Viva Il Papa

Nirvana • Mar 13, 2013 2:21 pm
I wonder who it is! They have chosen!
BigV • Mar 13, 2013 2:50 pm
When the white smoke comes out, this is what we get:

I'm here, I'm here. Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! Feast your eyes on me, it's too good to be true! But I'm here! I'm here!
Nirvana • Mar 13, 2013 3:14 pm
Habemus Papam!

Cardinal Bergolio from Argentina
jimhelm • Mar 13, 2013 3:15 pm
Francis.


Any of you faggots touches my stuff, I'll kill you.
BigV • Mar 13, 2013 3:15 pm
Summo cum gaudio Nuntio, Habemus Papam!

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, a Jesuit.
glatt • Mar 13, 2013 3:30 pm
according to the Washington post:
His conservative leanings on doctrinal and spiritual issues are widely seen as in keeping with the legacy of John Paul. He opposes abortion and supports celibacy among priests, and he has called for tightening the church’s hierarchical structure to ease internal dissent.
Pete Zicato • Mar 13, 2013 6:10 pm
So. More of the same.
Happy Monkey • Mar 13, 2013 6:45 pm
:tinfoil: Previous Pope - Hitler youth. New Pope - from Argentina.

Coincidence? [COLOR=white]Yes.[/COLOR]
Happy Monkey • Mar 13, 2013 7:59 pm
In 2011, the Guardian said we dodged a bullet when Bergoglio wasn't picked in the last election.

He recounts how the Argentinian navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship's political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio's name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. What scandal would not have ensued if the first pope ever to be elected from the continent of America had been revealed as an accessory to murder and false imprisonment


Another article, with pro and con descriptions of his relationship with the Argentine government.
Nirvana • Mar 13, 2013 8:41 pm
It made so many people happy I suppose it doesn't matter what a few people think about him. I am not catholic. I just enjoy the happiness of others.
Nirvana • Mar 13, 2013 10:02 pm
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Chocolatl • Mar 13, 2013 10:07 pm
:lol:
xoxoxoBruce • Mar 13, 2013 11:03 pm
Supposedly any Roman Catholic in good standing is eligible but the reality is it has to be a cardinal. I'll bet there is dirt, which can be summoned with short notice, on any of them.
All hail Grumpy Cat. :notworthy
tw • Mar 14, 2013 1:00 am
BigV;856820 wrote:
When the white smoke comes out, this is what we get
I see white smoke coming out of Three Mile Island 1 every day. Does that mean Middletown PA has their own Pope?
chrisinhouston • Mar 14, 2013 1:39 am
I like the crazy system the Buddhists use where then make a kid identify old stuff like eye glasses or toys that a previous Dalai Lama may have had. Much better then the RC way!:cool:
ZenGum • Mar 14, 2013 6:44 am
I've heard some pretty good things about this guy. Like not living in the fancy cardinal's house, just a regular place, and catching the bus. Jesuits can be pretty intense about living the religion. Walking the walk. He has a particular thing about poverty.

I think a good dose of righteous wrath is exactly what the Upper levels of the Church really need. Some old-fashioned casting out of hypocrites and political self-servers. That's the advantage of absolute power for life - you can do that kind of thing. I wonder if he'll have the steel to do it.
Griff • Mar 14, 2013 6:55 am
This guy could do some good. He probably won't do anything that addresses the media's agenda for the Church but if he can make the right wing nuts live by the rules they want everyone else to they can cut back on hypocrisy.
glatt • Mar 14, 2013 8:22 am
Listening to NPR this morning, there are a lot of happy and excited people out there. I hope this guy does good. We'll see.
xoxoxoBruce • Mar 14, 2013 1:11 pm
.
glatt • Mar 14, 2013 1:12 pm
Is that Andrew Dice Clay?
xoxoxoBruce • Mar 14, 2013 1:13 pm
No, them's for real.
Gravdigr • Mar 14, 2013 5:10 pm
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tw • Mar 15, 2013 12:36 am
Griff;856905 wrote:
... but if he can make the right wing nuts live by the rules they want everyone else to they can cut back on hypocrisy.
Unfortunately, he appears to be or will become more like one of them.

