Francis Gets an Insult Generator

One of the most annoying things about the Francis pontificate is how the mainstream perception of his personality and style are so at odds with the reality.

Exhibit A is "Who am I to Judge?" Francis is different (so goes the mainstream perception). Unlike most of his predecessors and the vast majority of priests and bishops in the Church's 2,000 year history, he takes a nonjudgmental, mellow, live-and-let-live attitude. He's not there to preach from on high about how others are sinners or about how some people are so wrong about this and that or whatever. What a breath of fresh air.

That is of course almost a complete inversion of the truth.

No pope in living memory has been such an inveterate judge, scold, lecturer, niggler and nag. Hardly a homily goes by without a nasty poke at one group or another for not being sufficiently loving or merciful or spiritual or God knows what all else including not putting one's recyclables in the correctly colored bag. And the target of his nasty but often insipid or weird barbs is usually (though not always) Catholics or Christians.

Even if Francis were a paragon of doctrinal wisdom (which he oh so obviously is not), this would be troubling. His big thing is pastoral care, but no pastor worth his salt consistently insults his flock and makes them feel like schmucks compared to . . . their pastor. In a sane Catholic world Bergoglio would have flunked Pastoral Care 101 and been kicked out of seminary. I guess he could have then pursued his first vocation as a butcher.

A few months ago we wrote about The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults, a creation of the brilliant blogger at The Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill. Now a friendly party has taken those positively Shakespearean darts and put them into a Random Insult Generator. Every insult generated is from a documented Pope Francis homily, address, writing or similar. The citations can be found at The Bones.

To give you the flavor of it, I'm going to use it right now and record the first four results. The results are real and I will not edit them or redo it in any way. Hopefully we'll get some good ones.

Ready?

Little Monster!

For another insult, refresh the page.

Pickled pepper-faced Christian!

For another insult, refresh the page. 

Proud, self-sufficient, detached from the people, intellectual aristocrats, who closed their doors and resist the Holy Spirit!

For another insult, refresh the page. 

Pagans with two strokes of Christian paint, so as to appear like Christians, but pagans nonetheless!

There, don't you feel better? Doesn't it get the blood going? Oh, heck, let's do another:

Children! Afraid to dance! To cry! Afraid of everything!

Let's be serious for a moment. Who is the Pope talking about?

Well, if you're a faithful practicing Catholic, he's talking about you. He's insulting you. Almost every day, usually in front of the Altar of God, he has a nasty little message for, yes, you.

This man, this spiritually hollow, narcissistic, spite-filled man, may have been elected Pope, but he's currently doing more to damage the Catholic faith than any human being on earth.

What a monster.