And the end game?

Anyone who has seen the various interviews of Cardinal Burke in the last few days - no need for links, I'm sure you all have - will have been struck by how resolute he sounds when questioned about his current course of action. The dubia were posed discreetly in private in September. When the pope refused to clarify matters in the growing confusion, the dubia were published. Now, we stand on the edge of the next stage: this formal correction that Cardinal Burke has been talking about is no idle threat. He has not raised this issue without having thought through and contemplated the possibility of having to do it. At least, if he has talked without thinking, he's not half the man we thought he was.

And now this: the pope has delivered his Christmas address to the Curia and ripped into the critics of reform, classifying them in three groups:

In this process, it is normal, and indeed healthy, to encounter difficulties, which in the case of the reform, might present themselves as different types of resistance. There can be cases of open resistance, often born of goodwill and sincere dialogue, and cases of hidden resistance, born of fearful or hardened hearts content with the empty rhetoric of “spiritual window-dressing” typical of those who say they are ready for change, yet want everything to remain as it was before. There are also cases of malicious resistance, which spring up in misguided minds and come to the fore when the devil inspires ill intentions (often cloaked in sheep’s clothing). This last kind of resistance hides behind words of self-justification and, often, accusation; it takes refuge in traditions, appearances, formalities, in the familiar, or else in a desire to make everything personal, failing to distinguish between the act, the actor, and the action.

I know ostensible this is about the Curia first and foremost but are you thinking what I'm thinking? I could go off here into metaphors about unstoppable forces and immovable objects, but I'm not even sure that would capture what looks like the coming clash. The language is a real give away:

This last kind of resistance hides behind words of self-justification and, often, accusation; it takes refuge in traditions, appearances, formalities, in the familiar, or else in a desire to make everything personal, 

Accusation, tradition, formalities ... Now, to whom could Pope Francis be alluding? Mark my words: this does not end well, unless there is some extraordinary intervention of grace and softening of hearts.

I'm off right now to Eucharistic Adoration. One word to men; a thousand words to God.