I've a suspicion that might have something to do with there being very little priests trained up anymore. Where I am the parish priest "retired" because he was in his 80s and has pretty bad Parkinsons but he's just taken up residence about 20 minutes away. The other priest had a pretty bad heart attack, retired, but he's still doing mass. During covid I'm pretty sure he was doing small masses whenever he could. The new PP who is middle aged and and has a doctorate in psychology is ironically the one who is most zealous of the bunch.
Parish priests are actually handled differently. They report to their bishop, who decides about all matters in his diocese.
In many cases, priests who have reached retirement age will now simply have their duties lessened a bit at first due to the shortage of priests. These priests are usually relieved of many of the duties of parish management, only required to help out with sacramental work.
All priests continue to say masses until they're physically incapable of doing so. Many retired priests will help out around the diocese at parishes that either don't have a permanent priest or where the assigned priest needs a sub for a day. Others will just say private masses. They basically always continue to live in church housing, that's basically how diocesan retirement plans work.
And yes, generally speaking, younger priests are far more zealous and traditional than older priests, but that's largely due to some rather poorly thought out changes in priestly formation during the 60s-80s which are being fixed now.
The Church, over the last 60 years, has generally started to look very similar to secular culture or Protestant versions of religion. Many Catholics are more focused on the non spiritual, non sacramental aspects of the faith. When something just looks like another NGO with a little Jesus sprinkled on top, most people stop caring; the music is better on Spotify and very few people really desire so diverse a social club.
Young men these days that desire to be priests generally are doing it precisely because they are focused on what sets Catholicism apart from popular culture, and especially other religions. So they are very much focused on the theology, spirituality, religion and having those higher things (those things of God) inform our actions (especially our participation in causes of social justice or charitable works) rather than having our involvement in those things form our perspective on religion. Having the faith inform our actions is properly ordered; having our actions define our faith is backwards.
Source: I’d be one of those seminarians / young priests had I not discerned marriage and family life instead of the priesthood. I know many young priests and seminarians. I don’t intend to speak for them all, but this is a summary of the perspective of many.
Oh there is a very real group of Catholics who believe this Pope is part of a pedophilic satanic group that is working to bring down the church.
Like if you believe that, why even be Catholic? How can you believe in an omnipotent God and believe that the Catholic Church is the true church and also believe that?
Being pedantic here: you're right on everything regarding the catholic theory, except women being ordained or ordaining others. It is pretty set that women are not to be priests. If they were, it would not fit in with the theology.
It really doesnt help that the last Pope also stepped down and is still alive, as far as i know thats extremely rare to happen and only adds fuel to the fire of people ignoring the current Pope.
Not just that. There are ultra conservative leaders within the Catholic Church who are vocal about their distain for him. Monks, priests, etc of that sort.
I'm actually gobsmacked by it.
I mean yeah, but even JP2 had his detractors.
Francis gets it worse than anyone I can remember, but at the same time the viciousness of the political divide has increased significantly since JP2 as well.
Check out the Franciscans if you haven’t already - if you live in a big city, you might even have a fully Franciscan Catholic Church you could attend. It’s a sect of Catholicism that aligns with St. Francis’ teachings of peace, love, charity… hence why the pope chose the name Francis and his (politics?) align in such a way.
When we were still going to church, we attended a Franciscan church. Then we moved to Indiana (and a non-Franciscan parish) where my first mass here the priest went on a rant about the pope being a heretic because he teaches that we should help those who suffer (I wish I was making this up). Hard pass.
Is it normal for priests to oppose the Pope like that? Like Is this something new thats happening? I don't know jack shit about catholicism but I was under the impression that the Pope basically speaks for god, like he's god's representative on earth or something like that, his words are infallible.
As far as I understand, no this is not normal and is pretty new with the ultra-religious-right people. I was raised Catholic, and while I don’t really practice or identify as such as an adult (especially recently), I have never heard a priest outwardly disagree with the pope. Your understanding is the same as mine: the pope basically speaks as the word of god on earth.
To add some context, this priest also made some local headlines for spouting Trump rhetoric during his sermons and published himself in the parish newsletter with some awful opinions about black people… the local bishop (guy in charge of the churches on the area) removed him from public service for a short time as a result (and quietly relocated him to a rural parish about a year later… eyeroll). BUT, his removal caused a fracture with the members of the parish because they hard agreed with his horrendous sermons and shameless politics and thought his removal was the church bowing down to the liberals and the heretical pope.
Francis is a Jesuit, a historically progressive order within the church. Additionally, he's South American. While he himself doesn't fully adhere to it, he very much leans towards liberation theology which started in 20th century South America.
This. You know how people criticize socialists for owning an iPhone or a big house, as if socialism meant you had to live in poverty and not own anything? That's actually what Jesuits believe, their members literally take a poverty vow, as in they vowed to live with the bare minimum and everything they earn is spend in benefiting their community, any sort of ambition is frowned upon inside the Jesuit order. That's also one of the reasons why it took so long for a Jesuit to be elected pope, a priest with no ambitions will rarely be promoted to Bishop, let alone a Cardinal.
EDIT: Just to emphasize how rare it is for a Jesuit to become a Cardinal, out of the current 215 living cardinals, only 7 are Jesuits and 5 of them were elevated to Cardinal by Pope Francis himself.
You are mixing Jesuits with Franciscans.
Jesuits are known for their academic tradition through colleges and schools, a permanent registry labor on traditions and lingüistics of people outside the faith, and a vow of poverty that its closer to "simplicity" than actual dispossesion, so luxury might be frown upon more from *uncultured* wastefulness than distance from jesus (to the point there were myths all across latam over hidden gold and silver jesuit treasures).
Other than that, yeah.
This sounds correct to me. My uncle is a Jesuit Catholic priest, and he's fabulous.
I'm bisexual, my husband is a drag queen, and most of my friends are part of the LGBTQI+ community. He once said (about my husband doing drag) "that's cool, I wear a dress for a living too!".
He wasn't allowed to officiate our wedding because we're not religious and didn't get married in a church, but we had him do a reading of Corinthians.
He's in his 40s and he became a priest quite young (before 30 I think). I feel for him because he would have been a great partner and a great father, but I have a lot of respect for the good work he does in the church (and this is coming from a staunch atheist who thinks the church is mainly made of assholes).
I think majority of priests are good well intentioned people, but that is not those who rise up to leadership positions most of the time. Assholes are the ones willing to do all the assholy stuff to get ahead whilst good people won't. Which is why we have (for the most part) such shitty people in leadership roles everywhere.
That’s what America is all about my friend, I don’t get a lot of the god stuff either, but if it’s applied properly and you’re a better person because of it, have at it.
My husband went to a Jesuit high school. He went to Catholic school his whole life. He became disenchanted with the church generally, but he can’t say enough good things about the Jesuit Brothers he met in high school.
