VATICAN CITY (CNS) – People who act shocked that a priest would bless a gay couple but have no problem with him blessing a crooked businessman are hypocrites, Pope Francis said.
“The most serious sins are those that are disguised with a more ‘angelic’ appearance. No one is scandalized if I give a blessing to an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people, which is a very serious sin. Whereas they are scandalized if I give it to a homosexual – this is hypocrisy,” he told the Italian magazine Credere.
The interview was scheduled for publication Feb. 8, but Vatican News reported on some of its content the day before when the magazine issued a press release about the interview.
A less hypocritical Catholic Church would be nice. I wish Francis luck, he’ll need it to push the right wing of the church to be less shitty.
I’ll take one that actually does something about it’s pedo problem.
But why would anyone beome a priest then?
I am an (agnostic) atheist, but let’s be clear: not all priests are pedophiles, this is a huge exaggeration. But I still think they should be able to marry and have children, like normal people. And I believe that this would at least stop some of them doing pedophilic acts.
Pedos are going to pedo, but if you only recruit from an audience of people that are actively trying to avoid romantic adult relationships, I imagine going to have a higher percentage of pedos in that group.
By allowing priests to marry, be LGBTQ+, etc, you’re going to have fewer open seats at the alter for pedos.
I would even challenge that pedos are going to pedo. Obviously there’s no research on this, but are pedos only attracted to children? Are all pedophiles also rapists? I find that hard to believe. I think that “child molesting priests” are an intersection of priest, pedophile, rapist, and sexually frustrated.
If the wikipedia page is accurate: some pedophiles are only attracted to children ("exclusive pedophiles), but some are also attracted to adults; and not all pedophiles commit rape.
I mean, to me this is just common sense.
No, not all pedophile are rapist but almost all consume materials that were produced by raping children. One problem is that there are only a few programs that actually targeting helping pedophiles to deal with their condition. So we leave them on their own to figure out how to deal with their condition.
but almost all consume materials that were produced by raping children.
So what’s your take on lolicon?
Big [ citation needed ] there that triggers my BS sensors. CP is a huge problem but it’s literally impossible to know if “most consume materials” like that. Not defending pedophiles in any form, but hate bad logic.
It would also help if church would actually punish (by assisting police investigation) and kick out offenders instead of covering up and moving them around.
But Lemmy only deals in extremes. Like AcAB
That’s a bad example since it’s true
So then All Firemen Are Drunks?
Because that’s true too.
All the nuns you can eat
Please elaborate
Nun of yo damn buisness.
Free room and board? They don’t even hold you to a vow of poverty, the Monsignor at my (former) diocese drove a Mercedes, just like Jesus would have wanted for him.
Its not a pedo problem; it’s an employee benefit
They started the Church of England so that the king could get a divorce. Now they’re probably gonna start the Church of New England to force their wives to stay with their toxic asses.
Harken, to the the tale of the birth of Massachusetts…
Help, I’m too European to know anything about the birth of Massachusetts
It was settled mainly by Puritans, a Calvinist flavor of Christians that thought the Church of England was too Catholic. If you’ve heard the term “puritanical” it comes from them.
The pilgrims specifically, were the sect that was the first to land in Massachusetts, and sought to break away from the Church of England.
he’ll need it to push the right wing of the church to be less
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A less hypocritical Catholic Church would be nice.
Then we’ll have to wait for the next pope I guess. “Turn the other cheek” isn’t really compatible with victim blaming.
My family is super Catholic & conservative. They hate the Pope and it’s so weird - growing up in Catholic school, one good thing I’ll say is that we were educated in almost every aspect of that religion and its history.
So even though I can’t remember the last time I was in a church, I do remember shit like “the pope can talk to god”.
Now, of course it’s bullshit, but I have to assume that’s the premise we start from here. If so, shut the fuck up. He talks to god. End of story.
And somewhat related - they’re MAGA types. They like their dictators. Fuck off. This is what you get.
I think that many of these types see Trump as God himself (or Jesus maybe) so his views outrank the pope. That’s how much of an unhinged cult MAGA has become.
