On Thursday, even as he continued his silence with regard to accusations that he helped cover up sexual abuse within the Catholic Church from top-ranking members of the Vatican hierarchy, Pope Francis took to Twitter to issue another of his cryptically new-agey nostrums: “We Christians are not selling a product. We are communicating a lifestyle.”
From Daily Wire:
On Thursday, even as he continued his silence with regard to accusations that he helped cover up sexual abuse within the Catholic Church from top-ranking members of the Vatican hierarchy, Pope Francis took to Twitter to issue another of his cryptically new-agey nostrums: “We Christians are not selling a product. We are communicating a lifestyle.”
This tweet drew the ire and mockery of thousands of users, who pointed out first that the Pope’s language was vaguely reminiscent of a “Mad Men” advertising agency, and second that the Pope’s latest communiques hadn’t exactly communicated a valuable lifestyle. The Pope then deleted his tweet and replaced it with this, slightly less Hollywood version:
We Christians do not have a product to sell, we communicate Life.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) August 30, 2018
This isn’t much better, since the Pope’s latest commitment to communicating life involves avoiding charges that he reinstated public status to a cardinal credibly accused of preying on seminarians as well as male minors. But Francis’ declarations on Twitter have been cause for consternation for some time – he doesn’t use his 17.8 million-strong followership to promote Catholic doctrine, but to repeat phrases bound not to offend.