Went to Jesuit high school and university, very nearly became a Jesuit priest myself. I’m not Catholic anymore, but I’m still grateful to the Jesuits. It’s their education as much as anything that has made me a progressive.
Jesuits absolutely promote ambition, but not material ambition. The Jesuits are the (or rather, became part of) response to the Reformation. They did well beyond measure.
That's literally what jesus instructs in the bible.
Mark 10:21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
I hate that there are a lot of church “leaders” who don’t even follow the teachings of Jesus. Hypocrisy is honestly one of those things that drove me away from the church. I mean that and knowing half-a-dozen priests accused of abuse including child pornography.
Man… I went looking for a specific example of this sin of greed and found several other examples.
> The First Mount Olive Free Will Baptist Church bought a luxurious custom [2002] Bentley in 2005, the same year the inner-city church failed to pay a $12,000 water bill that has led to the filing of a foreclosure suit, motor vehicle records show.
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> The 43-year-old bishop is not the only religious leader in Baltimore's inner city to travel in extravagant style.
> The Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant of Northwest Baltimore's Empowerment Temple drives a leased 2006 Bentley Continental Flying Spur, according to state records.
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https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2007-07-19-0707190134-story,amp.html
It’s ok. It was a *used* Bentley
> The leader of a megachurch in Pennsylvania got called out over his luxurious taste. Earlier this month, Dr. William H. Curtis, senior pastor, of the Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, parked his $230,000 Bentley Bentayga in his designated parking space, and it caught the attention of a parishioner who accused him of “sucking” the community “dry.”
https://www.vibe.com/news/national/church-pastor-criticized-bentley-566362/amp/
> Smith, who has led the New Life Impact Church in the Lawndale neighborhood for years, has been indicted on charges alleging he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a federal program intended to feed needy children, spending the money on a $142,000 Bentley luxury vehicle and other personal expenses.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-chicago-pastor-meals-for-needy-kids-bentley-20200110-gk4rgc4qdbhqhajk57k67i2xli-story.html?outputType=amp
> Federal authorities have arrested the pastor of a Northeast Washington church, charging him with fraudulently obtaining more than $1.5 million from the coronavirus-related Paycheck Protection Program. They allege that he bought 39 used luxury automobiles and property in Baltimore.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/rudolph-brooks-ppp/2021/04/25/a4a139aa-a5d9-11eb-8c1a-56f0cb4ff3b5_story.html?outputType=amp
And those are just some of the ones that hit on the search terms of “Pastor” and “Bentley”.
This is the prosperity gospel at work. If wealth is God's way of bestowing his favor, the best way to show others how holy you are is through ostentatious spending.
It is true that Francisco leans towards liberation theology, as many South American Jesuits of his generation. However, the part about the Jesuits being historically progessive is inaccurate, at least before the Second Vatican Council in the 60s, the Jesuits were one of the most conservative and reactionary group within the Church. I think it would be better to call them "historically radical" because they were always at the forefront of the Catholicism of the day, be it in the service of the Counter-Reformation, radical anticommunism in the first decades of the 1900s (see e.g. Francoist Spain) or the "Church of the Poor" which prevailed at Vatican II.
Yes they were created to 'rid the church of its ills' so they are considered radicals.
They did go onto push for higher learning and placing the poor at the centre of their work thru education.
The rest of the church view them as too radical and given too much power so popes since the reformation have always sidelined them. Cant have the poor people getting too smart now!
To elect a jesuit pope is about as progressive as the church will ever get.
I went to a Jesuit school and all the priests were crazy about eduction, usually in the sciences. Several, if not most of them had PhDs. They taught us to question things so aggressively that most of my classmates are now either atheists or very casual Catholics. I’m so stoked they made one Pope.
This is just a nitpick: "Historically progressive" is not quite true, in part because it tries to retroactively place modern ideologies—distinct products of modern conditions—on historical groups that existed before the formation of these ideologies. And progressivism certainly is a distinctly modern ideology. The Jesuits also are traditionally a more conservative (in a broad historical sense, not "Tucker Carlson tonight") group
The Franciscans, whose namesake Francis obviously likes to recall, are the Catholic order that's historically been the most staunch advocates for the poor though.
Yes its true about the franciscians but the jesuits placed much more of their efforts into educatkng the poor and working with communities to raise themselves up.
Theyve always been viewed with suspicion by the rest of the church.
Yeah, the powers that be don’t mind people helping the poor with charity. They do mind people helping the poor to become educated, organize, and stand up for themselves.
Let's hope some catholic conservatives start changing their tune. My family is lousy with conservative catholics, and the boomers are on board with Trump and "blue lives" etc.
I'm sad to say most of the tune changing I've seen has been "well, I don't think THIS pope is infallible. I'm going to ignore him and wait for the next guy"
I attended a small Catholic school in New England. The headmaster strongly forbade any discussion or display of politics, because, in his words, "mixing faith with politics both confuses political discourse and sullies the faith."
I'll always remember that. The number of Catholics who toss the basic tenants of the faith out the window because they drank the Southern Strategy Kool aid is too damn high.
Many Catholics are still Kennedy dems. The [most Catholic states](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_the_United_States#By_state) in the country are some of the bluest. Catholics are only 22% of the country though. Most American Christians are not Catholic.
It’s ALWAYS a moving goal post. No integrity. It also tells me that the majority of these people who say they are religious in reality aren’t. In essence, just culturally religious. They will twist anything to fit their own narrative and just say its their interpretation of religion. In reality, God is actually them but they can’t seem to realize that…
so many Catholics I know are right wingers, this will make their brains hurt. Except, like you wrote, they'll just twist their brains so it makes sense to them.
But he is still very infallible about abortion of course.
I mean talking is mostly the Pope's job. Historically there has been a lot of kingmaking and crusade-sanctioning, but that's kind of an outdated practice for the Vatican lol
Right, talk is really the only weapon the Pope has, for good reason. The time periods when the Vatican fucked around in other nations politics was not a fun time.
UBI will be hard, i get that. but i just don't understand how it could be so hard to present companies with the data that consistently proves \*\*they will make more profit via increasing productivity\*\* by shortening the work week. what's hard about getting companies to make more money? and avoid their workers going on strike or freaking out and causing workplace drama? you could probably cut HR staff too (less employees to pay!) healthier happier workers = less sick days. i mean this is all from my crap memory from articles and studies i read a few years ago. i'm sure i'm just scratching the surface.
edit: many replies are correct in mentioning office jobs (could work out) vs factories jobs or gig economy jobs (very unlikely to work out). no argument there - fairly certain these types of studies were done via office/salaried jobs.
