"I am the bishop dressed in white." - Pope Francis

"I am the bishop dressed in white." - Pope Francis
Page 9, Missal of the visit to Fatima, May 12-13, 2017

Seriously? He's "the bishop dressed in white"? He's the center of the message of Fatima? 

After 4 years of reinterpreting the Catholic faith for us, Francis, never one to leave any teaching unmolested, now helpfully corrects our Blessed Mother, setting her and the 3 children straight on just who is the "bishop dressed in white." It's him. It's he! It's Francis.

Is it Francis' ignorance of the Faith or his prideful egotism that drives me crazy? Is it his ostentatious false humility or his haughty arrogance that makes me nuts? Is he the Catholic Church's Pope or a sort of new self-proclaimed Islamic prophet that's driving me insane? 

I think it's all of the above mixed together. Francis is like a sort of eerie cloud way up high in the atmosphere hovering over the earth and suddenly spinning out of control. He's like a string of blinking led lights stuffed into a clear glass block catapulted into outer space, which suddenly does a 180 speeding down and landing with a crash splintering into microscopic bits of slivered glass which land silently over the earth like deadly pixie dust which we must all breathe in. Kind of like that. Only worse.

So why then am I surprised when, at Fatima, Francis describes himself as the “bishop dressed in white” (Thank you, Rorate Caeli) from Our Lady’s message to the children? I always thought it was Pope Saint John Paul II - because he was shot - who is the “bishop dressed in white”. 

So, no, it wasn't John Paul II. It was Francis. He changes the message, placing himself in the spotlight. In reinterpreting the message of Fatima for us he makes himself the center of the Fatima messages, the center of the 100th anniversary of Our Lady's appearances there, the center of the universe. He identifies himself as the Pilgrim of Light, Pilgrim of Peace and Pilgrim of Hope which makes him the “bishop dressed in white” of the message of Fatima because Our Lady wanted peace. Never mind that she spoke of wars and hell and that we need to do reparation and pray the rosary. No. Just that he's The Great Pilgrim bringing peace to all of us here on earth. Like Obama who brought the nation peacefully together. He's probably in that message somewhere too. I mean, why not?  Anything goes, right?

I almost titled this post, "The Prophet Francis (PBUH)" because (JCMF)* Francis, in addition to the above, says he wants to be a “prophet and messenger so as to wash the feet of all at the same table which unites us.” So since he has washed the feet of Muslims at Easter does he mean that he is even a prophet and messenger of Islam? To Islam? The words prophet and messenger are a bit too Islamic for my taste to be used in a papal speech or prayer at the 100th Anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima.

Yes, I’m putting the worst case scenario on all this, I know, but – hey – one has to read between the lines with Francis because that’s where he dwells....there and in footnotes that is.

Thank you for letting me vent.

*  "Just call me Francis"