WARNING

I have declined to enable a small number of comments.

I am not averse to enabling robustly critical comments about PF himself and about the sycophants with whom he surrounds himself.

But just watch how you do it. Moreover, the more critical you are, the more you need to show, carefully and logically and factually, the grounds upon which you draw your critical conclusions.

You do not make any contribution to solving the crisis in the Church Militant if you just write nasty abuse without careful argumentation to back it up.

I have hitherto allowed some borderline comments. In future, I will be stricter.

I understand and sympathise with the wounds which PF's personality and actions have created in many minds and lives. But I would rather you refrained from merely letting off steam and doing so abusively.

Furthermore, understanding is spreading. A piece which has just popped up on the Catholic Herald website uses the Barros scandal to raise questions like whether PF is fully in command of his faculties; whether, rather than being part of the problem, he  is  the problem. The 'Mainstream', gradually, is becoming less timid. Pennies are dropping. This is not the moment to give the world what hesitant and undecided people will conclude is evidence that PF's critics are unpleasant nutters. Always ask yourself "How will this sound to someone who is sitting on the fence?"

I urge people to keep their heads and say their prayers and, if they find these two suggestions too difficult, to keep quiet.