Mundabor starts with Hope, the theological virtue . The Catechism, he says, quoting Google,

“. . . defines hope as a theological virtue by which individuals desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as their ultimate happiness, placing their trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on their own strength, but on the grace of the Holy Spirit”.

Even Google knows, he says. But does Pope Leo? “I think he does,” says Mundabor, but adds that Francis “probably didn’t,” referring to his describing Hope as “the desire and expectation of good things to come despite or not knowing what the future may bring,” which hardly did it justice.

In any case, Mundabor asks readers to “focus not on the single phrase, but on the whole context of what Pope Leo said” in his recent speech to a Knights of Columbus convention, after reading which “you will realize how absolutely worldly the man’s thinking is.” [Emphasis author’s throughout]

He quotes Jesus far more than Francis, but “twists the message so that it is not supernatural and can be adapted to non-Catholics, and even to non-Christians.” [Italics author’s throughout]

His hope is “not a robust confidence in the Final Repentance [or] a humble, but humbly optimistic confidence in Divine Grace.”

No, it is the “feeling” that “good worldly things will be happening to you. . . . confidence that you will get the job, not . . . that you will get Salvation.

“You see . . . how, ignoring the things of heaven . . . the ‘message’ can be applied to . . . everything and everyone, fully detached from any religious meaning.”

The good Knight of Columbus is the one, Leo clearly thinks, that encourages everybody to hope that the job will come, the bills will be paid, the baseball team will win the game.

The author unloads.

Oh, what a great message of insipid, plasticky, worldly “hope”! And how well can this plasticky minimum common denominator be applied to everyone!

You can give your message of “hope” to a Jew, a Muslim, even an Atheist without offending him in the least with that most uncomfortable Individual, Christ, and with that most uncomfortable of places, hell! Can you see how everybody feels oh so good as they encourage each others to have “hope”?

At a Rotary meeting?

“What we have here is an extremely superficial, plasticky, courage-free ‘Pope of good and easy feelings,’ . . .

“This . . .  falls short of proper Catholicism, because Catholicism isn’t a feel-good exercise.

If I say to you that I find my joy in Christ, but don’t follow up with what Christ said (examples: the Four Last Things and the role of the Church in the economy of salvation), I am giving off a worldly, relativistic message in which some like chocolate, some strawberry and some vanilla, but it’s ok because the important thing is that we can all celebrate that we like spending time together eating ice cream.

Winding up . . .

This is Christianity without Christian message . . .

This papacy will, I am still extremely confident, never fall to the lows of Francis; but I am . . .  afraid . . .  it will degenerate into a . . .  collection of platitudes and easy good feelings, with any idea of promotion of Catholic thinking and living sacrificed to the imperative of not offending anyone.

And his roaring finish . . .

It’s an improvement, but I can’t avoid hoping for a funeral and another roll of the Providential Dice as is. [!] [Emphasis mine]