I have been struggling with my confusion at some of Pope Francis' off the cuff statements.After having spoken to two Parish Priests and praying for a week I have decided to do the following,and I quote Michelle Arnold a staff apologist at Catholic Answers.

"How to deal with a pope you disagree with

I think Traditionalist complaints with John Paul II and Francis—and even, in some cases, with the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI—boil down to disagreeing with a pope's non-infallible interpretations of Church doctrine and the moral law, with his prudential judgments, and with features of his personality (e.g., in John Paul's case, his showmanship; in Francis's case, his informality). And it is within legitimate bounds for Catholics to have issues with an individual pope's public remarks, with his actions on the world stage, or with his personality quirks. So let's look at some legitimate responses Catholics might want to consider when faced with a pope they just dislike.

Maintain silence. Or as the old proverb my grandmother liked to quote went, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." Unless a pope is engaging in objectively evil deeds like some of his predecessors named above, silence is a better response to disagreement than speaking out. It allows you to observe, to gather all of the available information, to allow time for surprises, before staking out a position that may well prove to be completely discredited by later events. Silence is also a profoundly Christological response to persecution.

Obey, even when you disagree. Catholics are not rugged individualists. Although some American Catholics tend to act as if authority in the Church consists of "me, the Pope, and Jesus," this is not how authority is exercised or expressed in the Catholic Church. For Catholics, we are called to obey all those in the Church who, by virtue of office, exercise legitimate authority in the lives of the faithful. Obedience to lawful authorities in the Church is not conditioned on whether or not a Catholic agrees with what is required of him. Catholics are supposed to obey anyway, provided the action required is not a sin, and to trust that the authorities have wisdom gained from formation and/or ordination that goes above and beyond their own experience.

Support your priests and bishops. Continue to maintain communion with your local church, both at the parish and diocesan levels. Not only is support for the Church a precept of the Church that Catholics are bound in conscience to obey (CCC 2043), but doing so keeps you in the loop. You have channels through which you can respectfully ask for pastoral guidance and spiritual support. And you enable your local church to be able to continue to care for the legitimate needs of Catholics and non-Catholics in your area during difficult times. Just because you don't like what a pope has to say on homosexuality, or because you disagree with a pope on who may receive Communion, that is no reason to deny fellow human beings the material support from the Church to which they have a right (either directly, by denying charitable funds earmarked for the needy; or indirectly, by impeding the ability of local pastors to respond to humanitarian crises because of lack of support from the faithful in the diocese).

Trust in God. Soon after my conversion, back when I was a baby Catholic, my mildly anti-Catholic father, just to be ornery, asked me what I would do if the Pope suddenly altered Church doctrine on some hot-button issue. My dad's example, although he would have been the last person to agitate for feminist concerns, was women's ordination. What would I do if the Pope suddenly started ordaining women?

I was not an apologist at the time, and my dad really was not asking about women's ordination or papal infallibility anyway. He wanted to know what I would do if the Pope radically shocked me by doing something I was convinced the Pope could not do.

I thought for a minute and then reminded Dad of the old story of a man who fell off a cliff and managed to grab a branch on the way down. He yells for help, and a Voice from the heavens answers him. The Voice tells him to let go of the branch he is clinging to, and to trust he will be okay. The man thinks over the instructions, then yells, "Is there anyone else up there?"

"Sooner or later, Dad," I said, "you have to trust and let go, even when doing so seems impossible."

Because, after all, "to whom shall we go" (John 6:67–69)? "
http://www.catholic.com/blog/michelle-arnold/the-...

Is Pope Francis beginning to learn that his ambiguous populist speech has caused confusion where once clarity reigned supreme in the Holy See? I suspect that for a man of 77 to be thrust on the world's stage and overnight from the obscurity of South America, that the learning curve must be dramatic and a bit difficult.

But the Holy Father has opened himself to the problems he is now experiencing when it comes to his populist approach that pleases the powers of the world who hate the clarity of Catholicism as it regards human sexuality and everything that flows from it.

It seems that the world (in the sense that John's Gospel uses the term) loves Pope Francis when they perceive His Holiness not to be Catholic!

On his flight to Mexico from Rome, Pope Francis was asked whether contraception might be permissible for those women living in areas affected by the Zika virus. He responded, “[Pope] On his flight to Mexico from Rome, Pope Francis was asked whether contraception might be permissible for those women living in areas affected by the Zika virus. He responded, “[Pope] Paul VI, a great man, in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted nuns to use contraceptives in cases of rape […] avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil.” This remark immediately set off debate about his intentions. This remark immediately set off debate about his intentions.

