Here’s an example of people trying to make a huge deal about something that is almost nothing. He gave an orthodox spontaneous blessing over the normal formula. I wrote a bit:
Yesterday, Pope Francis was in Palermo. After one of his meetings, he gave an impromptu blessing prayer. Online, people exploded claiming that he was refusing to give the Apostolic Blessing using the standard formula and the Trinitarian invocation. As far as I could trace it back, this tweet started the controversy.
[Tweet with video]
This tweet is fake news! He never refused anything, he never mentioned others being offended. He simply thought a blessing talking about the “seed of restlessness” in the heart might be best in this circumstance. I don’t know if it as best but I don’t obsess over ad-libbed prayers that are orthodox.
