Pope Francis and Cardinal Marx Do a Dance

July 1858 production of Shibaraku at the Ichimura-za theater theatre in Edo. Triptych woodblock print by Utagawa Toyokuni III (Public Domain)

“The pope will need to accept Cardinal Marx’s resignation,” I wrote last Friday. “If he doesn’t, he ought to be doing some soul-searching of his own.”

Now that Pope Francis has seen fit to refuse Cardinal Marx’s offer, and demand that he remain in place as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, I should say that my second sentence originally read: “If he doesn’t, he should think about offering his own.”