The desire for ambiguity which permeates Michael Sean Winter's article and his support for Pope Francis's commitment to elevating the same to a central role in Catholicism, overlooks the fact that recently Pope Francis came down like a ton of bricks on priests in an obscure and presumably exceedingly poor diocese who had had the temerity to oppose the bishop appointed; not by Francis but by Benedict.

He ordered them to write personally to pledge allegiance. They must "clearly manifest total obedience to the Pope." Every priest must write a letter "in which he asks for forgiveness; all must write individually and personally."

He justified total intransigence, not by boasting how readily friends meet top people, nor asserting the church is not a museum, nor by alluding to his mother's taste in wallpaper and drapes, but rather by asserting that "Jesus reminds us that whoever causes scandal must suffer the consequences."

 Jesus,  a character missing entirely from this analysis.

Why?