It turns out that Pope Paul NEVER APPROVED of contraception for nuns in the Congo. A bit of research at Google books shows that this "approval" was nothing other than the OPINION OF THREE THEOLOGIANS published in the Rome publication, Studi Cattolici, in 1961. Pope John XXIII was Pope at that time. Paul VI was elected in 1963, and Humanae Vitae was issued in 1968.

Christianity Today, 1966, Volume 10, Issues 14-25, page 31:
"The Roman Catholic press carried the story during the Congo revolutions that three recognized theologians in Rome had concurred in an opinion that nuns in the Congo missions could legitimately take the pill to prevent pregnancy in case they might be raped. In this decision, the theologians, with the apparent approval of the Vatican...."I'D LIKE TO SEE DOCUMENTATION ON THE" APPARENT" APPROVAL(WITHOUT EVIDENCE IT IS CONJECTURE AT BEST OR COMPLETELY UNRELIABLY ANECDOTAL AT WORST)

Catholics and Birth Control: Contemporary Views on Doctrine, by Dorthy Dunbar Bromley, 1965:
"One specific use of the pill as a contraceptive has been approved by a number of Catholic theologians - that is, when a woman is threatened with rape, as were Catholic nuns in the Congo. Noting that it had received queries on this question, the Rome publication, Studi Cattolici, published in 1961 the unanimous views of Msgr. Pietro Palazzini, secretary of the Sacred Congregation, Professor Franz Hurth, S.J., of the Pontifical Gregorian University, and Msgr. Ferdinando Lambruschini of the Pontifical Lateran University."

Msgr. Palazzini was consecrated as a Bishop in September 1962, the year after he published this opinion. So none of these three theologians were a Bishop at the time of their writing on this subject. Their "approval" for contraception in this case was not of the Magisterium, and was neither issued, nor approved by any Pope.

In addition to the above sources, there is also a footnote in an article by Leopold Denis: Case of Conscience, African Clergy Review, Issue 17, 1962, p. 334, note 12. That text cites the same three theologians mentioned above, opining that the nuns could use contraception to prevent pregnancy in cases of rape.

I just found this which sheds light on the Congo Question and the Zika problem vis a vis contraception:

Contraception and the Congo nuns
The Church has never taught that if the harms are serious enough, it is permissible to use contraception.

On his flight to Mexico from Rome, Pope Francis was asked whether contraception might be permissible for those women living in areas affected by the Zika virus. He responded, “[Pope] Paul VI, a great man, in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted nuns to use contraceptives in cases of rape […] avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil.” This remark immediately set off debate about his intentions.

It confuses many that the officials of the Church many decades ago permitted nuns in the Congo who were in danger of being raped to take hormones that prevent ovulation (which is what the “pill” does). In this case the hormones would be taken with the intent of avoiding a pregnancy, but not a pregnancy that would be the result of a spousal act of sexual intercourse. They would not be altering the purpose of a spousal act of sexual intercourse.

Rather, they would be defending themselves against the possible consequences of an act of rape. Keep in mind that it is justifiable for a woman to inflict great physical harm, even death, on a man threatening rape. Her act of killing the rapist is not justified as a “lesser evil” because killing is not a lesser evil than enduring rape. Rather, her act is an act of just and moral self-defense.
T

hus, for a woman to do something to prevent a rapist’s sperm from uniting with her ovum is a part of justifiable self-defense. Her act has nothing to do with violating God’s plan for sexuality. She is not choosing to use contraception to prevent a spousal act of sexual intercourse from achieving its natural end. She is not refusing to make a complete gift of herself to her spouse. She is fending off a rapist and all his physicality. Clearly, her use of ovulation-suppressing hormones is not an act of contraception. (A good source for information about the history/reasoning concerning the nuns in the Congo is Fr. Edward Bayer’s Rape Within Marriage (1985), pp. 82-3)

The principle of choosing the lesser evil does not justify a woman using contraception to prevent a pregnancy because she fears the child may suffer some harm during the pregnancy. Here a woman is choosing to do something immoral to prevent harm. This choice violates the fundamental principle that we must never do moral evil to achieve good. She would be intending to thwart the purpose and meaning of the sexual act in order to protect any child conceived from harm, but she is doing harm—to the marital act and her marital relationship—by using contraception to prevent a pregnancy.

