In the greatest rebuke yet to Pope Francis, the Catholic bishops of Africa and Madagascar issued a unified statement Thursday refusing to follow his declaration allowing priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples and asserting that such unions are “contrary to the will of God.”

The statement, signed by Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo on behalf of the symposium of African national bishops conferences, marked the closest thing to a continent-wide dissent from the declaration Francis approved Dec. 18 allowing priests to offer such blessings.

That declaration from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has sent shock waves through the Catholic Church, thrilling LGBTQ+ Catholics as a concrete sign of Francis’ message of welcome but alarming conservatives who fear core doctrines of the church are being ignored or violated.

      • teft
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        611 months ago

        We actually can’t tell if the funny hats are conserved. We call this the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

        This guy Heisenberg came up with it:

      • FaceDeer
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        211 months ago

        In my experience funny hats can be created out of non-funny hats pretty easily. I don’t think that conservation law holds.

        • @twack
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          411 months ago

          That is because all non-funny hats are also funny hats at the same time. It is only at the moment of observation that a hat decides whether it is funny or not funny.

          We refer to this phenomenon as Schrödinger’s hat.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 months ago

          Ah but the total funniness of the hats is still conserved; you may be creating a funny hat from non-funny hats, but the total funniness is the same as the sum of the earlier hats.