Pray for Papa Bergoglio

Is the Holy Father being "sifted like wheat" of late? I ask this because he has made some interesting remarks of late, such as:

Pastors should not be “putting our noses into the moral life of other people.”

Isn't there the requirement that confessors and a pastors priests have some sense of the moral life of those to whom they minister?

Secondly, during a question-and-answer session, Francis spoke of a “pastoral cruelty,” such as priests who refuse to baptize the children of young single mothers. “They’re animals,” he said.

Most priests are very generous in extending baptism to infants, realizing that they are not responsible for the sins or shortcomings of their parents. Those who do, at times, delay baptism do so for other reasons, such as little evidence for a well-founded hope that the child will be raised in the faith. There are some prudential judgments to be made and pastors are required to make them (see canon 868).

It is to be regretted that the Pope, as initially reported, should have called priests “animals.” But let he who has never said anything of another equally reprehensible cast the first stone.... (And the Pope has dine a superb job of catechesis on Confession).

These papal observations are not doctrinal, but serve as fodder for dissenters and the morally befuddled or misled in the world. Let us pray for our Holy Father and for the universal Church.

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