Your Occasional Pope

By Charles P. Pierce
The Esquire
December 23, 2014

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Pope_Wishes_Merry_Christmas_To_The_Clan

Photo by VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images

As always, the usual disclaimers are in place, but it seems that Papa Francesco took advantage of his annual Christmas message to give some members of the Clan Of The Red Beanie a good kick right in the chasubles.

The pope denounced the lust for power of ladder-climbing clerics, those who indulge in hypocritical double lives, and lamented a sense of "spiritual Alzheimer's" that leads clerics to forget the joy that is supposed to animate their lives. He also attacked what he called "existential schizophrenia" and the "terrorism of gossip." He was especially critical of cliques that "enslave their members and become a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body," eventually leading to death by "friendly fire." "These and other maladies and temptations," Francis said, "are a danger for every Christian and for any administrative organization, community, congregation, parish, ecclesial movement, etc., and can strike at both the individual and the corporate level."

Spiritual Alzheimer's?

A mark, that will surely leave.

I'm sure that, within a few weeks, a Senior Vatican Official, or Ross Cardinal Douthat, will explain that the pope really was talking about birth control.

But, still, wow.