There are all sorts of “harm” that spouses may wish to attempt to avoid by using contraception. In fact, one suspects that there is always some harm spouses are trying to avoid by using contraception—harms such as financial stress, inconvenience, threats to the mother’s health, sexual frustration, etc. The Church has never taught that if the harms are serious enough, it is permissible to use contraception, for that would be choosing to do moral evil to avoid harm.

To suggest that some “emergency” or “special situation” would permit a person in conscience to use contraception does not align with Catholic moral theology. For spouses to use contraception is always wrong. How can any emergency or special situation justify what is always wrong? It is an improper use of conscience to use it to discern that it is moral to do what is intrinsically wrong in special situations. One job of the conscience is precisely to enable a person to honor moral norms in special situations. In emergencies or special situations we are not permitted, for instance, directly to kill innocent human beings even if great good could come from that death.

Martyrdom is precisely a result of the refusal to do something that is morally wrong in an “emergency” or “special situation.”

February 20 Catholic World Report article by Janet E. Smith: http://cal-catholic.com/?p=22644 CALIFORNIA CATHOLIC DAILY

cas·u·ist·ry
ˈkaZHəwəstrē/
noun
the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions; sophistry.
synonyms:sophistry, specious reasoning, speciousness, sophism, equivocation
"the casuistry about altruism always being ultimately selfish"
the resolving of moral problems by the application of theoretical rules to particular instances.

Causitry specious argument : rationalization

"If you're going to insinuate wicked motives on the Holy Father, it has to be based more than on ambiguity and your projection."
Please don't put words in my mouth or tell me what my motives are.It is offensive.

Interesting and if your theory is correct-alarming.I want a Papal Shepherd NOT a wily Politician.

Thanks for the article-I too searched for the "Congo Question" but all I gleaned was anecdotal statements-nothing from Blessed Pope Paul Vi .I think this article is prognosticating and reaching a lot regarding Francis' reasoning and intentions.The author assumes a lot and is almost putting words in his mouth.I will agree with the conclusion that the Holy Father's position is murky on this issue(in my mind) and I seek definitives not "what ifs ?"

Thank you for your learned insight.WE are the Body of Christ (The Church) not just orthodox and heterodox Bishops and Cardinals.My problem with Francis is that he seems to "think out loud" when talking to the media.He is either cunningly floating "trial balloons" or is woefully naive.The number of "retractions" from the Vatican is ludicrous.
The Remnant of orthodox Catholics in my Parish are not mere "pew potatos".I have taken courses in Theology at University but most importantly I READ-Encyclicals,Books by ST John Paul the Great,Benedict's trilogy on Christ
, Apologetics,the Bible (naturally) and umpteen books on the Saints from The Little Flower to St Edith Stein,St John of the Cross and the Vatican 2 papers and the unabridged Catechism of the Catholic Church. .I am exceedingly upset with what is happening in the Church.I was taught by Jesuits in High School and while they were brilliant it was a most unpleasant experience.Would you please elucidate further on the following "... Francis wants somehow to partially adapt the Church to modernity using the old Jesuit casuistry. If this good or bad, it's up to everyone of us to judge, in-spite of the “judgment denial” manifested by Francis faithfully according to the old casuistry principles."

The way I see Causitry is the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions; the equivalent of sophistry.Am I correct and is he in YOUR OPINION employing sophistry ?

There is a great deal of difference in Infallibility (having been employed 4 times in the history of the Church) and personal IMPECCABILITY.

For instance Francis' own Biographer described the Mass at the US-Mexico border as "POLITICIZING" the Mass and I agree with him.The Mass is not a political cudgel .It is the dearest most solemn and joyful prayer in the Church wherin one is SIMULTANEOUSLY AND LITERALLY at the Last Supper,The Foot of the Cross and the Wedding Feast in Heaven.

I spent half an hour making a point and typing it out.Where is the main body of my reply ?

nd phrased his encyclicals and utterances unambiguously.knew.People came to SEE St John Paul the Great but they came to listen to Benedict.

What happens when all of these prognosticated "changes" to Doctrine and Dogma do not occur ? THEN you'll see the heterodox extreme liberal wing of the Church enraged as well as the secular world who hates the Church because it won't condone accepted sin which is completely normalized IN LAW in most societies.

You think anti-Catholicism is bad NOW ? Hold onto your hat.