First the Italians consider him one of them. He speaks Italian without a foreign accent being that his family immigrated from Italy. Second, he is extremely old. Already has some health problems. A younger Pope might change and start instituting reforms. Third, at 76, he would not have energy, enthusiasm, or time to attack an entrenched and corrupt institution. Change is hard. Fourth, his beliefs coincide with the most conservatives. He is typically too old to want change. Fifth, he is mostly an outsider. Would not know where the ropes are to implement change.

Too few votes happened for a reformist movement to take hold. I have little reason to believe this pope is what the church desperately needed. The conclave chose what was safe. Powers that be saw nothing to cause them to rethink their entrenched positions. Reformers had too little time to unite in opposition.
Gravdigr • Mar 15, 2013 5:22 pm
New pope? Are you sure they didn't say Jew pope?

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[Size=1]Yeah, that's a stretch.[/Size]
tw • Mar 15, 2013 8:36 pm
More facts from the conclave. 115 Cardinals voted. 75 of them live full time in Rome. How much say do outsiders (Reformists) have?
sexobon • Mar 16, 2013 12:03 am
None, insofar as Church doctrine is concerned. Probably quite a bit regarding Church policy. Doctrine is somewhat analogous to the Constitution of this country versus public policy. For analogy, there's nothing in the Constitution prohibiting military women from serving in combat positions. That's just been public policy. Likewise, there's no doctrine saying priests have to be celibate. That's just Church policy. One need only separate that which is Church doctrine from what is just Church policy to realize what can be changed and what cannot. Adults can tell the difference, children cannot.
xoxoxoBruce • Mar 16, 2013 12:18 am
You dick. :lol2:
tw • Mar 16, 2013 4:50 pm
xoxoxoBruce;857113 wrote:
You dick.
Of course you are talking to Woody Allen. Our second Jewish pope.
xoxoxoBruce • Mar 16, 2013 10:57 pm
Everybody's getting into the spirit.
sexobon • Mar 16, 2013 11:27 pm
Of course if this Pope turns out to be stubborn, he'll be called Francis the talking mule.
Griff • Mar 29, 2013 11:25 am
Apparently Francis kissed the feet of two women on Good Friday. Can we hope that he actually believes?
tw • Mar 29, 2013 6:38 pm
Griff;858782 wrote:
Apparently Francis kissed the feet of two women on Good Friday. Can we hope that he actually believes?
First invite some girls on a date to some ceremony. Then kiss them. Eventually marriage and a baby. Finally a pope that gets it. Unfortunately he still needs to learn how to kiss.

Maybe the Ninja Turtles can teach him. Cardinals certainly have no clue.
Griff • Mar 29, 2013 6:43 pm
Some girls like it like that.
tw • Mar 31, 2013 3:38 am
Griff;858848 wrote:
Some girls like it like that.
Which? Getting married? Or having all men groveling at their feet?
tw • Oct 15, 2013 9:10 am
Traditionalists want to be told how to think. Also called brainwashing. The Pope has created them a problem by endorsing thinking for yourself rather than blindly following rhetoric. Previous Popes demanded one only know what they were told to think. Only that works for orthodox types who traditionally also hate innovation and change.

From the Washington Post of 14 October 2013:

"Conservative Catholics question Pope Francis's approach"

The wary traditionalists became critical when, in an interview a few weeks ago, Francis said Catholics shouldn’t be “obsessed” with imposing doctrines, including on gay marriage and abortion. Then earlier this month, Francis told an atheist journalist that people should follow good and fight evil as they “conceive” of them. These remarks followed an interview with journalists this summer aboard the papal airplane in which the pope declared that it is not his role to judge someone who is gay "if they accept the Lord and have goodwill."

Never mind that the pope has also made clear his acceptance of church doctrine, which regards homosexuality and abortion as sins and bans women from the priesthood. Behind the growing skepticism is the fear in some quarters that Francis’s all-embracing style and spontaneous speech, so open as it is to interpretation, are undoing decades of church efforts to speak clearly on Catholic teachings. Some conservatives also feel that the pope is undermining them at a time when they are already being sidelined by an increasingly secular culture. ...

Now many of the same traditionalists are attempting to reconcile Francis's seemingly open statements with this sense of what it means to be Catholic. The conclusions they reach vary greatly.

