Pope Francis has urged Vatican bureaucrats to avoid “rigid ideological positions” that prevent them from understanding today’s reality
Pope Francis urged Vatican bureaucrats Thursday to avoid “rigid ideological positions” that prevent them from understanding today’s reality, an appeal made days after he formally allowed priests to bless same-sex couples in a radical change of Vatican policy.
Francis used his annual Christmas greeting to the Holy See hierarchy to encourage the cardinals, bishops and laypeople who run the Vatican to listen to one another and to others so they can evolve to truly offer service to the Catholic Church.
Speaking in the Hall of Blessings, Francis told them it was important to keep advancing and growing in their understanding of the truth. Fearfully sticking to rules may give the appearance of avoiding problems but only ends up hurting the service that the Vatican Curia is called to give the church, he said.
“Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward,"the pope said. "We are called instead to set out and journey, like the Magi, following the light that always desires to lead us on, at times along unexplored paths and new roads.”
Pop Francis says to avoid Rigid Ideologies?
So, pop Francis says to avoid the Catholicism.
In the name of the father, the son, and the holy Spirit. Amen.
A part of me thinks he knows what he’s doing.
Are we gonna end up with an anti-pope?
I really don’t know, I just know the term and it sounds cool.
Honestly it’s possible. Certain diocese of the church (looking at you USA) have become far more conservative as the rest of the Church has passed them by. Vatican 2 has fully taken hold, and I really don’t believe the conservatives hold enough power in Rome to elect one of their own when Francis passes.
They very well might just take their ball and go home like the “Old Catholics” did after the reforms of the First Vatican Council.
GAY POPE GAY POPE GAY POPE
PLS 😭🙏
I mean, there are already plenty, for example, Peter III, who leads a Spanish church that believes they are the rightful Church. (Also, antipope is a subjective word, like heretic. From the perspective of various sects, the Pope Francis is the antipope.)
Nothing stops you from calling yourself Pope and claiming you’re the rightful leader of the Church, hereby making you an antipope to the eyes of the Church.
Now is there going to be a relevant antipope, that’s a lot less likely.
The relevancy of antipopes hinged on the political power of the pope. Having the pope at your beck and call was an extremely powerful tool in the Middle Ages. But nowadays, between the secularization of most Catholic countries, and the massive loss of influence of the Catholic Church, an antipope would only have as much influence as his followers would give him, especially since they wouldn’t have the support of the Holy See or the Church.
Still I think if you are an anti-pope you kinda know it. You aren’t in the Vatican and people aren’t drooling on your ring.
(Also, antipope is a subjective word, like heretic. From the perspective of various sects, the Pope Francis is the antipope.)
I thought the Church claimed an unbroken line of popes going back to the apostle Peter.
Wouldn’t any competitor only have a legitimate claim if they named their first pope during the brief downtime between popes? Otherwise they’re just another protestant sect.
I imagine it’s quite a bit different when an actual pope turns into an anti-pope, compared to just some random dude in Spain claiming to be Pope, no?
For the Pope to turn into an antipope, you’d either need to have a massive schism in the Church that leaves the current pope completely stranded politically and causes the Church to ignore him, or you’d somehow need a higher authority than the Church to show up and name a different pope, and assume the current one wouldn’t yield.
So basically, short of Jesus showing up and naming a new pope that the current one doesn’t agree with, the current pope won’t become an antipope.
“Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward"
Never expected pope to diss christianity.
(Former christian) this whole Pope business has been sooo interesting. And I mean it in a non-ironic way.
Former Christian here… I’ll give the religion credit it allows for a lot of openness and exactly what the pope is talking about. The main icon of Christianity was all about accepting people, legit the time where Jesus got angry with whips and table flipping was because money changers and vendors were cheating the poor (long story: You had pilgrims that would come bringing currency that would not be accepted by the temple so the money changers would do exactly what was on the tin… for a fee, and then the temple was selling animals to be sacrificed, the doves being brought up specifically because they were sold to the poorest that couldn’t afford the bigger sacrifices.) This is the idealogical head of the religion who is said to have sat and dined with those considered sinners while shunning the so called “faithful”
Honestly even as parable the stories in the bible are perfect reflections of the way most Christians would react. It’s said regularly that the Christians would kill Jesus as a heretic if he came back… ignoring the fact that it was those that had power within the church that crucified Jesus in the Bible.
I got lucky in being raised to go to a church with a preacher that was big on critical thinking. Another fitting example of Christianity ignoring its own teachings, post 9/11 said preacher gave a sermon talking about a religious extremist with a middle eastern background that spoke out against the prevailing government at the time, explaining that was exactly who Jesus was, the sermon on not hating from statements just made by assumptions, had the magazine that on the cover that had the ‘real face of Jesus’ to show not your white long haired man but the middle eastern face as a part of the sermon… naturally said preacher was politely “let go” from the church.
Can he avoid fucking with the US Supreme Court and stopping his legions of priests from fucking small children?
