Is The Church's Teachings On Contraception In Francis' Cross-Hairs?

While returning to Rome after his recent trip to Canada (a disaster in and of itself), Francis gave yet another lackluster plane interview.  The official transcript is on the Vatican website.   The question of concern is towards the bottom.  Even more concerning than the question is the answer.

In actuality, the question was one that would have been answered with a simple "yes" or "no", with "no" being the correct answer.  Francis never answered the question.  Rather, he segued into an overly wordy session of verbal diarrhea.  Read it for yourselves, as he blathers about "development of doctrine".  Somehow he manages to badmouth faithful Catholics who hold to the Church's timeless traditions.

Francis incorrectly invoked Saint Vincent of Lerins as the latter spoke of doctrine.  Catholic Answers has an excellent article that unpacks Francis' misquote of St. Vincent.  Please read it.  I need not rehash it here except to emphasize that doctrine, as it develops correctly, will always clarify truth.  Never will authentic development of Church doctrine lead to its contradiction.  Please recall that is what Francis did when he attempted to change Church teaching regarding the death penalty.  The Church had always recognized the death penalty to be a legitimate option to be used by civil governments in the restoration of justice.  Francis falsely stated that the death penalty is "intrinsically evil".  Not only is that false, it is rank heresy.

As I said in earlier posts, I think Francis used the death penalty matter as a trial balloon to see how much heresy the faithful were willing to swallow before coming to see that Francis might be an anti-pope.  At first glance, it appears that his gambit worked.  Now with him potentially rattling his saber against several papal documents condemning contraception, it appears that more are willing to consider the sad possibility that an anti-pope rules the Vatican.  How much more before faithful Catholics wake up?