There seems to be a new trend on some blogs to want to label some people who were happy with the election of Pope Benedict, but who don’t think everything became rosy immediately afterward as turncoats.
Mark Shea looks like he’s doing it, and Bill Cork is jumping on his bandwagon. Now I’ll grant that it might be that Mark is referring to the more extreme comments in the CWN Off the Record entry and not Diogenes himself, but he doesn’t exactly make the distinction.
Others, however, are less prone to make the distinction and are saying outright that some bloggers—including Diogenes and me—have abandoned Pope Benedict over the rumored reversal over the rumored document on gays in seminaries. I’ll let Diogenes speak for himself, but for the record, I have not and not blame Pope Benedict and I have not reduced my joy and hope at the election of this pope. I daresay you’d be hard-pressed to find a single word on this blog saying otherwise.
As I said above, that doesn’t mean that on the day of B16’s election everything in the Church suddenly became a sweetness and light. Most of the same bishops are in the same sees and much of the obstructionist bureaucracy in both the US and Rome is still in place. Change takes time and anyone who thought it would be fixed in a day was fooling himself.
So don’t take continuing criticism of some things that happen in Rome, or even criticism of a particular action or another by the Pope, as the same thing as abandoning him. It isn’t. A faithful son can still give his father some constructive criticism and still remain as loyal as ever.
