I've seen evidence that would suggest that Francis' authority is not as established that many people might presume, if for no other reason than the fact that Pope Benedict is still alive, among several other curious things that led to Francis' election.

Let's try to keep red herrings in this thread to a minimum, shall we?

Mmmmm...herring.

Pope Francis has authority. Very rarely does he use it to command.

Growth in holiness is, among other things, an increase in conformity to the will of God. Our own wills are often divergent from God's. By practicing obedience in situations where sin is not involved, we learn to set aside our own desires and open ourselves up to doing God's will, even when it is not welcome or not what we would do on our own.

Thank you very much

Considering that many spiritual directors more than likely support the Left (since the Catholic Church received millions of dollars from the Democratic Party).

Over half of Catholics here in America are liberals Democrats. And the ones that aren't either don't care enough to rock the boat, and are neither hot nor cold, or are simply to scared to offend people. I don't think a man who does not have his own house in order can tell someone such as myself how to run my life.

In short I am saying that the majority (though not all) of spiritual directors have no clue what God's will is, and have no idea what they are talking about.

Though, it is possible that good advice can come from anyone if it is based on an orthodox conservative worldview.

Besides, my brother is my spiritual director if you wanna call him that, cause he's the best guy I know.

Have you any idea what most spiritual directors are like? No, you just ran together a string of assumptions to reach a nonsensical conclusion that is unjust to one set of people and manifestly unhelpful and misleading for another.

So you'd have us believe that the party which is staunchly anti-anything-Catholic is giving the Church millions?






Well that goes without saying. Obviously not everyone who calls themselves a "spiritual director" is cut out for it. At bottom it's a vocation, not just a career choice.



If you want to believe that Catholic orthodoxy is synonymous with political conservatism (especially for what accounts for American conservatism in the age of Trump) you're going to in for a rude awakening.

Orthodox Catholicism is something that is way more complex and dynamic than something that just can be fit into a modern political ideology.

In the UK nobody ever suggests that you can't be a good Catholic if you "support the Left", or if you support the Right. There are Catholic politicians in all the parties, Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists, Greens. I've never heard anyone say or suggest that a politician can't be a true Catholic because of the political party they support.

It happens a lot in the US.

the list is so very long... let me count the ways .........

It's precisely why I'm not affiliated with a political party. Political parties are themselves ideologically driven and thus they're going to emphasize sone things at the expense of others.