He stresses the violation of law repeatedly. Of course, there is a distinction between a discipline and canon law, which a priest would carefully distinguish, especially in charges leveled at the Bishop of Rome. Can anyone supply the missing reference?
In this case, the violation is of a rubric of how Mass is said. In this case for the washing of the feet, the rubric says that males only can be used — to represent the 12 apostles.
And the press CAN use this sort of thing to cause confusion. Pope Francis has a tendency to be less careful with his words and actions and less than crystal clear as to their meaning.
One ONLY has to look to the idiot high school kids in Washington state, and admins who should know better, who had hysterical hissy fits when a gay teacher/admin was fired for contracting a gay marriage. “But Pope Francis said ‘who am I to judge’ whine, whine, whine.] Taking the pope’s statement COMPLETELY in the wrong way — and the pope was not clear himself, on separating a person having a homosexual attraction to ACTING on that feeling. A feeling is something that’s involuntary, and therefore not a sin, unless you are actively stirring up the feeling — taking ACTION on the immoral feeling would be sinful. The kids didn’t “get that.”
This action of the pope would really be better done, if it was handled in a way that would make more sense. As it is, priests could say “why one rule for him and not me?”