The force that pulls a society over the edge into a realm where fascists can seize power is that comfortable feeling of deciding one person or ideology is right and then just turning off your brain, end of conversation. Exhaustion can recede into a comfortable finality.
It makes sense why someone would find that particular kind of hate blanket comfortable, but that doesn’t make it any less pathetic or disgusting.
I remember an article several years ago about how dismissing an opponent’s argument without thinking about it gives the same dopamine hit that winning an extended argument does, but without requiring any effort. Being close minded literally feels good.
I’ve seen footage of Republicans praying to a cardboard cutout of Dubya. This weird messiahization thing they’ve got going on is at least 16 years older than Trumpism.
And we elected one as President and are surprised that he doesnt represent those that elected him
I don’t like that popes exist. I’m pretty sure if we took proper care of all people, religion would poof away in short order. That said, if popes have to exist this guy is a wonderful Pope. He’s not dismantling the place from the inside or anything but he is pushing them to be decent people. He’s pushing them to make more sympathetic decisions. We just look at this more shocking public statements and go well f*** yeah why doesn’t everybody say this, but for him in the position where he is he doesn’t have to and it’s kind of a big deal that he does.
He’s still calling birth control “morally unacceptable”, continuing the anti-condom and therefore pro-aids rhethoric of the church.
I always assumed the no BC was because the church wants more members to grow up and hopefully tithe more. Either way the results being what they are and the church not using their position to inform and care for their people is a valid complaint.
Oh shit I didn’t know that. Changes the picture a bit…
anti-condom and therefore pro-aids
That’s like saying someone is anti ending humanity and therefore pro suffering
I’m not a religious person, but I think some views in this thread are coming off a bit narcissistic and ignorant. Religion has been a large part of humanity for literally forever, and people can’t expect it to just go away completely. People turn to religion for comfort, often when they won’t receive it in other ways. There will always be someone in the world who needs religion, and we all need to coexist. The important thing here is he is attempting to drive his members to be empathetic and improve moral compass. Just be grateful for that at least. People expect too much.
and people can’t expect it to just go away completely.
At least 79% went away. Only 1% of my country’s population visited churches for christmas. For 20% of people who claim to belive in something other than sky fossil I have no data.
“People expect too much”.
Yeha, I expect an organization that protects pedophiles to be dismantled. Sorry if that’s expecting too much.
Ditto. Not a particularly a religious person (spiritualist more generally) and generally pretty critical of the Church but bloody tired of people who have been religion burned taking it out on others who are just clinging to comfort to get by in a hard world. Lemmy has a rather large Christian Atheist community. You know the sort, the “I don’t believe in God but the God I very stridently don’t believe in is the Christian God” type of person. It does come across as fairly insecure at times. I am reminded of the way I used to behave as an angry teen.
I think we are seeing a historic waning of faith and a reassessment of cultural values…but looking at the cycles of things that generally means there’s a backlash which might be still building or we might be facing it right now. I think it’s far better for those traumatized atheists to build solidarity with people inside the faiths who are pushing for and building the foundations for changes as “enemy of my enemy is my friend” alliances. Sadly a lot of them seem way too busy trying to attain personal catharsis by just scalding anyone who treats religion with respect.
Religion is a reflection of humanity. A lot of people are thinking that humanity is a reflection of religion.
This is a bizarre sort of logic. If humanity is a reflection of religion, then where does religion come from? Perhaps from an omnipotent force of some sort?
If you believe religion is a creation of humans, than any issue with religion is ultimately just an issue with humans. And yeah, people suck.
Methinks lot of weird anti-religious ideas come from people who once believed religion came from an omnipotent being, then were in some way negatively affected be religion and realized that even religious people suck sometimes too. But the disappointment from discovering religion isn’t what they previously believed remains. The thought patterns about religion being a reflection of God and not being a reflection of humanity also remains. Even when someone no longer believes in God, the religious thought patterns remain.
Religion has been a large part of humanity for literally forever, and people can’t expect it to just go away
Don’t crush my dreams like that.
