There’s a certain faction within the Catholic Church that loves to hate Pope Francis.
It hardly seems to matter what he does. Any concession to the reality of the twenty-first century, however minimal, will be read as a betrayal of the highest order: against the Church, against God, against Truth with a capital T.
Case in point: Last week’s apostolic letter in which Francis made a slight modification to canon law recognizing that women can serve as acolytes (altar servers) and lectors (who read passages from the Bible) during Catholic Mass.
This is not a big deal: Girls and women have been allowed (if not necessarily encouraged) to serve as part of the Mass in “certain liturgical offices” since 1994. When Francis modified the relevant canon, replacing the gender-specific “lay men” with the more inclusive “lay persons,” he was bringing the wording in line with the reality that has existed for nearly thirty years.