- cross-posted to:
- atheism
- cross-posted to:
- atheism
Pope Francis last week approved a ruling at the Vatican that permitted priests to administer blessings to same-sex couples.
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Evangelical leader accuses pope of creating “division” with LGBTQ+ views
Oh, that’s rich, coming from someone who’s on the wrong side of pretty much everything.
Why is there a never ending series of these guys? Pat Robertson finally died and like Hydra there are two more to replace him
You only hear about the lead grifter at any point in time. There’s always a bunch of them.
As long as the money is there to grift, people will do so.
His dad, Billy, wrote an impassioned defense of the perpetrators of the Mai Lai massacre. The garbage apple doesn’t fall far from the garbage tree.
I went and seen WV Grant work his magic once. I wish I could remember the date so I could order the dvd haha.
His father did the same thing, and he passed the con on down the line.
He told several people that I know personally that they were healed of various problems. Of course, none of them were. I wish I had the balls of James Randi and I would’ve done my best to make a show of it. That’s difficult when you’re with your very religious family all expecting miracles though.
When I told my people of his various scams (fake orphanages in Haiti, tax evasion on his mansions they bought for him), I was accused of planting seeds of doubt that cost them their blessings. Apparently god can even work through a conman and believing is everything.
Great supernatural powers always seem to exist just around the corner. “I heard from a man I trust that magic filled the air and people who had been paralyzed 20 years got up and ran around.” Oh, ohhhhh, well hell, I didn’t know Bobby “Mack Daddy” Hicks was a witness. That changes everything.
I wish I didn’t have a conscience sometimes. It would be easier than ever to run that scam today. I’d make a Facebook account called “God Bible of the Living Jesus” and set up a tent revival. All I’d have to do is scan timelines for “pray for aint Betty. She have leg problem keep her wake all nite. A man.” and hit the stage, “Betty, Betty with the leg problems keeping her up all night! The lord said come see me Betty, get up here! Do you believe you’ll sleep tonight? Do you believe them leeeegggs gonna be healed? OH SHONDRA MAH HYBA MAH HEEP BABA MAKOYA! You’re healed if you believe it Betty! Who just felt the spirit flying all over this tent?!”
Poor Betty would think she just didn’t believe enough and I’d be standing at the bank the next morning with her disability check.
Unfortunately, I love poor Betty and I don’t even know her. Damn my conscience.
Also, Billy Graham’s Troubling, Nasty Nixon Moment
The legendary religious leader exposed a nasty side in a 1972 meeting with Richard Nixon.
Christian leader encourages love. Heretics/Pharisees get very angry and call for more hate. And Jesus wept.
Last I remember, Jesus never wept for the Pharisee but instead got angry and invoked the Table Flip meme.
Like this.
(-_- )ﾉ⌒┫ ┻ ┣ ┳
(c’mon he’s a demigod, he could totally do this)
Punishment for heresy is excommunication, used to be a fine and or imprisonment and sometimes to be burnt alive. Bible says to warn them twice then ignore them entirely ostracizing them from society. If they were real christens they should be canceling each other for biblical wrong think. Its hilarious that people who dont follow the faith, regularly know more about what the bible says then people who are adamant “followers”.
Almost like reading the book exposes a bunch of hypocracy within the organizations that preach it.
They want homophobia. The Pope will not give them that so they are upset.
Stop saying Jesus wept(!)
“Heretics.”
It may be convenient to distance yourself from this, but Christians that don’t actively support LGBTQ+ issues are still Christians. They’re not “heretics”.
In fact, I would say that the Christians that have decided to ignore parts of their supposed holy book because it isn’t convenient are more akin to “heretics.”
The bible is full of hate and bigotry, and it is very clear about homosexuality. As much as people want them to be, the two are not compatible.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Christians who think Jesus promoted hate are heretics.
The bible is not clear about homosexuality, the heretics just like to twist its words to try to justify their own hatred.
But it is very clear on how you should treat your neighbor. And that part those heretics ignore by the bucket load.
Paul is pretty clear, but there are a few interesting arguments based on context— or of course, arguments for scrapping Paul’s work.
I expect they were using the term heretic because “evangelical” generally implies protestantism, which split off from catholicism and so could technically be considered a heresy of it
All these satanic mfers wearing rayon and eating shellfish…
I’m Atheist but I guess you could rationalize it this way, Jesus never actually says anything about being gay in the new testament. That stuff comes from Paul’s letters.
Ok…? So you can ignore the entire old testament?
So is the Bible not God’s word then? Or only parts of it are? Who gets to decide which parts?
If there are parts in our current Bible that were included erroneously, then how can you know that others weren’t as well? How can you know that there aren’t other books that should have been included, but weren’t? Lots of gnostic gospels with some interesting stories, who gets to determine which ones are “real”?
Dear Protestants, you get less of a say in Catholicism than I do as an ex Catholic heretic as you tend to know basically nothing about Catholicism. Both of us, alongside lay Catholics, priests, monks, nuns, and even bishops get less of a say in Catholicism than the fucking pope, because he’s the goddamn pope. If you really want to overrule him have an ecumenical counsel that’s respected by the Catholic Church, it’s the only thing aside from a booming voice in the sky that gets to overrule the pope.