Just keep pushing for a better society that doesn’t need to lean on religion for comfort, and that dream may come true. But not forcing people to abandon things. That just makes resentment.
Well spirituality will never go away but we can still try to shape our society in such a way that keeps institutions like the church from gaining massive power.
You are the dream crusher
As a baseline I’d expect the major religions to clean up their own shit, but it seems like they’re never quite able to. I’d like my ancestor worhip to be a little less rapey and a little less reliant on an unknowable higher authority that mentally ill people think they can talk to.
still catholic. still the pope. no matter how progressive he may seem.
I mean…yeah? Did you think progress was going to come from the outside? Someone’s gotta make an effort to steer the ship the right way.
Right? Credit where credit’s due
What do you think would happen if he just came out and blessed gay marriage?
They’d claim he’s possessed by a demon and disappear him.
There’d be a schism, with the people who are currently getting upset instead just up and leaving. That might seem like a good thing, at first, but if the goal is to get everyone to heaven, you’re not really achieving it if half the people are leaving.
I mean, you could say that you’re not achieving it either way, but that’s the thinking anyhow.
heaven isn’t real. literally all he has to do is come out and say “had a chat with god, turns out it was all a big misunderstanding. i bless gay marriage because being gay is ok!” the bar is so very low for him.
Regardless, I’m fairly sure he would disagree with you, and I was discussing his motivations.
riiiiight. the pope would be insurrectioned. sure.
I’m rooting for the little guy! maybe he can work his way up to a mortal position with some leverage.
Progress won’t come from any Christianity (and likely almost any religion, but I don’t know others well enough to comment). They will either need to denounce the book as being bullshit and decide to progress or they will continue to hold society behind.
It’s worth mentioning that during the dark ages, it was actually monks who preserved history and scientific knowledge, and advanced it. Even afterwards, Mendelian genetics was discovered by Gregor Mendel, a friar and abbot.
On top of that though, a lot of scientific knowledge and mathematics was preserved and cultivated by Islamic empires concurrent to the dark ages. They were in the middle of a golden age and progressed those fields further.
The problem isn’t so much religion in itself, but evangelicals and literalists who put it above everything else. Zealots ruin it all.
Yeah, the Catholic Church guarded access to education, preventing the rest of the commoners from learning how poorly they translated the Bible to maintain control of the people. It’s too bad the Protestant movement didn’t destroy the Catholic Church.
You really need to see what progress has come through Christianity to see how absurd your statement is LOL.
You mean despite of Christianity.
The book is bigger than at its base. Our society cannot progress without removing it from a focal point.
The Catholic Church has sponsored plenty of progressive endeavors, both in the fields of science and otherwise. Which is to say nothing of the numerous Catholic people who have done progressive things and would place their faith as their reason for doing so. So there is a lot of progress that has been made because of the church.
That being said, there have also been far too many times where the church deliberately resisted important progress and/or attempted to undo it, hence progress despite the church.
I don’t know where the balance lies on that, but I do think it’s worth acknowledging both and even moreso acknowledging attempts from within to ensure more of the former and less of the latter.
Yes, for several hundred years, monks were the largest literate social group in Europe. Libraries and the invention of book printing would never have become so large without monasteries and the church.
In those times, science wasn’t per se in opposition to the church, that is a relatively modern approach.
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No wars before Christianity…gotcha.
Numerous times, they just didn’t call it a crusade. Wars and genocide aren’t unique to Christians, or even to religion.
And actually, come to think of it, yes, wasn’t the third crusade organized by secular parties (kings and such) and not the Pope? If that makes it because of Christianity, then the Iraq war was because of WMDs…
Fucks sake im so tired of you jaded militant shitbirds. It is constantly 120% with you fucks. Its always “agree with my personal breakdown of reality and morality or you are all complete garbage” nonsense. Progress doesnt happen on your schedule you shithead.
Nuance and context motherfucker. Do you understand it?
