Pope Francis has died (updated 21st April 2025)

I don't know ..something called Divine Intervention and Papal Infallibillity maybe 🤔

Or as another poster said earlier some " woo woo " like that !

So another religious leader dies like every other previous one of any religion and like every single person will, yet they seek to exert rules and influence over their fellow humans by claiming they know what will happen after you die.

Funny none of them are ever in a rush to die themselves.

This thread is supposed to be about the passing of the pope but instead its turned into a free for all to bash those pesky catholics.

Condemning the church for its failures to address its wrongdoings isn't even bashing the church, never mind bashing catholics

Even if the church was being bashed, that's not the same as bashing catholics either.

Can't discuss the man without discussing his career - can't discuss his career without discussing the organisation he led and how much it has or hasn't changed and the state it's currently in.

Catholicism not Catholics.

I'd actually say people are being pretty reasonable. A discussion happening feels pretty inevitable.

Ah come on, that has been happening on other 'RIP'/death threads for years. This is the CA forum too.

Why don't you set up an RIP Only thread where only RIPs and positive comments about the pope and Catholicism are allowed? Automatic bans for negative comments. Call it the Cover Up thread or some such.

Are you that delicate you need to resort to gaslighting people for having an opinion?

Proves`the point. Was there for 27 years which is far too long for any senior position. Approx 10 years is max. That's why USA has two term limit. People become power sick, complacent and delusional. A pope is no different.

If people are going to be posting about him being a "reformer" then the posters who disagree are perfectly entitled to challenge it.

He was head of an organisation full of rapists and human traffickers and people who falsely claim he challenged that should be called out. Same for speaking out both sides of his mouth on homosexuals.

But of course catholics love nothing more than playing the victim.

One can rightfully condemn and hate certain or all elements of the RCC but one can't do that without acknowledging that western culture as we know it (by any measure the best place and time to live in human history for most inhabitants of the west and beyond) wouldn't exist without the Church.

Next to nothing would have been preserved through the Dark Ages without the church, from building technology, political thought, etc.

Without the Reformation there would be no industrial revolution and everything that came from that.

The idea that 5th century Ireland would have been better off without the church is laughable. Go visit Afghanistan or similar if unsure because it's going to be a lot closer to 5th Ireland that what you know.

"acknowledging that western culture as we know it (by any measure the best place and time to live in human history for most inhabitants of the west and beyond) wouldn't exist without the Church"

Ya as we know it. You don't know that it wouldn't have been way better. Firstly the Dark Ages is pretty much a myth. Europe did not take huge steps backwards after the fall of Rome and it wasn't just the church preserving and advancing at the time.

The whole post is just balls from start to finish.