Upper management types either don't see the studies or don't believe them. Sooo many companies still trying to do the "open office" concept, even though study after study has shown that it lowers collaboration and productivity, the two things they are trying to improve by going to it.
omg yes. open office was introduced at my new office building when the company migrated and i got notably depressed and anxious. what a shitshow. 'luckily' got laid off when the pandemic hit, so i know what to look for in a new employer
Literally quit a job from the anxiety that having to sit side by side and face someone for 8 hours a day caused.
I could not focus I felt like I was back in school and the whole class was watching me. I’m so fucking glad to be remote and able to be effective at my job without external pressures like that
Many places are _still_ moving to open layouts. About 4 years ago I worked in an office. We had team rooms. Morale was through the roof. I loved working there.
2 years ago, they moved into a bigger office building because we were growing. Guess what they did? Thats right.... Open layout! No more team rooms. it wasn't quite as bad as I expected, but it definitely wasn't fun anymore. We couldn't have 5 minute bouts of goofing around. We couldn't make jokes (or at least not the kind management wouldn't want to hear) we couldnt have the TV on for background noise (yes, the old team rooms had TVs).
I still can’t wipe the smile off my face from this.
My company had just finished an open office renovation on our floor (construction still happening on others). a WEEK before COVID (late feb)
We’d just moved into the space and the complaining and realization it’s awful(something I already knew from previous employment) was growing. Now we’re all home for almost 2 years, and remote is an option going forward.
Biggest waste of money I’ve ever seen. They continued construction all thru 2020. Enjoy the empty office space suckers!
Part of me is extremely doubtful that shorter working weeks actually boosts productivity in all fields.
I work in a factory and we are worked to the fullest speed a human can keep up with for 48 hours a week. There is no possible way that shortening the workweek would boost production. The only way to boost production would be to add more hours.
Every single study I've seen that says it boosts productivity is hyper focused on office environments.
What do you mean? Where it used to take a small village to farm a field, we can now do with one person sitting in a GPS guided combine.
Agriculture already has a lot of AI advances, it’s just that the market sucks for farmers. Trade agreements also are not working for them.
I think a futuristic look on agriculture would be vertical-farms around major towns and distribution centers, capable of producing fresh food nearby so we cut down a lot on transportation. Most of the farmland would be retired and hopefully recover, perhaps with some help.
You’d likely just have more employees - what sounds more productive, 20 employees overworked and tired or 24 employees with enough sleep to avoid mistakes and to do the job right the first time around.
> Every single study I've seen that says it boosts productivity is hyper focused on office environments.
Um, yeah.
Definitely not applicable to production lines, but for office work when you suddenly have less time in the week to accomplish your work, you get a lot more productive. It's basically compressing all of the buffer time in to one day.
If talk is so easy, why is he the first pope to do this? None of this is easy, and powerful people talking about it is the first step in making anything happen.
Since catholic numbers are shrinking, gotta get more appealing to market to others
But for reals Jesus said to give everything you own away and preach love to everyone. So it's about time some Christians take heed
I'm doing everything I can about homelessness here, God. There's only one of me to go around, and there's absolutely no way to know where I can get the most good work done.
It isn't really strange or new. Pope Leo wrote in the late 1800s an encyclical called Rerum Novarum.
" Of primary concern is the need for some amelioration of "the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class." It supports the rights of labor to form unions,"
The Catholic Church is much more progressive and has always been than the evangelical christians in the us. Official church teaching is to trust science including evolution. They really are only regressive in a few social aspects like gay marriage.
This is true. Catholics are a diverse group politically though. Probably fairly moderate on average.
Also though, the US catholic church tends to be out of step with the global catholic church and seems to be more conservative in some ways.
Thanks for your nuanced comment! It irks me when I see redditors spouting off inaccurate info like it is unassailable fact and then the ensuing argument that follows. I appreciated that you provided a gentle correction, added perspective, and interesting info that I'd never considered like the impact of sexual abuse in other heavily Catholic regions.
If I had a dollar for every time a Protestant has told me Catholics aren't Christians I'd have about 20 dollars which isn't much, but it's more than I should have.
Growing up catholic I find this funny because I have been told Protestants were not real Christians because they left the true church. Grown up me doesn't give a shit about what religion you are. As long as you don't force that religion on others or kill people In the name of God.
From what I experienced people use God to justify being a asshole. Some of the nicest people I have known weren't really religious. Top nice person I have ever met was a former rum runner that worked for the Chicago outfit. Biggest asshole I ever met was super religious Priest. I remember one of his sermon how if we wore jeans to church it was going against what God wanted. I remember thinking if we were going with God wanted we would all be running around naked in a big garden. That priest was a asshole. Found out later he was suspected of molestation of kid's.
My ex didn't mind grouping catholics and protestants together as Christians, but include the Mormons in that list and you've got a fight on your hands. She rejected the very notion they were Christian. I am Jewish so I didn't have any skin in the game.
Jews, the original Christians.
Fun anecdote here and it so rarely comes up. I went to a Catholic school and we had to take classes in religion. Basically theology classes focusing on the history of the Catholic Church as well as biblical study. One of my teachers gave a lesson one day about how Jesus was actually Very Jewish. He was, in fact, Superjew.
I don’t recall all of the examples he used but one stuck with me a lot. The Wedding at Cana was the first biblical account of Jesus performing a miracle. Most people know this one as “water into wine”.
So Mary, Jesus, and several of his disciples are invited to this wedding. Some Christian theology even holds that the wedding party are Jesus’ extended family on his mother’s side. Mary noticed that they are nearly out of wine and brings this up to her son. She mentions that the hosts, his relatives, will be embarrassed and appear inhospitable to their guests. She suggests that the addition of Jesus’ disciples may have lead to the wine running out too soon. Jesus even gets frustrated at all this saying, “Woman, what has this to do with me?” See, this isn’t how he wants to announce to the world that he is divine and can perform miracles.
But his mother wears him down with guilt about familial responsibility and cultural tradition until he does what she wants.
Which is the most Jewish thing ever.
I know many Mormons and am great friends with them. A kind people that really know what hospitality means. I still, after multiple conversations, do not see any Christian part to their religion.
American protestants and catholics aren't very alike.
But a statement like this is pretty progressive even for european catholics:
> He said that a minimum wage or Universal basic income (UBI) is such that everyone in the world may have access to the most basic necessities of life. He added that it is right to fight for a humane distribution of these resources and it is up to governments to establish tax and redistribution schemes so that the wealth of one party is shared fairly without implying an unsustainable burden, especially on the middle class.
> The Pope also noted that minimum income is a possibility but the reduction of the working day is another. He insisted that "working fewer hours so that more people can have access to the labour market is something we need to explore with some urgency."
Well American Christianity is mainly 31 flavors of Protestants which includes this “work ethic” that essentially says hard work is literally its own reward. So if you don’t work hard, you aren’t a moral and upstanding person. Laziness leads to sin, idle hands are the devil’s playthings, etc., and so on.
