So the pope is a hoplophobe.
Look, I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. The church is not the clergy, it is not the pope, it is not the deacons or the nuns.
The church is us. The church is the body of the faithful, whose purpose is to keep the faith.
We have had a run of pretty good popes, and it seems we have an idiot again. Jesuits do tend to wander off the reservation. If you think having a nutty pope is a new thing, look at Urban 6 or Innocent 4, or- G-d forbid- Alexander 6, who plunged the papacy into a pile of shit it took generations to recover from.
We don’t choose the clergy. They are a monarchy. Sometimes you get good ones, sometimes you get morons. That doesn’t confront me, nor my Christianity. It shouldn’t yours either. This too will pass. Catholicism will go on.
The argument can be made that the Church gets crappy leaders when Catholics walk away from their faith. That argument may be dead on. I don’t know the mind of the creator, but I think if I wanted a people to self-affirm their faith and make their faith stronger, I would provide them with adversity. Give them a reason to reach out to the Creator. But I’m kind of a dick like that.
21 comments Og | Uncategorized
Could be why we aren’t Gods. Although it does seem like it when trials abound.
Yes, a pro-fossil fuel sector Pope is far preferable. Dummy.
JMJ
Regarding the Jesuits, a joke a church friend told me a couple weeks ago:
A man asks a Franciscan and a Jesuit if it’s OK for him to say a Novena for a Ferrari. The Franciscan says “What’s a Ferrari?” The Jesuit says “What’s a Novena?”
Karl Rove sure didn’t help matters, either. I realize that he was speaking hypothetically (which is the polite way of saying “out of his ass”), but I thought ol’ Rover was smart enough not to leave stupid remarks hanging where people could take them out of context.
Sometimes I really wish Republicans would STFU and let the proggies make fools of themselves on their own.
The way I read this, you’re making the Jimmy Carter argument. He’s a hoplophobe and an a**hole, but he isn’t the church. The church is the people. The church will survive him because they have survived a**hole Popes before and will have one again.
I think the analogous argument that we survived Carter so we can survive any a**hole president should be obvious.
From my standpoint (non-Catholic) he seems like he’s a Latin American Liberation Theology guy. Way too socialist. But if the entire worldwide body of the church turned their back on him, he would be thoroughly irrelevant.
Indeed, both Nathan and SG.
Ask Innocent II how his prohibition of crossbows worked out for him.
Dittos, Og. Been saying the same thing myself. The pope doesn’t speak for me. He is, indeed, a leftist. Liberation Theology was condemned by the Church some time ago. Remember that picture of the Holy Father (JP II?) wagging his finger at the kneeling priest? He was telling him that Liberation Theology was NOT part of the Church’s dogma, and to stop pushing it among the people.
This pope is a. an idiot b. wrong c. really stupid for letting some Gaia-worshipping atheist tell him what to do.
Indeed, Liz, you are correct on all points. Catholics- all Christians- need to be the receptacles of the Creator’s gift, and ignore the poor leaders.
Very well. I accept your dichotomous division of “church” and church. Then we still need another name for the church that is not the church, the part that is the hierarchy of priests, cardinals, popes, structures, institutions, and purses. While I am awaiting your response, I will just call them the Papal states (PS).
There is an undeniable connection between the church and the papal states. One feeds the other. The PS cannot exist without the generous financial support of the church. And the church right now is continuing to generously support the PS, despite the PS being demonstrably anti-human rights and anti-American (And for this purpose, American includes American Catholics, not Obama or the Congress).
What then is the proper role of the Church WRT the PS? Business as usual? Divine right of kings?
Well, the “Support” thing does not work the way you think it does, and Catholics have been ignoring what you call the PS for hundreds if not thousands of years. And there are no papal states, it is the church leadership. Protestants rebelled against the leadership, ignoring the fact that the church and the leadership are separate entities, often in disagreement, occasionally at war with one another. So in condemning the leadership, the protestants cast aspersions on the “Church”, which is frankly evil. Most protestants don’t get this, and it makes them look like fools.
I hear you Og. However, you are saying to stick with the brand even though it does not represent your values. This is a tough one for me as this popes foolery might be the last staw to push me to change brands.
I see a lot of small christian churches create a community that brings them together, creates sponsored kids events and so on. All the Catholic churches I have been a part of lack that. During the local flood the big christian church organized a relief, opened its doors to the victims and made a huge effort to get community to help out. My church not so much.
The Catholic Church needs to realize they are the people and not the Church and act accordingly.
“However, you are saying to stick with the brand even though it does not represent your values” Not in the least. I’m saying that the leadership is NOT THE BRAND.
Also: if you don’t get what you want out of your church, I’d give 100-1 odds that it’s because you haven’t brought anything to it. Church works like that.
WRT support, I am aware that there is a “trickle up” system from the local groups to the national and international groups. Local group collections pay the local costs and bills first. I suspect that there is some sort of oversight group that decides on the amounts going into each pot, like the protestant groups do.
The protestants, left the leadership, but took the church with them, since they are the church. And because they did, we today have the option to change addresses without needing to kill a few thousand papists on the way out.
And don’t argue with me on this. I am a professor on the internet.
I am confused how you can establish a separate church/non-church that are wholey dependent on each other, inseparable and where the smaller part dominates the the larger part. I am OK with the leadership keeping firm control over the doctrines of the church because the masses can be utterly foolish in their chasing of fashion. But in this case, it is the leadership that is chasing fashion and the masses have no ability to discipline them or correct them. They only power they have is reverse excommunication.
I suppose as long as the leadership and the masses only differ about inscrutable theological arguments regarding angels and the souls of dogs, then it really doesn’t matter. But it seams reasonable that there must be some line beyond which you will not cross as a Christian.
Perhaps that line is somewhere near the church brand openly endorsing paganism as a legitimate co-practice with Christianity. I would hope that the line exists somewhere short of “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a fairy tail but useful for teaching moral lessons”.
Maybe if you had been in a Catholic church for 55 years, instead of listening to lies abut what catholics are and do told to you by people whose only agenda is to spread mistrust and hatred, you’d understand why everything you accept is not only not true, but a specific and deliberate lie. Remember Catholicism began in Jesus Christ; Protestants, by definition, were begun by men.
Two thoughts about ‘ol Frank.
Fire tempers steel. It is only going through a trial that we find out what we’re made of.
And second – they may have the churches, the physical locations. We have the faith.
Well said Dave.
Was it St. John Chrystostom who said, “The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops?” I’d hate to have the responsibility of the souls of my parishioners, and hence I am not clergy. What a formidable responsibility, more so for bishops, most so for patriarchs and the “cappo de tutti cappi.” I don’t know why this Pope felt the need to delve into this subject, or if it was thrust upon his watch. I’ve yet to read the document, and will hold off opinion until I do so. I didn’t like it when anti-RFRA people went Robspierre upon conservatives without reading. I do know there are two Popes: the one the press reports on, often incorrectly, to shape him into its image, and the one who gets half of his pronouncements ignored when they don’t fit the Narrative.
As it was put to me once: It’s the job of the Church to Evangelize the world. When the world Evangelizes the Church BOTH are in serious trouble.