Man, I thought I was on crazy pills with the lack of nuance here. Everything is black and white with no room for gray or context…
I’m digging the past few days. There have been a number of posts and comments calling it out. The fact that your comment has positive upvotes is a good sign and surprising.
He is the current leader of a 2000 year old pedophile ring (the largest to ever exist) that owns its own gold plated city/country.
Fuck off with this defense of traditional bullshit. Progress doesn’t happen in tiny steps, it happens all at once with violence and bloodshed. Have you learned nothing from history?
Agreed. The pope should keep his mouth shut when it comes to ethics. He’s sitting on a throne of dead bodies.
Don’t you think a progressive pope can do a lot of good though especially compared to a traditionalist pope?
how hard is it to bless something, really? wake me up when he’s an ally.
Yup. If you’re a Catholic and find yourself disagreeing with the Pope that’s a good moment to practice a little humility.
He’s WRONG and should be PUNISHED!
-Christofacists who want their Religious Leaders to write the Laws.
Some weeks back he also put Marxism in a good light. He’s been unusually based lately.
It’s almost time you guys.
So close, so close, yet so so far
Pretty hilarious that the pope, they guy sitting in a golden throne, is saying that the worst sins are made by people who pretend to be angelic.
Yeha man, look at how corrupt the Vatican is and what it pretends to be.
Shameless.
It’s better for a good man to take up a morally bereft throne than for him to yield the position on principle to an equally morally bereft man.
Pope Francis may not be perfect, but the facts are that he’s still making progress considered unheard of by Vatican standards and he still leads one of the world’s biggest religious sects that very sorely needs the progress.
Oh, you sweet summer child. He’s just making sure his religion still has followers in the coming generations in which homosexuality will be totally normalized. This is marketing, it’s all planned. This is just the Vatican figuring out how to stay relevant and powerful for generations to come.
Isn’t it curious how this religion keeps adapting to the moral views of the majority? They know the homophobic generations are about to die, this is calculated.
Do you think the pope is allowed to say whatever he wants?
Oh, you sweet summer child
Fact is, Christianity is getting less bigoted. Does it matter if it’s a calculated move by the Vatican or one man using his authority to call out immorality?
Insult me all you like. The end result is the same
I didn’t insult you at all. Yes, it does matter to me because this strategy means they’ll gain popularity with newer generations and will still push their other bigoted ideals until they no longer satisfy the majority.
The fact they are in power is harmful. It is a power structure that protects pedophiles and steals money from people. So yes, it is concerning for me that they are planning how to stay relevant and powerful.
It’s very painful to see how people think this pope is a good guy instead of what he actually is, the head of a corrupted organization.
It’s a facade, they just find the guy that will follow the role they need in order to stay powerful and keep the money coming in. He’s just following the role he’s meant to follow.
I have seen with my own eyes a priest stealing money from a person living in conditions of poverty. Made the person pay for groceries and then left in his truck. The person was so brainwashed that she got mad when my mother tried to talk sense into her.
Fuck that organization, specially the head of the organization.
Ok, so a heavily bigoted organization with their fingers in governments across the globe is better to you? The Vatican isn’t going away buddy.
What you’re saying is essentially that you’d rather a completely evil and corrupt organization influencing global politics than a reasonable but still immoral and slightly more popular organization doing the same.
Either way, this argument doesn’t matter. I don’t care for catholics either. It’s a whole other thing to actively sneer at the group for adopting more tolerant policies.
Have fun with that.
They are already an evil and bigoted organization with fingers in governments across the globe, regardless of whatever this pope says. The pope is just a marketing tool.
That may be true. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s markedly less likely that some gay kids are going to be bullied. Or that some homosexual couples are going to be denied a marriage certificate.
You seem to be missing the forest for the trees.
Anyway, this discussion is pointless. I’m out
Old irrelevant fuck continues to try and rehabilitate a dying organization’s image before the history books can slam shut on its chapter. Tear down the churches and build something useful instead, that’s a lot of wasted space in cities across the world.
Don’t actually tear down church buildings though.
Many of them are beautiful and even if the morals of the Organisation(s) that built them are, to put it mildly, “outdated”, it is still a huge part of our cultural history.
