@gailcalled It gets even more complicated than that. Francis is the son of Italian immigrants and his first language—the language he spoke in his childhood home—was Italian. He picked up Spanish when he started school in Argentina. I sometimes mix Swedish with Spanish and English when I’m tired, as I’m sure you do with English and French.
The infallability thing? Touchy subject. I thought these guys tacitly grew out of all that around the time they replaced the Vatican Astrologer with an Official Astronomer, but the last pope—conservative old Ben (I like to call him Ratzo)—had the Church’s most distinguished theologian, Hans Küng, forever muted for writing a paper questioning the pope’s infallability. The top theologian in the Catholic Church can’t teach theology in Catholic institutions. Poor bastard’s almost ninety years old now and relegated to guest-speaking at seedy secular sinkholes like Harvard, Upsala, and Goettingen. Ben and Hans go way back, too. They were roomies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in their salad days (when Ben was still Joe). So much for old school ties.
~ Catholica Romana Minutiis brought to you by Insufferable Insomnia.