The New Pope!

TP1969 wrote: »

To me what's interesting is why you appear to care.

Are you not equally interested in why ewan whose army appears to care?

Islam can be criticised on similar grounds, and more stridently.

Same goes (to varying degrees) for evangelical Christians, some Protestant faiths, some Jewish orders etc.

This isn't a thread on a new head of Islam or other religion however. It's about the RCC.

Given also that the RCC is the largest and most powerful religious group in this country, it's views or positions will obviously be more relevant.

suicide_circus wrote: »

I am aware of this but since i dont allow meaningless pieces of paper to keep me awake at night, i think i'll save the price of a stamp and not write to the bishop.

Its not about pieces of paper, its about officially saying no thanks, count me out, and not being included as one of the 1.2 billion in their stats.

TP1969 wrote: »

I have no idea who Ewan is, or "ewun whose army" is. I've read your post a number of times and have no idea what it means.

Ewan Whose Army is the username of a poster who has posted earlier in this thread.

My opinion is that if this new pope somehow can steer the church in a newer, more innovative, more enlightened direction and which demonstrates compassion for those that need it most, then I would view this as a positive but I'll reserve judgement until then.

As a lapsed Catholic, I'm not overly enthusiastic about seeing any change. The Catholic Church does not figure in my life (apart from my parents disappointment that I'm not practicing but that's another story) but I see how it figures strongly in so many others lives, particularly here in Ireland and even within the LGBT community.

Francis already said he wants his papacy to focus on the poor. I'm hoping his reference of poor encompasses those who have suffered compassion poverty by past papal regimes (the LGBT community, child sex abuse victims etc). Already, there are some reports that his opinions regarding LGBTs are sadly in line with Benedict before him so I'm not holding my breath.

ongarboy wrote: »

Ewan Whose Army is the username of a poster who has posted earlier in this thread.

My opinion is that if this new pope somehow can steer the church in a newer, more innovative, more enlightened direction and which demonstrates compassion for those that need it most, then I would view this as a positive but I'll reserve judgement until then.

As a lapsed Catholic, I'm not overly enthusiastic about seeing any change. The Catholic Church does not figure in my life (apart from my parents disappointment that I'm not practicing but that's another story) but I see how it figures strongly in so many others lives, particularly here in Ireland and even within the LGBT community.

Francis already said he wants his papacy to focus on the poor. I'm hoping his reference of poor encompasses those who have suffered compassion poverty by past papal regimes (the LGBT community, child sex abuse victims etc). Already, there are some reports that his opinions regarding LGBTs are sadly in line with Benedict before him so I'm not holding my breath.

No idea what a lapsed Catholic is.

Focusing on the poor makes me laugh when you see the splendor that the pope and his cohorts live in. Did you seriously not notice that?

peter barrins wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yeah but the church seem to take a teeeeny bit of a harder line on gay sex than straight sex out of marriage! Why the difference if those outspoken on it aren't bigots?

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'll make this as simple as I can. Ewan whose army's post, number #82 in this thread, claims that Benedict XVI made a certain statement about homosexuality. In fact he never made that statement, and the purpose of my post was to point this out.

Did the pope ever say this???

“We embrace the homosexual not as intrinsically evil but as somewhat intrinsically evil. I pray, as we all do, that through God’s grace, he can find the path back to redemption.”

paulmorro wrote: »

Did the pope ever say this???

“We embrace the homosexual not as intrinsically evil but as somewhat intrinsically evil. I pray, as we all do, that through God’s grace, he can find the path back to redemption.”

No, he didn’t.

On the one hand, the vatican.va website, which gives a full transcript of every public address the pope gives, has no record of him saying this.

On the other hand, a number of blogs, etc, claim that he did.

