Should Pope Francis sell the family jewels?

an insignificant 15-minute troll everyone will forget about by next year

this season's terry schiavo

to be fair to Schiavo, she had no idea she was being used for trollbait

Personally, I appreciate the fact that, although Francis accepts the prevailing dogmas about abortion, contraception and homosexuality, he has taken steps to de-emphasize them as important issues for the church, as compared to pursuing its primary mission of compassion for the poor, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and charity toward all. This strikes me as the most sensible path he could take, given that changing those dogmas would be highly unrealistic. He might have a bit of wiggle room on ordination for women and marriage for priests, but that would result in fighting a civil war inside the church.

this is how i feel FWIW. like anyone else the pope is operating within constraints. we shouldn't expect him to toss off his robes and shout "abortions for /everyone/!," and even if he did, it wouldn't be nearly as useful as using his (literal!) pulpit to call for economic justice, action on climate change. that doesn't mean the pope and the church are above criticism, far from it. but that we need to take these things in context, and here the context is the long history of the catholic church, the divided nature of the church itself (with congregations outside of north america being very passionate about economic justice and very conservative on many personal liberties), and the approach taken by previous popes (say "previous popes" a few times really fast btw; it's fun!).

reactions to the pope's visit have been a good litmus test btw of how good my facebook, etc. friends are at political nuance. a lot of them are like "SAVE US MR POPE!" and others are like "RELIGION BAD!"

really the only people who should be surprised are TV pundits

by etc. i guess i mean, like, in real life. which is often the same group as my facebook friends. but i'm not very social so most of the political "conversations" i have (apart from those with my S.O.) are online.

"Why should we care what he thinks" is my a numb-brained response I see from a good number of left-ish fb friends.

Charles Piece, normally not a credulous sort but a Catholic nonetheless, takes this rather hard.

whoa, that is way too inside baseball for me.

to cut to the chase -- does it seem that the pope actually endorsed kim davis's actions or did he just meet with her and her followers/exploiters are spinning it that way?

If you are down w meeting world leaders who are actively killing/torturing people then meeting w a crazy lady that thinks God is giving her carte blanche to not do her job is small potatoes.

Raul Castro is a worse person than Kim Davis, I told a co-worker over lunch.

lol @ W.C. fields reference though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41SFTn9xHus

fast-forward to 3:45 or so

Raul Castro is a worse person than Kim Davis, I told a co-worker over lunch.

Obama etc etc

Davis thing is a little odd, since when are evangelicals down with the papists

Weird little inversion of the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend principle on a global interfaith stage.

No, Obama is not my coworker.

https://historicallyanimated.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/7bfa6-rimshot.jpg?w=335&h=251

It's like when you hang with your dad, he's cool with your friends, shares books, and he drops the n word.

to cut to the chase -- does it seem that the pope actually endorsed kim davis's actions or did he just meet with her and her followers/exploiters are spinning it that way?

― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, September 30, 2015 8:39 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the only statement from a party thats not kim davis or her retarded lawyers is the vatican confirming that they had a meeting

although the pope and his handlers should be smart enough to know that even a meeting w/ the pope will be construed as a kind of endorsement and so perhaps they meant it to appear that way. who knows...

i mean a meeting with this particular person. obviously a meeting w/, say, castro or putin isn't necessarily going to be spun that way by most folks.

maybe speculating too far here, but it also occurred to me that the meeting with Davis might have also included others and that the Pope might not have even necessarily known he was specifically meeting with her, and/or may not have known who she was in advance.

I would totally not put it past some well-connected GOP heavy to invite Davis to a meeting and pull a fast one in that way

so basically it's like this, only instead of selling a cell phone they're selling "kim davis, champion of personal liberty"

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/04/02/david-ortiz-selfie-distributed-with-help-samsung/s2tU35cVQJYMeI6FMXspOJ/story.html

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/30/444671535/kim-davis-and-pope-francis-reportedly-had-a-private-meeting-in-dc

"On his flight back to Rome, the pope was asked during a press conference if he would support government officials who say they cannot in good conscience discharge their duties — for example, issuing same sex marriage licenses.

"Without referring to Kim Davis, the pope said conscientious objection is a right that is part of every human right."

except she is not that

http://www.cruxnow.com/papal-visit/2015/09/30/what-it-means-that-pope-francis-met-kim-davis/

except she is not that

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius),

a human?

Lol

that cruxnow.com article i posted is more or less telling francis' liberal american fans to suck it up a deal, he's still a pope:

Taken together with his unscheduled stop to see the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Davis encounter means Francis has expressed personal support to leading symbols of the two most contentious fronts in America’s religious freedom debates – the contraception mandates imposed by the Obama administration, and conscientious objection on gay marriage.

but charles pierce speculates that the ratzingerites set him up:

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a38440/pope-francis-swindled-kim-davis-meeting/

Why so much hand-wringing? He's a Catholic, these views are hardly a surprise, and he can be on the progressive side of some issues while being on the conservative side on others.

