And this time he really really means it.

Oh goodie.

Rod Dreher was invited by Time magazine to write a piece about Pope Francis.  Of course, he was happy to oblige, and he did so in a way that only Rod Dreher could.  Literally, as it turns out.  I can't set it up any better than Dreher does himself:

I tried to think of something nobody else had said. 

And what might that be, you ask?  The title of the Time piece says it all:

I'm Still Not Going Back to the Catholic Church

And he's exactly right.  No one else had written on whether Rod Dreher is going back to the Catholic Church.

Read the whole thing, as Dreher himself would say (and did say).  Executive Summary:  Dreher goes into some length about how the Church did not preach "God's judgment", in effect preaching "Christ without the Cross", and that this lack of interest in teaching repentance was reflected in its reaction to the Scandal. Pope Francis doesn't help, not because of what he says (which Dreher likes), but because of how Francis will be misinterpreted.  Same old saw, but a bit more expanded.  Whatever.

The odd part about all this is that his Time essay didn't really say why Rod Dreher really isn't going back to the Church -- it just left the impression that it did. Instead, as he says in the TAC pimping of his Time essay, the real reason he isn't going back is "because [he does not] believe in Catholic doctrine any longer".   And he only tells us what the problematic part of the doctrine is when pressed in the comments: it turns out that the stumbling block is papal infallibility.

I'm confused, and at a loss for words.  I'm sure y'all won't be.  

P.S. The Time commenters are a bit rough on him already.