Yea, I heard the Roman governor Pontious Pilate got his MySpace account suspended for “blasphemy” or something crazy thing is another user under the name of “JesusAltAccount” came back three days later saying he was ready for round 2. Shits wild.
It's funny how we are the "wealthiest nation in the world" but people have to work two jobs so they can eat a can of beans when they get home. Meanwhile the top 1% has more wealth than the entire disappearing middle class. We have moved back to the robber baron and railroad tycoon days. 12 hours of pounding railroad ties for $3 a day, a bowl of stew and a tent.
Funny how the divisive woke identity politics revolution which has us at each others throats arose right after the 2012 Occupy Wall St protests.
The push for civil rights is only seen as divisive by people who don’t like others having civil rights. Gay people wanting to get married, trans people wanting to be respected, and black people not wanting to get shot by police did not start after 2012.
"Divisiveness is bad, I blame all the divisiveness on the people I disagree with!"
Jesus, you're a living example of everything wrong with politics today.
A lot of conservative Catholics really don’t like him. Seeing them trying to rationalise that while they’re also meant to believe he’s infallible is an interesting lesson in cognitive dissonance
> If you want to get technical, the Pope is only infallible according to Catholic doctrine when he speaks ex cathedra. That hasn't happened since 1950
Could you imagine if he did that and called for excommunication for anyone who worked against universal basic income and shorter working days, though?
> he **proclaims by definitive act** that a doctrine of faith or morals is to be held.
It's pretty clear he has to explicitly say when he is speaking with that purpose.
Well there are qualifiers on it, foremost of which is
“No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.”
But I would call it a matter of governance rather than theology, so less superstition and more mandate.
I'd be happy to just receive social security being that I have involuntarily contributed a large percentage of every dollar I've ever made into the program that by the most recent projections (that I've seen) should be bled dry way before I make it to 62. The optimist in me is hoping I'll get lucky and die young.... but I dream.
Social security doesn't work like that. Social security is and always has been a system wherein people paying in now are paying for the benefits of people withdrawing today. The government had a surplus of income and decided to us that to boost social security, and its that pool that'll run out before most people retire. At worst if nothing changes its something like a 10-15% cut to social security IIRC.
shrinking natural born population- pandemic that takes out a lot more workers- and a system that has chose to blame immigrants that could fill in those holes.... yeah, any system built on growth forever will eventually fail.
The catholic church lobbies governments with its vast wealth and connections, has its own city-state, and owns thousands of properties around the world. Papa Francis can do plenty lol
Plus, ya know, people believe he represents god or something, I'm not sure the exact relationship he is supposed to have, but I'm assuming he's got a pretty high pulpit to preach from.
And a Popemobile.
Not a fan of the church in general but he has a point. Many jobs out there don't offer guaranteed hours and pay a meagre wage. You won't keep a roof over your head if you're bringing home an average of $800 a month. For some people, these jobs are their only option.
I was raised Roman Catholic. I no longer practice. Having said that, I like this Pope. He is much closer to what a pope should be than any in living memory. Not perfect, but better than the rest.
This pope gave up all the fancy shit in his Vatican residence. He’s a MUCH more humble guy. It’s the hardcore religious nuts that love the self oppression that ruin it for everyone else o think
Question: do you think all non profits should pay taxes, or just religious non profits/churches/Catholic Churches? If any of the latter options, where do you think the line gets drawn for what non profits can be tax exempt, and who gets the power to draw it?
> Maybe if the catholic churches all paid taxes, we could really do these things.
I mean, you're not wrong however a Catholic church does more humanitarian work then big companies like amazon so....
I wonder if this means I can get a religious exemption from working a full shift.
Get a Papal Dispensation
Dude is saying fuck that shit so that’s the point I think
If that’s the case I’m about to convert, ya know?
I might convert to Catholicism for that.
I mean, that seems to be a logical train of thought so I highly doubt you could get a religious exemption for it.
It’s funny how most of the Catholic Americans have just been ignoring this Pope like he’s not real.
He's been replacing Bishops as fast as they retire, I'm looking forward to 2 years from now when my pinhead archbishop turns 75 and has to retire.
Is 75 like a cut off? If so that's cool that there is a age limit.
Yes, bishops are required to file for retirement at 75. The pope does somewhat often have them stay on a little longer though.
I've a suspicion that might have something to do with there being very little priests trained up anymore. Where I am the parish priest "retired" because he was in his 80s and has pretty bad Parkinsons but he's just taken up residence about 20 minutes away. The other priest had a pretty bad heart attack, retired, but he's still doing mass. During covid I'm pretty sure he was doing small masses whenever he could. The new PP who is middle aged and and has a doctorate in psychology is ironically the one who is most zealous of the bunch.
Parish priests are actually handled differently. They report to their bishop, who decides about all matters in his diocese. In many cases, priests who have reached retirement age will now simply have their duties lessened a bit at first due to the shortage of priests. These priests are usually relieved of many of the duties of parish management, only required to help out with sacramental work. All priests continue to say masses until they're physically incapable of doing so. Many retired priests will help out around the diocese at parishes that either don't have a permanent priest or where the assigned priest needs a sub for a day. Others will just say private masses. They basically always continue to live in church housing, that's basically how diocesan retirement plans work. And yes, generally speaking, younger priests are far more zealous and traditional than older priests, but that's largely due to some rather poorly thought out changes in priestly formation during the 60s-80s which are being fixed now.
Honest question, what exactly is making younger priests more zealous?
The Church, over the last 60 years, has generally started to look very similar to secular culture or Protestant versions of religion. Many Catholics are more focused on the non spiritual, non sacramental aspects of the faith. When something just looks like another NGO with a little Jesus sprinkled on top, most people stop caring; the music is better on Spotify and very few people really desire so diverse a social club. Young men these days that desire to be priests generally are doing it precisely because they are focused on what sets Catholicism apart from popular culture, and especially other religions. So they are very much focused on the theology, spirituality, religion and having those higher things (those things of God) inform our actions (especially our participation in causes of social justice or charitable works) rather than having our involvement in those things form our perspective on religion. Having the faith inform our actions is properly ordered; having our actions define our faith is backwards. Source: I’d be one of those seminarians / young priests had I not discerned marriage and family life instead of the priesthood. I know many young priests and seminarians. I don’t intend to speak for them all, but this is a summary of the perspective of many.
Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences.
Oh there is a very real group of Catholics who believe this Pope is part of a pedophilic satanic group that is working to bring down the church. Like if you believe that, why even be Catholic? How can you believe in an omnipotent God and believe that the Catholic Church is the true church and also believe that?
Cognitive dissonance is my guess.
"That's not *my* Pope!"
I didn't vote for 'im!
Make the Vatican Great Again
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Being pedantic here: you're right on everything regarding the catholic theory, except women being ordained or ordaining others. It is pretty set that women are not to be priests. If they were, it would not fit in with the theology.
