Pope Enlists Atheist to Hose Down Media Firestorm
by Jules Gomes, Church Militant:
Pope Francis has used his latest interview with his atheist journalist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, to de-escalate media furor over the book on priestly celibacy published by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Cdl. Robert Sarah.
The case of Benedict apparently coming out against Francis’ possible ordination of married priests in the Amazon and other outlying regions is closed, the pontiff tells Scalfari, founder of La Repubblica, in a three-page interview.
Francis insists that the pope emeritus has demonstrated “fraternal” solidarity with him and has not allied himself with Cdl. Sarah, the Guinean prelate and co-author of From the Depths of Our Hearts.
“The controversy with Ratzinger [Benedict] is therefore closed and what little or much remains of opponents must be considered a fairly normal phenomenon in such structures,” Francis comments.
“It is normal that there are different visions,” he adds. Moreover, “in an organization that embraces hundreds of millions of people all over the world, there is always someone who will be against [the leadership].”
Headlined “Francis: Me, Ratzinger and Saving the Earth” and with the subtitle “Pope Francis: With Ratzinger the Case is Closed,” the telephone interview is being interpreted as a firefighting attempt to extinguish the media conflagration sparked by the book on priestly celibacy.
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