Pope’s call for ‘obedience’ on Mass restrictions both pastoral and political
Since Pope Francis began livestreaming his daily Mass from the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence, many people around the world have been grateful for the opportunity to hear the pope’s words and to participate, albeit virtually, in his liturgy, helping to break the isolation of the coronavirus quarantine.
Tuesday morning, however, probably no one was more grateful than Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
Conte got a badly needed favor, as the pontiff essentially hit the off switch on mounting Catholic resistance to the PM’s program for recovery by calling for “prudence and obedience.” What remains to be seen is whether, in addition to pastoral conviction, the utterance was also a clever political tactic, in effect putting the Italian leader in the pope’s debt and creating capital Italy’s bishops now can spend in negotiations with the government....
Dr. Alan Cairns | 8/3/2009