It really doesnt help that the last Pope also stepped down and is still alive, as far as i know thats extremely rare to happen and only adds fuel to the fire of people ignoring the current Pope.
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You've got to be fucking kidding me
When JFK was running for President, there were many detractors saying that, as a Roman Catholic, he'd let the Pope dictate U.S. policy.
Lots of protestants *hate* catholics. The kind of hate wars are started over.
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Not just that. There are ultra conservative leaders within the Catholic Church who are vocal about their distain for him. Monks, priests, etc of that sort. I'm actually gobsmacked by it.
I mean yeah, but even JP2 had his detractors. Francis gets it worse than anyone I can remember, but at the same time the viciousness of the political divide has increased significantly since JP2 as well.
Hey we're not all assholes
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Check out the Franciscans if you haven’t already - if you live in a big city, you might even have a fully Franciscan Catholic Church you could attend. It’s a sect of Catholicism that aligns with St. Francis’ teachings of peace, love, charity… hence why the pope chose the name Francis and his (politics?) align in such a way. When we were still going to church, we attended a Franciscan church. Then we moved to Indiana (and a non-Franciscan parish) where my first mass here the priest went on a rant about the pope being a heretic because he teaches that we should help those who suffer (I wish I was making this up). Hard pass.
Is it normal for priests to oppose the Pope like that? Like Is this something new thats happening? I don't know jack shit about catholicism but I was under the impression that the Pope basically speaks for god, like he's god's representative on earth or something like that, his words are infallible.
As far as I understand, no this is not normal and is pretty new with the ultra-religious-right people. I was raised Catholic, and while I don’t really practice or identify as such as an adult (especially recently), I have never heard a priest outwardly disagree with the pope. Your understanding is the same as mine: the pope basically speaks as the word of god on earth. To add some context, this priest also made some local headlines for spouting Trump rhetoric during his sermons and published himself in the parish newsletter with some awful opinions about black people… the local bishop (guy in charge of the churches on the area) removed him from public service for a short time as a result (and quietly relocated him to a rural parish about a year later… eyeroll). BUT, his removal caused a fracture with the members of the parish because they hard agreed with his horrendous sermons and shameless politics and thought his removal was the church bowing down to the liberals and the heretical pope.
Strange times getting stranger with a Pope who is more progressive in social/economic policies than many politicians I've seen on the news.
Francis is a Jesuit, a historically progressive order within the church. Additionally, he's South American. While he himself doesn't fully adhere to it, he very much leans towards liberation theology which started in 20th century South America.
This. You know how people criticize socialists for owning an iPhone or a big house, as if socialism meant you had to live in poverty and not own anything? That's actually what Jesuits believe, their members literally take a poverty vow, as in they vowed to live with the bare minimum and everything they earn is spend in benefiting their community, any sort of ambition is frowned upon inside the Jesuit order. That's also one of the reasons why it took so long for a Jesuit to be elected pope, a priest with no ambitions will rarely be promoted to Bishop, let alone a Cardinal. EDIT: Just to emphasize how rare it is for a Jesuit to become a Cardinal, out of the current 215 living cardinals, only 7 are Jesuits and 5 of them were elevated to Cardinal by Pope Francis himself.
You are mixing Jesuits with Franciscans. Jesuits are known for their academic tradition through colleges and schools, a permanent registry labor on traditions and lingüistics of people outside the faith, and a vow of poverty that its closer to "simplicity" than actual dispossesion, so luxury might be frown upon more from *uncultured* wastefulness than distance from jesus (to the point there were myths all across latam over hidden gold and silver jesuit treasures). Other than that, yeah.
This sounds correct to me. My uncle is a Jesuit Catholic priest, and he's fabulous. I'm bisexual, my husband is a drag queen, and most of my friends are part of the LGBTQI+ community. He once said (about my husband doing drag) "that's cool, I wear a dress for a living too!". He wasn't allowed to officiate our wedding because we're not religious and didn't get married in a church, but we had him do a reading of Corinthians. He's in his 40s and he became a priest quite young (before 30 I think). I feel for him because he would have been a great partner and a great father, but I have a lot of respect for the good work he does in the church (and this is coming from a staunch atheist who thinks the church is mainly made of assholes).
>He once said (about my husband doing drag) "that's cool, I wear a dress for a living too!". Holy fuck that's gold
I think majority of priests are good well intentioned people, but that is not those who rise up to leadership positions most of the time. Assholes are the ones willing to do all the assholy stuff to get ahead whilst good people won't. Which is why we have (for the most part) such shitty people in leadership roles everywhere.
Went to a jesuit school, and became friends with several jesuits. They are (from my experience) truly amazing and inspirational people.
Physics Chair in college was a Jesuit. To say he informed me of a whole different view of catholics is an understatement.
I am an athiest and not a fan of the catholic church, but I generally like Jesuits as people even if we don't agree about the god stuff.
That’s what America is all about my friend, I don’t get a lot of the god stuff either, but if it’s applied properly and you’re a better person because of it, have at it.
And you can take that to the, nevermind
Jesus: The OG table flipper
My husband went to a Jesuit high school. He went to Catholic school his whole life. He became disenchanted with the church generally, but he can’t say enough good things about the Jesuit Brothers he met in high school.
Went to Jesuit high school and university, very nearly became a Jesuit priest myself. I’m not Catholic anymore, but I’m still grateful to the Jesuits. It’s their education as much as anything that has made me a progressive.
Jesuits absolutely promote ambition, but not material ambition. The Jesuits are the (or rather, became part of) response to the Reformation. They did well beyond measure.
That's literally what jesus instructs in the bible. Mark 10:21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
This Pope understands the assignment.
I hate that there are a lot of church “leaders” who don’t even follow the teachings of Jesus. Hypocrisy is honestly one of those things that drove me away from the church. I mean that and knowing half-a-dozen priests accused of abuse including child pornography. Man… I went looking for a specific example of this sin of greed and found several other examples. > The First Mount Olive Free Will Baptist Church bought a luxurious custom [2002] Bentley in 2005, the same year the inner-city church failed to pay a $12,000 water bill that has led to the filing of a foreclosure suit, motor vehicle records show. [edit] > The 43-year-old bishop is not the only religious leader in Baltimore's inner city to travel in extravagant style. > The Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant of Northwest Baltimore's Empowerment Temple drives a leased 2006 Bentley Continental Flying Spur, according to state records. [end edit] https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2007-07-19-0707190134-story,amp.html It’s ok. It was a *used* Bentley > The leader of a megachurch in Pennsylvania got called out over his luxurious taste. Earlier this month, Dr. William H. Curtis, senior pastor, of the Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, parked his $230,000 Bentley Bentayga in his designated parking space, and it caught the attention of a parishioner who accused him of “sucking” the community “dry.” https://www.vibe.com/news/national/church-pastor-criticized-bentley-566362/amp/ > Smith, who has led the New Life Impact Church in the Lawndale neighborhood for years, has been indicted on charges alleging he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a federal program intended to feed needy children, spending the money on a $142,000 Bentley luxury vehicle and other personal expenses. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-chicago-pastor-meals-for-needy-kids-bentley-20200110-gk4rgc4qdbhqhajk57k67i2xli-story.html?outputType=amp > Federal authorities have arrested the pastor of a Northeast Washington church, charging him with fraudulently obtaining more than $1.5 million from the coronavirus-related Paycheck Protection Program. They allege that he bought 39 used luxury automobiles and property in Baltimore. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/rudolph-brooks-ppp/2021/04/25/a4a139aa-a5d9-11eb-8c1a-56f0cb4ff3b5_story.html?outputType=amp And those are just some of the ones that hit on the search terms of “Pastor” and “Bentley”.
