kind of optimistic about this guy so far. i'm not religious, but his title has more influence than most world leaders. now if he can just reverse the church's position on birth control and and encourage family planning.








Pope Francis made news last week when he said he wouldn’t “judge” gay priests, garnering praise and criticism from fellow Catholics.

The comments he’s made in the past year seem to show this pope is more moderate than his predecessors without really changing any of the tenets of Catholicism.

As the leader of the largest Christian church, with more than a billion members, the pope’s comments carry weight — both for those looking for him to open the door, even a tiny bit, on changes to the church’s doctrine, and for those more traditional Catholics who don’t want to see that change.

Whatever a pope says, his words are dissected and examined for meanings beyond the obvious. If you look at his comments starting in May, he seems to be welcoming those who don’t always see eye to eye with the church or those who feel left out, even the atheists.

In delivering a homily in May, Francis said: “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. … We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: We will meet one another there.”


****************

The Pope has stepped up the fight against corruption at the Vatican by strengthening supervision of financial transactions at its internal bank.

Pope Francis issued a decree designed to combat money-laundering and prevent any financing of terrorism.

It is the latest move to stamp out abuses at the Vatican bank, which handles funds for the Catholic Church.

The Pope recently set up a commission to investigate the bank and report back to him personally.

Last month the Vatican froze the account of a senior cleric, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, suspected of involvement in money-laundering.

He and two others were arrested by Italian police in June on suspicion of trying to move 20m euros ($26m; £17m) illegally.

what happened to the emperor palpatine looking guy

Meh

He's definitely doing some progressive things that I'll give him credit for but there are still alot of backwards idiologies within the catholic church that need work. Hopefully any changes he can make while in the position don't get reversed by the next pope.

It’s unfortunate that one of the most prominent public figures today is a religious figurehead. So much of the world’s influence is derived from the Ronald McDonald of Christianity. There are so many great minds out there that can help advance our world and people seem to actually still believe that this human has been divinely chosen to serve as God on Earth.

God on Earth.

That being said, I’m glad to hear that this hallowed politician is at least somewhat sane and pushing the world forward into a more tolerant and progressive culture.

Technicians and engineers solve problems, popes and politicians cause them.

Lets not forget that the Palpatine character Bone was talking about left the church because he swept child rape under the rug.

And nothing can happen to him since he lives in Vatican City and the law can't touch him there.

Originally posted by: Dianana

Lets not forget that the Palpatine character Bone was talking about left the church because he swept child rape under the rug.

And nothing can happen to him since he lives in Vatican City and the law can't touch him there.

Just like they did with Bernard Law. The whisked him out of Boston well before charges could be considered and replaced him with Sean O"Malley who they then made a cardinal as a reward for gladhanding the laitey and calming them all down and keeping as many in the church as possible... and quieting their calls for more power and oversight.

The church burned people who suggested the kinds of things this pope talks about for centuries. There are lines he cannot cross and frankly, I think the college of cardinals will keep him from making too many real changes while having him around will improve the church's image.

i agree with every single criticism posted here, but at the same time maybe just have such low expectations that i think anything even slightly moving in the right direction is huge.

this is a man that seems to be much more in touch with the plight of actual people and not just their idealized selves. this is a jesuit, a former chemical technician, a college professor, and a cleric who cites his greatest crisis of faith coming after he met some hot chick at a wedding. unlike his predecessor, this one might actually have a pulse.

and if he changes the church's stance of birth control, he has the opportunity to save millions of lives and improve the lives of millions more, and i think in his heart he knows this, not only because he seems to have a genuine connection with the less fortunate, but also because he seems to understand basic scientific and medical truths about this world. i'll withhold my unequivocal praise of him until that day, but if it does come, it will be huge. the vast network of catholic hospitals around the world will suddenly be allowed to provide reproductive health care the way it's supposed to be in the 21st century, but even if they just made it to the 20th, also huge.

"and if he changes the church's stance of birth control, he has the opportunity to save millions of lives"

Sadly, the church has been far more concerned with "saving souls" and exerting their dominance rather than saving lives... even the lives of the unsaved when it comes to this subject. I hope that will soon change, but i doubt it.

^and the fact that this guy knows better will make him that much more damnable if he doesn't change their policy on birth control, a policy that leads to more abortions, more infant death, more starvation, and more poverty every single day it continues to be advocated.

i have no expectation that the catholic church will ever change its policy on abortion, but family planning? what could be more moral than suggesting that families grow in a stable, sustainable manner according to their means and their most likely outcome of health and success? the church erroneously conflates its stand against recreational sex with the access to contraceptives, and has ignored the fact that it is in the best interest of even church-married couples to plan their families responsibly, and that having children when they are not ready is more likely to lead to neglect, abuse, and the disintegration of the family itself, not to mention the lives of those it touches. how is that possibly good, and how is rigidly demanding this policy at all moral?

and the kind of bureaucratic inertia that makes change glacially slow in, say, democracies or parlimentary governments, is absent here. the pope is essentially the most powerful dictator in the world, and one of the last still regarded by his subjects as infallible and divinely ordained. and those subjects are not coincidentally positioned in some of the most overpopulated and impoverished countries in the world. so he could do this, and the effect it would have would be huge, and morally positive on every level. whether he will or not remains to be seen, but given his behavior in the few months since he's held the title, there is some reason to be hopeful.



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The pope's power is derived directly from the number of Catholics walking the earth, nothing more. Why would he institute policies that would threaten his own bread and butter?

that's the $3 trillion dollar question.

short answer, for the same reason an employer might prefer to have healthy, educated workers, or at least a workforce that's trending in that direction. this pope can have power in numbers over toothless, aids-ridden, illiterate masses who, besides their incalculable misery, are more of a cost than a benefit to that power, or he can follow his jesuit ideal and educate them and help them improve their lives.

the choice is his, and like you said, it would be a different model for their exercise of power. but back to the business analogy, there are farms in northern california, some of which are over a century old, that employ many uneducated, often undocumented workers. many of these farms are very profitable. but all pale in terms of net profit [which is what business is supposed to be about] when compared to the businesses a few miles away in silicon valley, which employ far less people, a fraction actually.

so basically this new pope has to decide if he wants to run a backwater sweatshop plantation, or google.

he may go for the plantation, i don't know. like i said, we'll see. right now he's got obi wan kenobi pulling him in one direction and the palpatine dark emperor pulling him in the other. but he's already given that dude back his ruby slippers.







i don't know, he just seems about a thousand times more likely to move in that direction than any of his last few predecessors. keeping my fingers crossed, will maybe say a novena for him.

I see your point, but we're talking about a pre-packaged ideological brand, not a search engine. Religion sells easier among uneducated masses than it does among a handful of scholars. The more desperate those masses are, the more appealing the product is to them. The 'sweatshop' approach is really the ONLY approach for mass religion.

Originally posted by: LEATHERFACE

I see your point, but we're talking about a pre-packaged ideological brand, not a search engine. Religion sells easier among uneducated masses than it does among a handful of scholars. The more desperate those masses are, the more appealing the product is to them. The 'sweatshop' approach is really the ONLY approach for mass religion.

that's definitely the most likely scenario. i'm admitedly just putting five bucks on the longshot here, maybe just because it's never seemed even remotely possible before.

there's also the fact that doing something like that would exercise more power and have a much greater effect than just following the party line, and this guy does seem a bit mavericky. i really think that if he decides it's the right thing to do, he might do it. and it only takes a tour of africa for any reasonable person to come to that conclusion, and he does seem fairly reasonable. but again, who knows. five bucks on lucky frank, five on darkside.