Source: First Things

By Dan Hitchens

C. S. Lewis never read the newspapers. Though this habit led to some memorable blunders—he was under the impression that the Yugoslav dictator Tito was King of Greece—he felt it was intellectually and spiritually healthy. If something important happens, Lewis believed, somebody will always tell you.

Some Catholics take a similar view of Church politics: It should, they say, be treated as a distant irrelevance. Frequent the sacraments, say your prayers, do your duties at work and home, feed the hungry, visit the sick; don’t waste time in fruitless anxiety about what Cardinal X said to Monsignor Y about Bishop Z’s remarks on the latest papal press conference. Even if you are concerned, you shouldn’t go around shouting about it—that’s against the spirit of obedience we owe to our superiors. And what impression does it give to the world when Catholics are at each other’s throats in a Church that is supposed to be defined by unity and fraternal love?

There is a lot of truth in that. But it is not the whole truth, and now is the time to ask where its limits are, since criticism of Pope Francis is growing: Three unfavorable books, by Philip Lawler, Ross Douthat, and the soon-to-be-unmasked “Marcantonio Colonna,” have been or will be published in the next two months. These authors will be told that it would be better to keep silence. I am less certain.

Read more