It would be a whole lot more convincing without the slamming.

Beat that cafeteria door open any way you can.

Foolables everywhere, these days. Mr. Scherer-Edmunds finds protestants seeing the Pope as a symbol of the unity all Christians needs--and still finds a way to cut him at the knees:

And for many people today there is no other symbol or reality that even comes close to embodying the essential call to Christian unity the way the bishop of Rome does - his many shortcomings notwithstanding. Clearly this also places a special obligation on the pope to exercise his ministry in a way that fosters and does not hinder that unity.

What can you expect from a Foolable that still harps on this:

The election of Pope Benedict XVI seems to signal above all a vote for continuity with the agenda of his predecessor. Many Catholics have been hoping and working for significant church reforms such as the ordination of women and married priests; greater openness, accountability, and lay participation and decision-making in their church; a greater acknowledgment of pastoral realities and of the sense of the faithful in moral theological teachings; and more local or regional authority that would allow for greater diversity in unity. Given that Pope Benedict has been so clearly identified with the more conservative wing of the Catholic Church, those kinds of reforms will no doubt have to wait for another papacy.

For, of course, the Church is just a political institution, like the US Government. Everyone knows there are two wings in that forum. Therefore, Rome must be just like the US. After all, who isn't?

And, of course, if one stands for the Tradition of Roman Catholicism that goes back 2,000 years, as well as the Magisterium , then one sits on the "conservative wing."

Such a charitable interpretation from the catholic with two churches:

But as a Catholic who married into a staunch, albeit ecumenically minded, Lutheran family and who worships in both Catholic and Lutheran churches, I was struck by the genuine interest in and concern among many Protestants for who was going to be sitting in Peter’s chair and what his election would mean.

Can I laugh any louder? Honestly, perhaps that kind only comes out with prayer and fasting. Can he be any more cliche? Any more sixties?

Yet, there but by the grace of God go I. Let me laugh the Truth into him while loving him as the sick and confused brother that he is. For if the reasonable are so, then the Foolable are so all the more.