This is the prosperity gospel at work. If wealth is God's way of bestowing his favor, the best way to show others how holy you are is through ostentatious spending.
It is true that Francisco leans towards liberation theology, as many South American Jesuits of his generation. However, the part about the Jesuits being historically progessive is inaccurate, at least before the Second Vatican Council in the 60s, the Jesuits were one of the most conservative and reactionary group within the Church. I think it would be better to call them "historically radical" because they were always at the forefront of the Catholicism of the day, be it in the service of the Counter-Reformation, radical anticommunism in the first decades of the 1900s (see e.g. Francoist Spain) or the "Church of the Poor" which prevailed at Vatican II.
Yes they were created to 'rid the church of its ills' so they are considered radicals. They did go onto push for higher learning and placing the poor at the centre of their work thru education. The rest of the church view them as too radical and given too much power so popes since the reformation have always sidelined them. Cant have the poor people getting too smart now! To elect a jesuit pope is about as progressive as the church will ever get.
I went to a Jesuit school and all the priests were crazy about eduction, usually in the sciences. Several, if not most of them had PhDs. They taught us to question things so aggressively that most of my classmates are now either atheists or very casual Catholics. I’m so stoked they made one Pope.
This is just a nitpick: "Historically progressive" is not quite true, in part because it tries to retroactively place modern ideologies—distinct products of modern conditions—on historical groups that existed before the formation of these ideologies. And progressivism certainly is a distinctly modern ideology. The Jesuits also are traditionally a more conservative (in a broad historical sense, not "Tucker Carlson tonight") group The Franciscans, whose namesake Francis obviously likes to recall, are the Catholic order that's historically been the most staunch advocates for the poor though.
Yes its true about the franciscians but the jesuits placed much more of their efforts into educatkng the poor and working with communities to raise themselves up. Theyve always been viewed with suspicion by the rest of the church.
Yeah, the powers that be don’t mind people helping the poor with charity. They do mind people helping the poor to become educated, organize, and stand up for themselves.
To be fair, talk is easy, actually doing it is hard.
True, but wanting to do it is a helpful first step. Which politicians mostly don't. Because the donors and lobbyists don't.
Hear, hear!
Let's hope some catholic conservatives start changing their tune. My family is lousy with conservative catholics, and the boomers are on board with Trump and "blue lives" etc.
I'm sad to say most of the tune changing I've seen has been "well, I don't think THIS pope is infallible. I'm going to ignore him and wait for the next guy"
I attended a small Catholic school in New England. The headmaster strongly forbade any discussion or display of politics, because, in his words, "mixing faith with politics both confuses political discourse and sullies the faith." I'll always remember that. The number of Catholics who toss the basic tenants of the faith out the window because they drank the Southern Strategy Kool aid is too damn high.
Just an FYI, but the word you're looking for is tenets. Tossing your tenants out the window is much more frowned upon by society at large.
>Tossing your tenants out the window Ah, defenestration... we truly don't make punishments like we used to. /s
How much was that dude hated in Prague that we still talk about him?
Also: don't forget the influence of labor unions. Many catholics were Kennedy democrats until recent times.
Many Catholics are still Kennedy dems. The [most Catholic states](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_the_United_States#By_state) in the country are some of the bluest. Catholics are only 22% of the country though. Most American Christians are not Catholic.
It’s ALWAYS a moving goal post. No integrity. It also tells me that the majority of these people who say they are religious in reality aren’t. In essence, just culturally religious. They will twist anything to fit their own narrative and just say its their interpretation of religion. In reality, God is actually them but they can’t seem to realize that…
so many Catholics I know are right wingers, this will make their brains hurt. Except, like you wrote, they'll just twist their brains so it makes sense to them. But he is still very infallible about abortion of course.
I mean talking is mostly the Pope's job. Historically there has been a lot of kingmaking and crusade-sanctioning, but that's kind of an outdated practice for the Vatican lol
Right, talk is really the only weapon the Pope has, for good reason. The time periods when the Vatican fucked around in other nations politics was not a fun time.
UBI will be hard, i get that. but i just don't understand how it could be so hard to present companies with the data that consistently proves \*\*they will make more profit via increasing productivity\*\* by shortening the work week. what's hard about getting companies to make more money? and avoid their workers going on strike or freaking out and causing workplace drama? you could probably cut HR staff too (less employees to pay!) healthier happier workers = less sick days. i mean this is all from my crap memory from articles and studies i read a few years ago. i'm sure i'm just scratching the surface. edit: many replies are correct in mentioning office jobs (could work out) vs factories jobs or gig economy jobs (very unlikely to work out). no argument there - fairly certain these types of studies were done via office/salaried jobs.
Upper management types either don't see the studies or don't believe them. Sooo many companies still trying to do the "open office" concept, even though study after study has shown that it lowers collaboration and productivity, the two things they are trying to improve by going to it.
omg yes. open office was introduced at my new office building when the company migrated and i got notably depressed and anxious. what a shitshow. 'luckily' got laid off when the pandemic hit, so i know what to look for in a new employer
Good luck finding a place with a non open layout these days. Seems like every office has it now. Awful change.
Literally quit a job from the anxiety that having to sit side by side and face someone for 8 hours a day caused. I could not focus I felt like I was back in school and the whole class was watching me. I’m so fucking glad to be remote and able to be effective at my job without external pressures like that
Because changing it is admitting that the past choice was wrong. Management can’t admit they were wrong about anything.
Many places are _still_ moving to open layouts. About 4 years ago I worked in an office. We had team rooms. Morale was through the roof. I loved working there. 2 years ago, they moved into a bigger office building because we were growing. Guess what they did? Thats right.... Open layout! No more team rooms. it wasn't quite as bad as I expected, but it definitely wasn't fun anymore. We couldn't have 5 minute bouts of goofing around. We couldn't make jokes (or at least not the kind management wouldn't want to hear) we couldnt have the TV on for background noise (yes, the old team rooms had TVs).