How exactly is the Vatican fucking with the Supreme Court? (I’m not defending anything, I’m just genuinely curious)
The youngest and least qualified member of the supreme Court who was forced through in the waning days of Trump’s administration, Amy Coney Barrett, was raised as and is still a member of the People of Praise, a para-church organization which consists mostly of Catholic members. People of Praise is a highly conservative organization that touts strong gender roles and is overall highly secretive.
At one point it is believed that Coney Barrett was the highest rank a woman could have in the organization, with the title of “Handmaid”.
During Amy Coney Barret’s confirmation hearings, the people of Praise purged all records of their magazine and member profiles from their website.
The People of Praise organization has been accused of covering up for child abusers on multiple occasions.
Source: Washington Post and the People of Praise Wikipedia article
We have the most members on it right now who are Catholic in its history. Which caused an abortion ban and systemic stripping away of the rights of atheists.
Yay! The pope has given me permission to fuck again! Sure have missed the sexing.
Isn’t having gay sex still considered a sin in Catholicism? I thought those blessings didn’t count as a marriage and having sex while not being married was a thing that constituted as a sin as well?
The story of lot is actually incorrectly translated. It meant to say something along the lines of “the city was so rotten that the townspeople would sell their boys into sex slavery”
The evil is selling your kids. To gross people. That mean harm.
People took that as, they were gay so god drowned them in molten salt.
Wild when you also consider that some of the ‘incorrect translations’ may have been on purpose to satisfy the intent of the king/pope who ordered the translation be printed.
Everything is a sin in Catholicism, because the point of the religion is that nothing you can do can escape sin.
A major difference between Catholics and Protestants is that in Catholicism you’re expected to attempt to live a life as Christ wanted you to, and not just get a “free space” from Jesus for saying you believe in him.
Thus, gay people are unlikely to get Catholic marriages or become priests, but Catholics also don’t think gays are inherently more evil than any other sin, as a general rule.
The Catholic Church is not immune to change, and if readings of Scripture change so that gays are seen more favorably, or that women should be allowed in the clergy (neither of which is improbable, on a long timeline), then Catholic standards will change.
Found the priest. Just make sure that break of celibacy isn’t with the altar boy, you lil scamp!
What is even the point of religion now? They profess to be a moral compass, but when they catch-up with the times, half of their followers cry “traitor!”.
Well, the main “point” of religion was never to be anyone’s “moral compass”.
Their main point is to convince people they are, hence, gay pope.
Still wrong. As you are probably aware, religion (broadly defined) as a phenomenon is present in all known cultures throughout the history of humanity, in a myriad of different shapes and forms. The common thread to all of them is not morality.
I know they aren’t, I’m saying their claim is that they are.
It’s even common to claim everything God does is just and right. If gay people get killed in a nightclub, it’s because they’ve sinned, and that’s Gods will, therefore, the gunman was doing the right thing.
Then you get the people with cognitive dissonance who claim that slavery was moral because God stipulated rules about how the slaves should be treated and “it was a different time”.
Then you get the people who turn themselves into bombs and believe mass murder is right, and the people that died should thank them, because the psycho took their victims to heaven with them.
Then you get the people who vote against abortion rights because they believe the most ethical thing to do is save babies, even if it risks the mothers life, or guarantees poor life quality (either from poverty or developmental issues).
It’s ALL a moral claim. When your moral foundation is God, nothing you can do in service of what that God supposedly says can be wrong.
All those things are abhorrent, still not the main point, core or raison d’être of religion in any way. One could perhaps say it’s a recurring theme in certain traditions, particularly of the abrahamic variety. Your perspective is very limited and very west-centric; ironically a very christian worldview.
Recently heard a catholic who once tried to tell me that everything the pope does is ordained by God, and therefore “good”, go on a tangent about how the pope is now corrupted by Satan and “needs to be taken care of” with the clear intention that someone should murder the pope over his “not as negative as it used to be” view of lgbtq.
Weird how their priorities used to be “God church family country” back then and all it took was a little taste of fascism to turn them To “my chosen human replacement for Jesus, the group of people who look and vote the way I do, THEN maybe church, family mixed in there too if they look and vote the same way I do”
Too bad choir boys can’t dodge rigid idealogues.
It’s official, the Pope identifies as ideofluid
lol. His entire life is dogma; his position, home, city, and organization are a rigid and non critical exercise.
May this be the beginning of the end of this fucking cult.
Nothing is real anymore
Except our outrage
Not sure. Outrage has been commodified with clicks and merchandising. We should have been out in the streets, burning buildings 30 years ago.
Sort of like Christianity?
Seems a little too late to try and pivot and get young parishioners back. They gone, people don’t go back to their old religion.
This isn’t an actual step forward, just a ploy to keep religion going for as long as possible.
It’s obviously all a lie, they just keep softening their policies to stay relevant in modern times. Imagine if they stuck to their old believes from a few hundred years ago or actually followed the bible, they’d become irrelevant in just one generation.
So instead they adapt to keep their power.
This is how you exist as an institution for thousands of years, yes