Some report praying deeply on the matter and finding that struggling with the dissonance has strengthened their connection to their faith. They are sharing widely online essays with names like "Pope Francis is killing me," and "Why Pope Francis makes me uncomfortable."
tw • Feb 9, 2014 10:46 pm
An obstruction to reform is a Catholic Church with widely divgerent views based in venue. From the Washington Post of 9 Feb 2014:
19 percent of Catholics in the European countries and 30 percent in the Latin American countries surveyed agree with church teaching that divorcees who remarry outside the church should not receive Communion, compared with 75 percent in the most Catholic African countries.

30 percent of Catholics in the European countries and 36 percent in the United States agree with the church ban on female priests, compared with 80 percent in Africa and 76 percent in the Philippines, the country with the largest Catholic population in Asia.

40 percent of Catholics in the United States oppose gay marriage, compared with 99 percent in Africa.

The poll, which was done ... for Univision, ... focused on 12 countries across the continents with some of the world’s largest Catholic populations. The countries are home to more than six of 10 Catholics globally.

“This is a balancing act. They have to hold together two increasingly divergent constituencies. The church has lost its ability to dictate what people do,” said Ronald Inglehart, founding president of the World Values Survey, an ongoing global research project.

“Right now, the less-developed world is staying true to the old world values, but it’s gradually eroding even there. [Pope Francis] doesn’t want to lose the legitimacy of the more educated people,” he added.
An example of 'values' is that pedophiles are gay. Pedophiles are mostly hetro-sexual males. Eventually, education will replace emotional beliefs. An example of reform and changes taking so long as to put stress on church integrity, credibility, and relevance.
“If you accommodate contraception, does that mean you’d allow abortion? How do you distinguish which aspects of teaching go together? Bioethics is a new frontier that forces moral thinkers and ethicists to constantly ask: What is humanity?” ...

So what is Pope Francis’s plan, if he has one?

Critics say his solicitation of opinions wrongly gives the appearance that Catholicism is a democracy. Others — including the authors of this poll — say there’s no evidence that he would touch doctrine and is seeking a deeper understanding of why so many Catholics reject church teachings so as to better market them.
Research avoids a fundamental and underlying concept. Religion is a relationship only between one and his god. A church and its more traditional followers apparently are not ready to address, protects, or want to ignore what creates so many divergent opinions and resulting hate.

Fear of change is apparently strongest in venues with lower education levels and where female circumcision is tolerated. Opinions may be widening and hardening. Maybe.

A Church that even denied and protected pedophilia; can it really address these larger problems apparently entrenched by venue?
Sundae • Feb 10, 2014 7:00 am
Sometimes I think we are diametrically opposed TW.
But on this I'm with you.
"Values" indeed.

I was talking to Rich the other day. I'm not sure we're on exactly the same page re gay marriage, but we're certainly in the same chapter. An American Jew and an English ex-Catholic can agree more readily than two people of Faith (as it was always said to me by the nuns) ruled by the same chap.

And I can totally believe that, having known many African Christians. African as in having been born and grown up in Africa, not as in descended from people who lived in Africa six generations ago. There is a very VERY conservative church there. They give the Phelps a run for their money. You do not want to tell a Nigerian or Ghanaian mama about your gay-sympathising ways. I had one such matron tell me, albeit in a roundabout way, that I should have been smacked more with a spoon as a child.
tw • Feb 10, 2014 11:18 pm
Sundae;892310 wrote:
But on this I'm with you.
"Values" indeed.
I'm not sure which 'opinion' you agree with. Since I presented no opinions. I provided and summarized many facts. And asked some serious questions. What have we agreed on? Or do you agree with trends cited by their survey?
Sundae • Feb 11, 2014 3:47 am
Never mind.
Griff • Feb 11, 2014 6:33 am
Must be the weather.
DanaC • Feb 11, 2014 11:32 am
Sundae;892411 wrote:
Never mind.


That'll learn ye.
tw • Feb 12, 2014 1:23 am
Sundae;892411 wrote:
Never mind.

Why is that difficult? I never stated any opinions. (In fact, I probably disagree with most of it.) So again, which trends in that survey do you agree with?