"It's Never Been More Obvious That This Is Precisely What Pope Francis Has in Mind"

"But I think the pope's strategy for a longer game displays greater psychological acuity—and Machiavellian cunning. Francis may be betting that once the church stops preaching those doctrines that conflict most severely with modern moral norms, the number of people who uphold and revere them will decline rapidly (within a generation or two). Once that has happened, officially changing the doctrine will be much easier and much less likely to provoke a schism (or at least a major one) than it is in the present."

Damon Linker at The Week discusses Pope Francis's "strategy of stealth reform."