Non-Cardinal Archbishop of Milan criticises Pope

I am not so surprised if Monsignor Mario Delpini, Metropolitan of Milan, like so many priests and bishops, turns out to be a careerist in search of positions of ever greater prestige, appealing to an alleged right to have the cardinal's hat as well as the tradition, long since overtaken by Pope Francis, which, as we know, does not link the appointment of cardinals to Sees but to persons (see the case of Montenegro who where the Cardinal was Archbishop of Agrigento, an Archdiocese in which there had never been a cardinal).

And not only that: the Archbishop, secretly and unexpectedly - I hope I am wrong - has joined the ranks of the the protestors against the Pontiff and not-so-hidden. (Cathcon: I very much hope he has!)

Monsignor Mario Delpini, in fact, during the Pontifical Mass for Sant'Abbondio, Patron Saint of Como, the city whose Bishop Oscar Cantoni has been made cardinal, said with bitter and improvised irony: 'There have been some rather impudent people who have wondered why the Pope did not choose the Metropolitan to be a Cardinal and chose instead the Bishop of Como.

Given then the fact that the Pope is a Jesuit, he continued:" In this choice I think the wisdom of the Holy Father is clearly revealed. Why did he choose the Bishop of Como to be his particular advisor? I found at least three reasons. The first is that the Pope must have thought that the Archbishop of Milan already has so much to do, he is overloaded with work, and so he said: 'the Bishop of Como must also work a little and so he thought of giving you some work too'. The second reason is that the Pope probably thought: those 'bauscia' from Milan don't even know where Rome is; therefore, it is better not to involve them too much in the government of the universal Church. And perhaps there is also a third reason. If I remember correctly, the pope is a River Plate football team fan, who has never won anything, and perhaps he thought that those from Como might be a little in tune because they know that the Champions come from Milan'.

If we want to be benevolent towards the Archbishop of Milan and think that he is not being contentious, that there is, therefore, no form of criticism or antagonism towards Pope Francis in him, it is certain that his is an irony which is a little out of place and time that mocks the Pope and the Bishop of Como in public because his See is still without purple.

He knows clearly and better than I do, as a graduate in classical literature, that the rhetorical figure of irony, also known as antiphrasis, consists in expressing the opposite of what one actually wants to mean; its purpose is to highlight the untenability of what one pretends to support or the validity of what one pretends to disapprove of and that, like satire, and provocation is by its very nature irreverent.

For this is mockery and nothing else. It is a case of a sophisticated rhetorical procedure that fully falls within the characteristics of humour that makes the offence particularly nasty and is being used by Delfini denouncing his frustration

Don Marco Pozza, an Italian writer and television personality, chaplain at the Due Palazzi prison in Padua, who interviewed Pope Francis, comments as follows: 'An archbishop, the one from Milan, who publicly mocks the Pope and a confrere because his see is still without purple was something that was still missing from the collection'.

Source

Cathcon: In answer to the writer above,  Pope Francis by his policy of appointing Cardinals from the periphery has ensured that senior clerics that could be critical of the policies of his Papacy are excluded from the most senior levels of the Church and also that the next Pope is more likely to be made in his own disastrous image.  Synodality instead of bringing the Church together has been a powerful engine in her fragmentation.   Progressives in Germany are now also calling for a Third Vatican Council to canonise the reign of modernist terror that Francis has unleashed.