Editor’s Note: If readers know of any clergy who are entering into this discussion about Pope Francis being a heretic or not, please share them in a comment below, as this Debate is helpful to inform all of us as regards what Catholic clergy world wide are saying on this topic.

Father Doyle ostensibly does us an invaluable service by showing how the urban myths of what Pope Francis has said now dominate the narrative, and that what he actually said, differs substantially. I say, “ostensibly”, because he does not cite the passages he quotes, so we have to take it on his word alone, that when he says Fr. Altman is misquoting Pope Francis, that he is really misquoting him.

However, I would caution Fr. Doyle in charging Fr. Altman with intentional misrepresentation, mostly because anyone fluent in English only hears Pope Francis in translation, and, for example, the quote about Jesus being a communist, in English, fails to use the conditional construction, which, perhaps, was also absent in the Spanish pope Francis used, because he is using street level language, wherein the subjunctive or conditional is not used, as is often the case among those without much education. Without the use of the condition, in English it does appear that Pope Francis is not speaking hypothetically about another person, but about himself.

After you watch this video, you will understand how important it is that quotations be cited exactly and how dangerous it is to rely on one’s memory. This is how 99.999% of the clergy thought Pope Benedict renounced, when he only resigned. And it seems Fr. Doyle committed that fault too, but as I have often said, we cannot charge all these clergy with bad will. They read the newspapers and assume that they are reading the absolute truth, with correct translations. And that is rarely the case.