Use the spaces to open “sexual health centers” (like Planned Parenthood on steroids), libraries, and in like 1 or 2 per continent you could create memorial centers to keep alive the memories of the suffering created by organized, doctrinal religion.
Moving past a phase of our cultural development has to include remembering that phase. The church buildings turned to useful purpose will be powerful monuments.
I like the attitude though there is a lot to tear down. e.g., hospitals.
Leave the hospitals up, just require that they be transferred to a legitimate healthcare organization which will offer medical care without the condition of “…if my god says it’s okay” attached.
it’s the “require that they be transferred” part which might be an issue. if there’s a legal pathway to this then lets go!
Understandable. Could be a matter of putting an industry restriction in place where in order to own and operate a hospital, they’d be bound to a set of rules that would not give them the authority to refuse things like abortions and other types of healthcare that the bible-thumpers find objectionable. No more incentive to run a hospital when they won’t have that level of control over peoples’ lives.
Make the hypocratic Oath hypocratic law, binding all medical professionals. clarify that hypocratic law means preventing harm to the person delivering the child, and that the “harm” doesn’t apply to the practictioner’s personal beliefs.
Univeral healthcare also couldn’t hurt.
I don’t need your blessing. Thanks.
Maybe this will make people finally stop calling him “the cool pope?”
It’s all lip service. He’s no better than any of the others. He just talks a good game.
Why ? isn’t that good, blessing people because they love each other ? did I misunderstand something ?
Maybe I’m the one misreading? It seemed to me like he was saying being gay is still wrong, just not as wrong as being a crooked businessman because it involves love.
Which makes him the cool pope, because after everything else he’s still the pope. Calling him cool pope was never about him being okay with gay marriage and always about him being less anti-gay than for example the absolutely horrendous pope Benedict.
And him having fighting words with more anti-love bishops does frame him as “the most progressive among his group of regressives”.
It’s the fucking catholic church, don’t expect them to be sane.
“Less of a bigot” makes him cool?
And has he changed his mind about reporting child abuse to the church rather than the police?
I mean couldn’t we just call him ‘marginally better Pope’ or something?
I mean I call him, the “absolutist monarchical head of that organisation of delusional pedophiles”, but that’s not gonna change how this extremely wealthy organisation, that’s basically the worlds most thorough PR-machine, uses the media to frame him in the public eye.
I would amen to that
I don’t think so. But not sure, my english is approximate
I think the intent is good but it’s similar to a white person saying I don’t have black friends or white friends, I just have fun friends. It’s like ok that’s nice but it kind of erases their differences and suggests they’re not real.
If your friend is brown, you’re friends with a brown dude. If you’re friend is gay, you’re friends with a gay dude. We want to celebrate people’s differences not erase them - especially when we’re in the dominant, or normative group
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Maybe I’m the one misreading? It seemed to me like he was saying being gay is still wrong, just not as wrong as being a crooked businessman because it involves love.
Ok, but you bless a homosexual marriage…
And heterosexual marriage… so isn’t it just marriage? Shouldn’t matter if it’s hetero or homo, it’s just marriage, it’s just 2 people who love each other.
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No no no, you see, he’s traveling, not driving. It’s completely different.
Celibate crossdresser, head of notorious pedophile network, weighs in on gay marriage.
Uhhh, leave celibates and cross dressing out of this but otherwise, yes.
The entire Catholic church needs to be shut down at this point and their pious, faithful people can start a new religion if they want to.
What if what they want is to continue being catholic?
All I hear, “What if they want to keep being horrible?”
I’m not denigrating celibates or crossdressers, just drawing attention to the fact that the whole thing is deeply weird.
As a man who wears a skirt, I’d appreciate it if you left cross dressing out of it - the pope wears traditional masculine garb… it’s just uncommon in the modern day.
Honestly, though, the concept of gendered garb can probably go the way of the dodo. Clothes serve a minor functional purpose and mostly are focused on the aesthetic - people should just wear what they like.
