That’s not what Alex Murphy meant, either. Any critcism or note of possibly less than conservative statements by the Pope or even the Vatican, from a Protestant, is met with vociferous denial and copious lengthy replies, it just rains down.
The odd thing is, these same posters decry Vatican II, question all manner of liturgical issues, darkly infer that “the smoke of Satan” is in the Church and some even freaked out when Pope Francis didn’t genuflect early on and called *him* Satan.
They’re the rad-trads, verging upon sedevacantist in my outsider’s opinion, it’s a very conflicted view of things on their part, almost Sybill-like from one post to the next, one day to the next. Outside criticism is immediately pounced upon and a multipronged attempt to discredit is immediately mounted, internally inconsistent though it usually may be.
This is the source of all the tremendously lengthy denominational tracts, sermons, somewhat childish daily make-and-do lists, wear purple, run around the courthouse square shaking maracas, put your Barbie on the credenza, your left foot in, your left foot out, and other minutiae that clog FR on a nightly basis. I’ve taken to terming it holy-scroller time and I usually sign off along about then in annoyance.
If it’s intended to be evangelization or proselytizing it’s very clumsy and patently off-putting. We’ve always had Catholic FReepers but these guys are a different breed, often intentionally disagreeable, and unnecessarily so.
I get the impression with some that it’s okay for them to criticize their Pope, but woe to the non-Catholic Christians (A.K.A. anti-Catholics) if any of them dare to do so. It borders on hyper-defensiveness.