On the third hand, those of them that give any cite for the claim lead, directly or indirectly, to a report in BeyondChron, “San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily”. You can read that report here: http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=6759. This seems to be the origin of the story. BeyondChron says that its story is based on remarks made by the pope in his general audience on 1 April 2009, but in fact the Vatican website gives a full transcript of what he said on that occasion, and it shows that he spoke about his then-recent trip to Africa, about the work of reconciliation following civil war in Angola and about interfaith relations in Cameroon. Nothing about teh gays.

The BeyondChron piece is attributed to Tommi Avicolli-Mecca, the author of, among other works, Smash the Church, Smash the State: the Early Years of Gay Liberation. So, possibly more of an advocate than a dispassionate journalist, then.

And, on the fourth hand, the BeyondChron piece was published on April 1 2009, and includes a quote from a “Vatican spokesman” called Fr. Guido Pieno Merda, which is the Italian for Fr. Guido Full of Sh*t. And it also contains a quote attributed to a “gay Catholic spokesperson” called Christina Wimpson. A google search against her name returns just one hit, which is this very piece in BeyondChron. Not a very active “spokesperson”, then.

So, the BeyondChron piece is a spoof. And the people who take it seriously are gullible idiots whose sarcasm meter needs serious recalibration. And people who circulate it in discussions about justice and equality for LGBT people may be well-intentioned, but they’re not exactly helping the cause. There are very serious criticisms to be made of the Catholic church here. Basing arguments on fabricated and easily-debunked “quotes” of this kind can only tend to give the impression that criticism of the Catholic church is so ill-founded that people have to invent “evidence” to back them up.

paulmorro wrote: »

Fair play! God forbid I don't heavily research everything that's pretty widely reported.

Nor do I.

But, welcome to the internet. In this brave new media world, you need to keep your sceptical bull**** detectors fully loaded and in your hand at all times. Newspapers have some processes in place for ensuring that they don’t print fiction as fact too often; blogs and discussion forums mostly have none. And the more appealing a particular claim is to the prejudices and preconceptions of the blogger/contributor, the more likely it is to be accepted at face value and recycled as true.

The result is that a fair proportion of what you read is, in fact, crap. And, human nature being what it is, the more you like what you read, the less likely you are to realise that it is, in fact, crap.

You can’t fact-check every claim made, so I think the only viable stance is one of cautious scepticism; this could be bull**** so I will try not to allow it to influence my thinking too much, unless I am interested or intrigued enough to dig into it a bit myself, and find out whether it really has legs.

paulmorro wrote: »

Anyway, can't find any source myself so fine, though I'm not a gullible idiot!

Wasn’t intending to name you as a gullible idiot, Paul. Your only contribution about this claim was to ask if the claim was true, which is precisely the kind of question we need to ask in order to avoid gullibility and idiocy.

paulmorro wrote: »

Would it be idiotic to believe the widespread press reports from last year of him talking about gay marriage being one of the threats to marriage that undermined the future of humanity??? That seems pretty over the top from someone so balanced on the issue.

It would be idiotic to accept all the reports uncritically. Feelings on this subject run so high - on both sides - that it’s likely that much of what gets written about this will be selective, distorted, misinterpreted or just flat-out wrong. On the other hand, much of it will be fair and/or true. The problem is telling one from the other without actually doing all the fundamental research yourself which, realistically, is impossible. I think, over time, you can form opinions as to the relative credibility of various sources, and you can also look for articles which seem to at least try to understand and engage with opposing views. But I still think you need a measure of reserve in the degree of confidence you place in most of what you read on the internet.

paulmorro wrote: »

" policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself" - direct quote from reputable sources. Words of a holy man speaking the truth? Or an old bigot?

He did say that: you can read the full text of his address here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2012/january/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20120109_diplomatic-corps_en.html

Holy man speaking the truth? Old bigot? False dichotomy? Your view is as good as anyone else's (and certainly as good as mine). But I think to form a meaningful view you're going to have to read the address to see exactly what are the "policies" he is speaking of, and why he thinks they are threatening.

