Pope Francis on the Stations of the Cross.

In Catholic circles, you could almost hear the groan when it was announced prior to Easter that Pope Francis and Víctor Manuel Cardinal Fernández were issuing a new writing on something.

"Oh no" went up the collective mental though of millions of Catholics, and the written comment in social media by some.

In the end, it was just the Pope's meditations on the Stations of the Cross for this year, which didn't stop his most ardent critics from launching into them.  There's nothing inappropriate with a Pope doing this, however, and there's recent precedent for that matter.

Nonetheless, the groan beforehand shows the extent to which people are weary of hearing from Pope Francis, as so much of what he writes results in controversy.  And that ought to give him pause.  At some point, if people are reluctant to hear from you, and dread it, they aren't likely to take it to heart.