Calling out Pope Francis

A Belgian Archbishop who I have never heard of has, apparently, said it is time for Pope Francis to defend the Church's Tradition.  I would say if I have any issue with Pope Francis, it is that he seems to talk quite a lot off the cuff, and sometimes does so in ways that are easily open to interpretation.  For instance, his statement about atheists going on to heaven too, as long as they follow their conscience.  What does that even mean?  It's nothing different than I heard in college in Comp Studies classes, or on any one of a dozen episodes of Oprah.  Is that what he means?  If not, what?  I mean, the Church teaches that it is possible to be saved apart from being Catholic.  Is that what he means?

Whatever he means, in our age of hyper-partisanship, he has to know that people will run with what he says to satisfy what they already believe in the first place.  And he has to know that, in many parts of the world and not exactly unique to the Dying West, the idea that one religion is as good as another since we all end up in the same place anyway is quite popular.  So a clearer, more solid stance might help.

Same with other issues of the day.  Not that Catholics are known for saying it like it is.  In my 10 years of being Catholic, I coined the term "Catholic Un-Speak" to describe how homilies (that's sermons to you Protestants out there) are sometimes just more or less getting around to almost making a point that there is quite possibly a chance there...God loves!  Not all.  And I found younger priests and priests from other cultures (especially Africa) to be more blunt and to the point.  But in this day and age, especially when you have billions of people dying to be affirmed that what they always imagined was likely true about all that religion stuff, a more forthright, clear and detailed response surrounding those little one liners might be in order.