The address touches on bileteral and multilateral international relations, education, health care, social services, the war in South Sudan, the global financial crisis, poverty, unemployment, the activist movement, human rights, religious discrimination, the Syrian rebellion, Palestine and Israel, youth, education, the family, marriage, human development, the patenting of human tissue, abortion, schools, religiously-motivated terrrorism, Italy, Benin, Nigeria, civil war, the environment and climate change.

And yet most or all of the many reports of this address lead with (and mostly confine themselves entirely to) the quote you mention, presenting is as a univocal comment about gay marriage. If you relied on the media, not only would you have no idea why the pope thinks the future of humanity threated by gay marriage, but you'd also have no idea that he had anything to say on any other topic. You'd be left with the impression that the pope is wholly preoccupied with sex when, in truth, that impression is created by the media's preoccupation more than by the pope's.

I disagree strongly with [what I understand to be] the pope's views on gay marriage. But I think what all this suggests is that the pope's views are being filtered to you in a highly selective fashion by a media that's obsessed by the intersection between religion and sex, but has no interest in presenting these in a coherent or even intelligible fashion. And, in keeping with the spirit of cautious scepticism I advocated earlier, I'm just not prepared to denounce anyone as an "old bigot" (or to praise him as a "holy man") on the strength of that kind of media coverage.

To have no interest in the Catholic church's position on homosexuality (or anything else) is fine, and I wouldn't criticise anybody for that. But if you do care about it, then the kind of mainstream media coverage it gets is just not going to equip you to get to grips with it. This is definitely one of those areas where you'll have to dig a bit deeper if you want to understand what's being said, and to criticise it to some effect.

paulmorro wrote: »

Yeah but the church seem to take a teeeeny bit of a harder line on gay sex than straight sex out of marriage! Why the difference if those outspoken on it aren't bigots?

And what about blow jobs within a marriage? My understanding is that any "sex" that cannot lead to conception is equally immoral and unnatural.

If religious leaders were forced to condemn intra-marital oral sex every time they condemned sodomy, you'd quickly see the masses reject any and all arguments against "unnatural sexual practices."

TP1969 wrote: »

How about women? Thats half the human population there as a whole.

My point is that the pope is less and less relevant to more and more people. I welcome that, as the history of the catholic church is one that includes rape, torture, brutalising humans and murder, and unspeakable and horrendous actions. Whatever their position is on whether or not I am allowed to wear a condom, or what sexual positions I am allowed to engage in, when, and with whom, is of supreme indifference to me.

What puzzles me is why others here seem to actually care what the pope says or thinks. In an LBGT thread, where the catholic church has been, and continues to be, unspeakably cruel to and about LGBT people, why would anyone concern themselves what this corrupt and disgusting institution thinks, a church led by a clutch of hysterical virgins.

I simply can't understand that, and wonder why it is so many seem to be unable to disengage from such a disgusting institution, and remain concerned about it at the same time as the are told they are "morally disordered individuals" by a clutch of hysterical old men who control the catholic church.

I don't care what they think. I care about what they do.

I care about the legislative and social initiatives they spend vast amounts of money and political influence in supporting or opposing. I care about the message they send to confused catholic teens or to catholic families of gay people and the damage that does.

It's great that they seemingly don't effect your life. If and when marriage equality comes up for a vote here, I would be very much surprised if the Catholic Church wasnt at the forefront of the opposition - in which case what they say and do could potentially have a detrimental effect on my life and relationships.

So yes, I am concerned by what the new pope, the man who lead the (thankfully failed) opposition to marriage equality in Argentina, says and does.

ewan whose army wrote: »

Well I care since I am from a Catholic background, and since in Ireland RC still has alot of influence in politics and stuff I have the right to care.

Sure. I'm not questioning that. TP1969 is.

peter barrins wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Why would someone care if two men or two women get married if they're not bigots? Surely it's just homophobia?