text: The cardinal in the strip is right--we are speaking different languages.  Does anyone see how self-righteous it is to proclaim: "I'm for mercy, you're not!"  ?  Can you not see that mercy is not the opposite of clarity?
  The cardinals were not asking the pope to renounce or denounce 'mercy'.  But we live in a time when popes seem to think they can do anything they want:  Pius IX got himself declared infallible,  Paul VI presumed to invent a new liturgy and impose it on us.  It’s no wonder so many people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, think the pope can wave his hand and ‘change the rules’, not only on matters of custom and discipline, but on fundamental aspects of the Gospel.
  The cardinals were simply asking the pope to confirm that Jesus’s words on marriage were not to be airbrushed away.