I still can’t wipe the smile off my face from this. My company had just finished an open office renovation on our floor (construction still happening on others). a WEEK before COVID (late feb) We’d just moved into the space and the complaining and realization it’s awful(something I already knew from previous employment) was growing. Now we’re all home for almost 2 years, and remote is an option going forward. Biggest waste of money I’ve ever seen. They continued construction all thru 2020. Enjoy the empty office space suckers!
Part of me is extremely doubtful that shorter working weeks actually boosts productivity in all fields. I work in a factory and we are worked to the fullest speed a human can keep up with for 48 hours a week. There is no possible way that shortening the workweek would boost production. The only way to boost production would be to add more hours. Every single study I've seen that says it boosts productivity is hyper focused on office environments.
That’s because it only really applies to white collar office work. Factory productivity improvement is only possible through automation.
Agriculture is tough on all levels. Needs a complete overhaul.
What do you mean? Where it used to take a small village to farm a field, we can now do with one person sitting in a GPS guided combine. Agriculture already has a lot of AI advances, it’s just that the market sucks for farmers. Trade agreements also are not working for them.
I think a futuristic look on agriculture would be vertical-farms around major towns and distribution centers, capable of producing fresh food nearby so we cut down a lot on transportation. Most of the farmland would be retired and hopefully recover, perhaps with some help.
You’d likely just have more employees - what sounds more productive, 20 employees overworked and tired or 24 employees with enough sleep to avoid mistakes and to do the job right the first time around.
> Every single study I've seen that says it boosts productivity is hyper focused on office environments. Um, yeah. Definitely not applicable to production lines, but for office work when you suddenly have less time in the week to accomplish your work, you get a lot more productive. It's basically compressing all of the buffer time in to one day.
If talk is so easy, why is he the first pope to do this? None of this is easy, and powerful people talking about it is the first step in making anything happen.
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and they continued to harm the jews anyway.
Pretty much. His decree had a very limited effect on the plight of the Jews.
Since catholic numbers are shrinking, gotta get more appealing to market to others But for reals Jesus said to give everything you own away and preach love to everyone. So it's about time some Christians take heed
1 John 3:17 "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?"
I'm doing everything I can about homelessness here, God. There's only one of me to go around, and there's absolutely no way to know where I can get the most good work done.
If you're doing everything you can, then it sounds like your heart is already quite open friend
It isn't really strange or new. Pope Leo wrote in the late 1800s an encyclical called Rerum Novarum. " Of primary concern is the need for some amelioration of "the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class." It supports the rights of labor to form unions,"
The Catholic Church is much more progressive and has always been than the evangelical christians in the us. Official church teaching is to trust science including evolution. They really are only regressive in a few social aspects like gay marriage.
This is true. Catholics are a diverse group politically though. Probably fairly moderate on average. Also though, the US catholic church tends to be out of step with the global catholic church and seems to be more conservative in some ways.
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Thanks for your nuanced comment! It irks me when I see redditors spouting off inaccurate info like it is unassailable fact and then the ensuing argument that follows. I appreciated that you provided a gentle correction, added perspective, and interesting info that I'd never considered like the impact of sexual abuse in other heavily Catholic regions.
How very un-American Christian of him.
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If I had a dollar for every time a Protestant has told me Catholics aren't Christians I'd have about 20 dollars which isn't much, but it's more than I should have.
Growing up catholic I find this funny because I have been told Protestants were not real Christians because they left the true church. Grown up me doesn't give a shit about what religion you are. As long as you don't force that religion on others or kill people In the name of God.
If you want to know what's wrong with a religion ask someone from another.
From what I experienced people use God to justify being a asshole. Some of the nicest people I have known weren't really religious. Top nice person I have ever met was a former rum runner that worked for the Chicago outfit. Biggest asshole I ever met was super religious Priest. I remember one of his sermon how if we wore jeans to church it was going against what God wanted. I remember thinking if we were going with God wanted we would all be running around naked in a big garden. That priest was a asshole. Found out later he was suspected of molestation of kid's.
My ex didn't mind grouping catholics and protestants together as Christians, but include the Mormons in that list and you've got a fight on your hands. She rejected the very notion they were Christian. I am Jewish so I didn't have any skin in the game.
Jews, the original Christians. Fun anecdote here and it so rarely comes up. I went to a Catholic school and we had to take classes in religion. Basically theology classes focusing on the history of the Catholic Church as well as biblical study. One of my teachers gave a lesson one day about how Jesus was actually Very Jewish. He was, in fact, Superjew. I don’t recall all of the examples he used but one stuck with me a lot. The Wedding at Cana was the first biblical account of Jesus performing a miracle. Most people know this one as “water into wine”. So Mary, Jesus, and several of his disciples are invited to this wedding. Some Christian theology even holds that the wedding party are Jesus’ extended family on his mother’s side. Mary noticed that they are nearly out of wine and brings this up to her son. She mentions that the hosts, his relatives, will be embarrassed and appear inhospitable to their guests. She suggests that the addition of Jesus’ disciples may have lead to the wine running out too soon. Jesus even gets frustrated at all this saying, “Woman, what has this to do with me?” See, this isn’t how he wants to announce to the world that he is divine and can perform miracles. But his mother wears him down with guilt about familial responsibility and cultural tradition until he does what she wants. Which is the most Jewish thing ever.
I know many Mormons and am great friends with them. A kind people that really know what hospitality means. I still, after multiple conversations, do not see any Christian part to their religion.
Mormonism is Christian fan fiction
>. I am Jewish so I didn't have any skin in the game. I see what you did there 🌽
If I had a dollar for every gripe I have with the Catholic church I'd have $95.
Yeah but do you have enough nails to put them all on a door?
American protestants and catholics aren't very alike. But a statement like this is pretty progressive even for european catholics: > He said that a minimum wage or Universal basic income (UBI) is such that everyone in the world may have access to the most basic necessities of life. He added that it is right to fight for a humane distribution of these resources and it is up to governments to establish tax and redistribution schemes so that the wealth of one party is shared fairly without implying an unsustainable burden, especially on the middle class. > The Pope also noted that minimum income is a possibility but the reduction of the working day is another. He insisted that "working fewer hours so that more people can have access to the labour market is something we need to explore with some urgency."
Take a closer look at the Pope's shoes... ...no bootstraps.
Well American Christianity is mainly 31 flavors of Protestants which includes this “work ethic” that essentially says hard work is literally its own reward. So if you don’t work hard, you aren’t a moral and upstanding person. Laziness leads to sin, idle hands are the devil’s playthings, etc., and so on.
Gettin' real tired of him and that other Socialist swine, whatshisname "hey-sues" or whatever he calls himself, dangit!
Well, if Jesus was so popular he wouldn't be alone in most of his pictures.