Easy article to write. "Does the pope shit in the woods?"

It doesn't surprise me that Francis would be against same-sex marriage, but it doesn't seem like he's so invested in the cause that he would make a special point to meet with a politically divisive (and non-Catholic!) gay-marriage opponent. Agree with Pierce that there's something weird and sneaky about it.

it's so strange to me that dogma that were originally derived by clearly tribal goals of expanding the tribe's population - no birth control, no abortion, no homos - are still clung to in the modern era. Given that all of them are based (afaik) on interpretations of Old Testament directives that the majority of Jews have long since abandoned. Like, isn't it obvious there are enough people in the world? the risk of Xtians running out of Xtians is pretty low... and yet this is third-rail type stuff for the clergy that can in no way be abandoned or put up for debate, ever (even though the Jewish tradition has a loooooooong history of doing exactly that with the very same source material)

derived FROM arggh

I think you're touching on the reason there: the animus against gays is first and foremost a deeply tribal response, and then they're just using doctrine and other reasons (increasing population) to justify it.

also the bible is the word of goddamn god and if you start to pick it apart youre left with anarchy and moral relativism

Try those arguments on a Catholic and you'll get nowhere, because you'd be omitting what they consider to be the first and most important principle: God wills it.

i have to admit that part of me has a certain respect for the pope for trolling his liberal fans by capping his visit w/ a meeting w/ kim davis. the other part of me wants to throw up.

Try those arguments on a Catholic and you'll get nowhere, because you'd be omitting what they consider to be the first and most important principle: God wills it.

― Aimless, Thursday, October 1, 2015 1:14 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

except most lay catholics in the USA have more liberal positions on those issues than the Church...

Many lay Catholics in the USA are notably apt to resemble Unitarians. Not that that's a bad thing.

Old Testament directives that the majority of Jews have long since abandoned

Eh this is a simplistic way to put it. It's not like for religion it's all or nothing for everybody. Maybe people like Kim Davis. But I think there's a tradition of ideas and concepts evolving. I'm reading some mainstream Rabbinic studies and there is a lot about evolving, realizing these things were written down in a historical context. Faith in a God that is still kind of mysterious and yet you respect enough (believe in) to allow for Him to have multiple viewpoints. Not an inflexible tyrant.

They still follow some laws, they have long since thrown out others. There is a sense that one can learn from the bad laws as well as the good laws. Is this a concept explored in Catholicism at all?

What each individual person believes in should be their own choice. To me that is the ultimate religious freedom. It isn't an acceptable view in corporate Christianity though. Not from the way evangelical politicians and figureheads portray it. It is about bowing down to a dusty and unchanging book. It's about self victimization and self glorification.

If you question the party line you are attacking their religion which only fuels their victimization. To have a non-normcore belief in Christ or the Bible and express that is to enter a shouting match and they are the first ones to claim God's authority.

The GOP say they love small businesses and their policies support violence towards the poor. It makes sense they embrace evangelical Christianity. The main defining ritual is drinking of blood of a small business owner. The main identifier is a device of state torture and capital punishment.

I see it as two separate religions. One contemplates the moral and philosophical underpinnings of these ancient writings. Another says there is only one way to interpret this stuff. This includes atheists who paint certain religions as "morally" bad or evil.

In the end people do the things they do. They will blame it on a book or on a king or on their boss or anyone but themselves.

If the pope wants to be posi to a hater that is probably for the best anyways. Like Doctor Who showing mercy to the Dalek, maybe she will see the light too one day.

It's funny, people being upset that the Pope isn't telling people what to do. Oh, he's just being nice to everyone! Oh!

I'm reading some mainstream Rabbinic studies and there is a lot about evolving, realizing these things were written down in a historical context. Faith in a God that is still kind of mysterious and yet you respect enough (believe in) to allow for Him to have multiple viewpoints. Not an inflexible tyrant.

They still follow some laws, they have long since thrown out others. There is a sense that one can learn from the bad laws as well as the good laws.

I was simplifying but yes this is absolutely what I was referring to, this tradition of examination and refinement in Jewish theology

One contemplates the moral and philosophical underpinnings of these ancient writings. Another says there is only one way to interpret this stuff.

also agree with this and in the latter case it would seem that that position is a direct result of being such a hierarchical, centralized organization dedicated to preserving (above all else) it's own authority

They still follow some laws, they have long since thrown out others. There is a sense that one can learn from the bad laws as well as the good laws.

buffet Catholicism in a nutshell

latin christianity is highly legalistic and emerges from a history of vast mutli-ethnic administration where to large extent it was the only extant source of authority or literacy

the same seems true of islam to some extent

eehhhhh Islam is not like Catholicism in some really basic and obvious ways