Benedict XVI vs Francis - the smear campaign continues

Benedict XVI and Francis: two pontificates with different priorities.

Soon after the election of Pope Francis, some notable Catholic journals started odious comparisons between the current Pontiff and the Pope Emeritus, aimed at putting into a bad light the ‘reform of the reform’ championed by Benedict XVI. One of the latest is the article Francis looks to the Future by The Tablet, a British Catholic weekly journal that stresses that: "It is committed to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council."

Although this journal prides itself as having had as contributor Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, it nevertheless regularly attacks him, as the quote from the above-mentioned confirms:

"Benedict XVI’s ecumenical priorities were more to do with resolving issues from the Church’s own past. He put great store by the possibility of reconciliation with the Vatican II-denying Society of St Pius X, and encouraged long and tortuous conversations which seemed to be going nowhere from the start, given the non-negotiables on both sides. He reversed decades of church policy by re-authorising the celebration of the Tridentine Rite, which seemed not just a gesture towards the Lefebvrists but a reactionary move in liturgical policy generally, as did the imposition of a severely inadequate, if linguistically more accurate, translation of the Mass into English."

What The Tablet seems unable to understand is that:

• the pontificates of Benedict XVI and Francis have different priorities but both are at the service of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church;

• attempts at creating friction between the two will simply backfire, case in point being the first encyclical by Francis that will have a huge contribution from Benedict XVI himself.

Further comments at this stage are superfluous.