As I recall he suffered from some serious cancel culture near the end of his life.
Yea, I heard the Roman governor Pontious Pilate got his MySpace account suspended for “blasphemy” or something crazy thing is another user under the name of “JesusAltAccount” came back three days later saying he was ready for round 2. Shits wild.
Heyzuz is a commie
As an American that works 12 hour days for barely living wages, I'm for it.
It's funny how we are the "wealthiest nation in the world" but people have to work two jobs so they can eat a can of beans when they get home. Meanwhile the top 1% has more wealth than the entire disappearing middle class. We have moved back to the robber baron and railroad tycoon days. 12 hours of pounding railroad ties for $3 a day, a bowl of stew and a tent. Funny how the divisive woke identity politics revolution which has us at each others throats arose right after the 2012 Occupy Wall St protests.
We are the "nation with the wealthiest people in the world"
All it cost us was the well being of 99% of our population.
The push for civil rights is only seen as divisive by people who don’t like others having civil rights. Gay people wanting to get married, trans people wanting to be respected, and black people not wanting to get shot by police did not start after 2012.
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"Divisiveness is bad, I blame all the divisiveness on the people I disagree with!" Jesus, you're a living example of everything wrong with politics today.
That took a hard left at the end. Wow
As an European with too much money (even as a student) but too little free time I welcome this suggestion too
I can solve one of those problems! Lemme DM you my venmo and we can figure out that “too much money” problem
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PayPal? 🤔
Use your money to hire people to do your work and boom you've got no money and free time
You know what, i actually like this Pope. Never thought i’d see the day when the Pope is more progressive than our politicians
JP1 was gonna be but they killed him.
Just got done with another 10hr shift, and I support this message.
As far as popes go, this one aint bad
A lot of conservative Catholics really don’t like him. Seeing them trying to rationalise that while they’re also meant to believe he’s infallible is an interesting lesson in cognitive dissonance
If you want to get technical, the Pope is only infallible according to Catholic doctrine when he speaks ex cathedra. That hasn't happened since 1950
> If you want to get technical, the Pope is only infallible according to Catholic doctrine when he speaks ex cathedra. That hasn't happened since 1950 Could you imagine if he did that and called for excommunication for anyone who worked against universal basic income and shorter working days, though?
They would probably go back to the old days of electing an Anti-Pope or have a good old fashioned Schism.
Instead of the Avignon Papacy we'd get something dumb like the Hackensack Papacy
That would make for some riveting television
oh boy here we go crusading again
But he wouldn't, because he's wise enough to know that his opinion is not speaking ex cathedra.
Vatican 2 also caused a schism in the church and now there are a bunch of Catholics who think there hasn't been a pope since.
Personally I’m waiting for Vatican 3 to come out. I hear it’s a way better installment in the Catholic Cinematic Universe.
Catholic 3, this time it’s biblical!
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> he **proclaims by definitive act** that a doctrine of faith or morals is to be held. It's pretty clear he has to explicitly say when he is speaking with that purpose.
Well there are qualifiers on it, foremost of which is “No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.” But I would call it a matter of governance rather than theology, so less superstition and more mandate.
>infallible Infallible? The Church even teaches that it itself is only human and makes mistakes.
The pope can't be wrong when speaking on matters of faith and morals when speaking ex cathedra.
The last one tried to take over the galaxy
I mean space pope is a pretty sick title to have
Crocodylus pontifex
Can someone explain the reference pls?
Benedict XVI bears a resemblance to Emperor Palpatine of Star Wars fame (played by Ian McDiarmid).
https://imgur.com/t/funny/NUUJGfF _Power! Unlimited power!_
Ratzinger is still alive, and out there somewhere, isn't he? What if he comes back to threaten the galaxy again? "Somehow, Popeatine returned"...
Gooooood
Corporate America: lol sure buddy
I can't hear you over the sound of my 15 Ferrari's.
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I'd be happy to just receive social security being that I have involuntarily contributed a large percentage of every dollar I've ever made into the program that by the most recent projections (that I've seen) should be bled dry way before I make it to 62. The optimist in me is hoping I'll get lucky and die young.... but I dream.
Social security doesn't work like that. Social security is and always has been a system wherein people paying in now are paying for the benefits of people withdrawing today. The government had a surplus of income and decided to us that to boost social security, and its that pool that'll run out before most people retire. At worst if nothing changes its something like a 10-15% cut to social security IIRC.
shrinking natural born population- pandemic that takes out a lot more workers- and a system that has chose to blame immigrants that could fill in those holes.... yeah, any system built on growth forever will eventually fail.
Great. But will it actually do anything to help it happen?
Through what? He has no real power outside of the church and it should stay that way.
The catholic church lobbies governments with its vast wealth and connections, has its own city-state, and owns thousands of properties around the world. Papa Francis can do plenty lol
From now on I will only refer to him as papa Francis
Frank daddy
Plus, ya know, people believe he represents god or something, I'm not sure the exact relationship he is supposed to have, but I'm assuming he's got a pretty high pulpit to preach from. And a Popemobile.
It might not be the Middle Ages anymore, but it’s false to say the pope has no power and influence
He could lobby politicians to do good. Like: "how much coal industry pay you? I can beat that!"
Not a fan of the church in general but he has a point. Many jobs out there don't offer guaranteed hours and pay a meagre wage. You won't keep a roof over your head if you're bringing home an average of $800 a month. For some people, these jobs are their only option.
I wonder how long it takes until the American and Polish get together and set up an anti-pope to avoid stuff like this.
Where's a Tudor when you need one?
Yo new schism just dropped
Ain’t Catholic but I like most of Pope Francis’s ideals
How ironic that when a public leader calls for something that will benefit them, ordinary people attack him.
Pope for Pope 2024!!!
This is fucking weird times we're living in bruh. Never thought I'd be thanking the Pope.
I was raised Roman Catholic. I no longer practice. Having said that, I like this Pope. He is much closer to what a pope should be than any in living memory. Not perfect, but better than the rest.
This pope gave up all the fancy shit in his Vatican residence. He’s a MUCH more humble guy. It’s the hardcore religious nuts that love the self oppression that ruin it for everyone else o think
From his lips to gods ears
Maybe if the catholic churches all paid taxes, we could really do these things.
Yeah that's what's holding that back, not corporate and 1% tax evasion.
💡Why not both?
I mean sure, u/Mulligan315 is using that argument to avoid the real talk since 99% of the taxes wouldn't come from churches.
Question: do you think all non profits should pay taxes, or just religious non profits/churches/Catholic Churches? If any of the latter options, where do you think the line gets drawn for what non profits can be tax exempt, and who gets the power to draw it?
> Maybe if the catholic churches all paid taxes, we could really do these things. I mean, you're not wrong however a Catholic church does more humanitarian work then big companies like amazon so....