as some kind of “apostolic brilliance”, I would like to make it clear I never meant any such thing. Also, I do not grasp what such meaning would entail, even now.
(As it turned out I couldn’t make sense of the curriculum or the online portal or the degree director of the time; and I suspended my study.)
Surely these are strange discussions!
The Pope seems to say it is called for because the very survival of the Church is at stake? – and/or he seems to say it is called for because the very survival of the world is at stake?
‘ “This is a grace we all need in order to move forward. And it is something the Church today offers the world, a world so often so incapable of making decisions, even when our very survival is at stake,” he said.
“We are trying to learn a new way of living relationships, listening to one another to hear and follow the voice of the Spirit.”
To explain the significance of the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis described the synod as “a journey that St. Paul VI began at the end of the [Vatican II] Council when he created the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops because he had realized that in the Western Church synodality had disappeared, whereas in the Eastern Church they have this dimension.”
“And this years-long journey — 60 years — is bearing great fruit,” he added. ‘
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/bishop-manuel-nin-synod-on-synodality-unlike-eastern-synods
https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/03/17/on-the-paradox-of-abundance/
We read: “today’s dominant technocratic paradigm raises profound questions about the place of human beings and of human action in the world.” The same can be said about some entries on old-fashion flip charts at synodal focus groups.
“Forward, ever forward” said trail guide Jim Bridger to the “walking together” and ill-fated Donner Party, in the face of late autumn weather, as he wandered off elsewhere to fame and awards (lines in history books, and a mountain range in Montana!). And, as on the bridge of the Titanic when Joseph Ismay, White Star resident expert from the corporate boardroom, insisted to the captain–ever faster with an arrival deadline clearly in sight! The turning of the screw, so to speak.
Butt, yes, to engagement and invitation–and to actual “listening”… still waiting for the pope’s business-as-usual and cya advisors to flip. Never “backward!” Late autumn 2023! and 2024!
“Important to the Church”? What church? As for the synodal “dimension in the Eastern Church:” https://www.ncregister.com/blog/bishop-manuel-nin-synod-on-synodality-unlike-eastern-synods
Have the Catholics who prefer the traditional Latin mass been invited?
“Let the people eat cake.”
Peace Journalism is the need of the hour worldwide. The basic concept of Peace Journalism is to prevent violence and war.
War journalism is the need of the hour worldwide. The basic concept of war journalism is to expose the truth of violence and war.
To call sin love is to wage war on the truth that love is never sin. “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:16). God the Holy Spirit inspired St. John to write about Him Truth: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” (John 14:15-24)
And Gandhi said: “The way to peace is the way of truth. Truthfulness is even more important than peacefulness. Indeed, lying is the mother of violence. The truth of a few will count; the untruth of millions will vanish even like chaff before whiff of wind.”
Christ is the Truth of God. To prevent violence, we must tell the truth of Christ. And Christ said in His Sacred Scripture and Tradition that concubinage and sodomy are sinful and never loving in practice. A Synod, or anyone, that says sin loves like Christ is lying and leading us to spiritual and physical violence, like war.
Don’t be deceived, Francis. Some of us are listening and watching you very closely. More than you think.
The synod will be an embarrassment and disaster for the Church.c
We do get this: “That word of the Gospel that is so important: everyone. Everyone, everyone: there are no first-, second- or third-class Catholics, no. All together. Everyone. It is the Lord’s invitation.”
But, beyond the invitation, what is the distinction between the universal and sacramental Catholic Church as historically established by the incarnate Jesus Christ, and the Islam’s inclusive and doctrinally minimalist family of the ummah, in which full membership requires only a mere declaration of intention to belong, from which follows “not only a sense [feeling?] of belonging, but a knowledge of being accepted as well” (Farooq Hassan, “The Concept of State and Law in Islam,” 1981)?
Rising above all considerations of the efficacy of a more inclusive Church, one that suggests that we least provide the opportunity for conversion and salvation to all, inclusive of those in irregular union or practice, the ‘garment of faith’ the sole requirement to receive the sacraments, particularly the Holy Eucharist – is the given perception that reception of the Body and Blood of Christ is a uniquely redemptive sacrament consistent with reparation for sins. As is the sacrament of penance.
While this holds true for sins that are commonly reparable, venial sins, it isn’t for those that are intrinsically evil. These sins require acknowledgment to the Church by confession to a priest, followed by legitimate absolution. This regulation has persisted since Trent, the Church forbidding commonly held private practices of absolution.
The Holy Eucharist is a remedy, a strengthening of our faith, and will [the rational appetite or desire] to refrain from serious sin. To increasingly transform our life style to that of Christ. Exclusion, as opposed to inclusion, is a necessary feature in Christ’s revelation of the Father’s will, that we are willing to convert, to cross the barrier of our own making by adopting a way of life contrary to the revelation of Christ the Way.
LET US PRAY FOR POPE FRANCIS THAT AFTER ALL THE SYNODS OF SYNODALITY HAVE THEIR SAY HE WILL HAVE THE COURAGE TO UPHOLD THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AS POPE ST. PAUL VI DID.
Noreen, your comment reminds me of a line from a film. John Cleese in “Clockwise” says “It’s not the despair, but rather the hope that’s killing me.” The hope that after 10 years of destroying the legacy of ppJPII and ppBXVI, the hope that after 10 years of Bergoglioism’s Cancel Catholicism Programme, he might suddenly turn around and say “ha, I was only joking. I don’t really want to destroy the last remains of the Catholic Church for her enemies,” seems to me worse than handling the despair and acknowledging the Catholic Church is eclipsed by full blown Apostasy.
Noreen’s heartfelt prayer made me think of Jane Austen’s Persuasion on this great Sunday of Simon Peter’s confession of faith:
“All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!”
If Pope Francis allows the type of weaponised ambiguity to dominate the Synod as Paul VI did during VII then we will see the church head further into confusion.
I remember at the local diocesan synod level discussion and I brought up the Latin Mass effect and I was met with shifting seats, puzzled looks and a sharp intervention that the alphabet soup mafia and need for women to be in charge of the liturgy were far more important!! Well then let them proceed and we know that it will be a complete train wreck!
“The measure is full, and the time has come to choose which side we are on. Either with Bergoglio and Spadaro, with the Synod on Synodality, with a human and counterfeit church enslaved to the New World Order, or with God, His Church, and His Saints. And on closer inspection it is already unheard of to hypothesize that Catholics – I am not speaking of priests or prelates – can consider it possible to have a choice.”
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano
https://twitter.com/CarloMVigano/status/1695760255815147927
“Surely one of the most concerning aspects of this paradigm, with its negative impact upon both human and natural ecology alike, is its subtle seduction of the human spirit, lulling people — and especially the young — into misusing their freedom,” the pope said.
If “this paradigm” is the Synod and if “human and natural ecology” is the traditional dogmatic teaching and practice of Catholicism, then Francis has spoken truly of the disorientation diabolically lodged in the sulci of his and his psycho-fanatical synodalists.
Francis has misunderstood faithful Catholics for far too long. We care that demons have been given access to Christ’s seed under Francis’ watch. We care that Francis has allowed distorted truth to stand for Christ’s Word. We care that Christ’s Body has been in recent years repeatedly dishonored. We care that souls are lost because Francis has failed to learn, to respect, or to transmit the Faith handed to him. Francis does not care.
But Christ cares, and He is our salvation. Francis is an open door to a dark and horrid place from which there is no escape.