The problem I have with this denial is what I noted in Saturday's post: in his remarks at the Baltimore conference, he stood up to gain the floor to announce an alternate agenda even before Cardinal DiNardo had finished speaking.
This strongly suggests that, even if a full policy draft of some sort hadn't been formally approved, there was clearly an alternate plan for the discussion that he was going to enforce, effectively speaking on behalf of Francis.
His not entirely coherent remarks about "anonymous", "consensual", and "pornography" suggest these words had been put in his mind in the course of some kind of discussion, although he pretty clearly didn't understand them very well himself. That means someone else gave them to him -- possibly not Wuerl; I'm not sure if Wuerl is much smarter than Cupich.
Thus it could well be true that, strictly speaking, neither Wuerl nor Cupich collaborated on a olan -- but I would guess they signed onto a plan (insofar as they were capable of understanding it, a serious question) that someone else gave them.
What this does say is that the powers that be don't have many capable people supporting them, which is a reason to take heart.