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Catholics are still on the conservative end of the religious spectrum, though, so evangelical leaders make Pope Francis appear even more progressive than he is. They’re like the perfect foils for him.
The pope is a jesuit. They usually are scholars and work in science. The pope is a chemist. Jesuit schools teach evolution and all that. Basically looked at like secular liberals by conservative catholics.
The current pope is a Jesuit, and Jesuits are typically among the more progressive Catholics. But Catholics in general are among the more conservative Christians, which is the point the comment you replied to was making.
It’s like American Democrats are on the global right wing of politics. Bernie and AOC being more left wing doesn’t change the fact that Democrats as a whole are neoliberals.
But Catholics in general are among the more conservative Christians,
In modern US? No. “Non-denominational”/Evangelical Christians tend to be far more conservative on average.
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Evangelicals really shouldn’t be commenting on the pope. They believe that Catholics aren’t Christian (or aren’t true Christians because of the whole icons and praying to the saints things). This guy needs to stay in his lane.
its funny considering catholics were literally the original church, and we ask saints to pray for us like how you would ask your loved ones to pray for you. i dont know why everyone else gets that saints part wrong about us like were worshipping saints
Evangelicals don’t care that they’re wrong. And they believe that the Catholic Church has wandered too far from the ‘original church’ to a point where it’s no longer actually worshiping god, but has been twisted by the devil. So they ‘return’ to how their idea of what ‘the original church’ is instead. They recognize, however that their worship is actually nothing like the original church and despite not having proper biblical support, believe they are actually worshiping the right way. It’s one of the many contradictions they actively hold highly.
This was my experience with evangelicals, which I’m rather sure is rather more expansive than most as I’ve lived all over the country attending several evangelical churches in each place, grew up VERY active with Billy graham ministries and focus on the family, spent my first 4 years of school in the evangelical home school system known as A.C.E., ‘interned’ for teen mania ministries which brought together evangelicals from around the world, all of whom conformed quite directly to this experience, and attended a Christian university where a pre-req was to do an academic deep dive into Christianity which is, unsurprisingly, the catalyst for what got me out… I of course spent more time learning about the evolution of evangelicalism than I did the rest of the denominations as I was continually having my world rocked by how little sense any of the general beliefs actually make and was desperately grasping for anything to settle my worldview back down.
Evangelicals are stupid, they know it, and they revel in their ignorance (faith of a child bullshit taken so far out of any semblance of context).
Catholics weren’t the original church. That claim of theirs basically hinges on the claim that Peter started the Papal succession which is bullshit also, when Peter came to Rome James was already Bishop in Jerusalem. Coptics are also definitely contenders, tracing themselves back to Mark. That was all before the New Testament was written, the newest parts date to as late as 100CE.
…and that’s organisationally. When it comes to rites and theology the Orthodox Churches and Coptics have a much better claim at being original, Rome forming its doctrine to serve the unity of state and governance of the people as they were essentially the ministry of religion. And thus arguably the last remnant of the administration of the Roman Empire, I’ll give them that.
As to idolatry: Protestants deny that there’s a distinction between dulia and latria, consider it a rhetorical justification ex post, “We’re doing that stuff but as we can’t be idolaters we must now make up new terms to explain how it’s not actually idolatry”. That’s, mind you, Calvin and Luther, not the current bunch of nutjob US evangelicals I doubt those have ever considered anything about theology.
preying to merry though, pretty common. funny though i was raised catholic but my mothers side are Irish protestant and i remember talking about the differences with my aunt, she said, you go to merry, we go to the man himself.
we go to both 😎 jesus will always listen to what his mother asks of him
thats very true. are you born again christian or always practiced?
i was raised catholic too
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But… evangelicals’ whole thing is making shit up about things they know nothing about. I say, let 'em shake their fist at this guy. 😜
Damnit, you’re right. They’re the nosy neighbor that’s constantly looking through their blinds and gossiping about everyone to everyone else. This is actually exactly in their wheelhouse.
Talibangelicals think all the lanes are theirs.
The Pope is in the right here.
The Pope allows “blessings” of gay couples but strictly outside of the contexts of anything resembling a marriage and actively opposes actual sanctification of a same sex or transgender marriage. I won’t argue it’s better than their kick in the face policy they used to have but that kernel of homophobia where they are treated as an illegitimate form of family unit is still alive and well and low key still impacting the worlwide fight to end the precarity around civil same sex unions.
Fighting between “they should be kicked in the teeth” and "they should be shut out in the cold but with a kind word to speed them on their way " is still an everybody the asshole situation.
I would personally love if they decided to ditch the Pauline chapters as their key guiding principles and stop listening to the jerk who canonically hallucinated Jesus after being hit in the head with a rock. Like… When most of your contradictions of Jesus’s teachings are from one guy with that particular pedigree maybe give it less weight?
Mind giving some context on the Pauline chapters thing? Seems interesting AF to spend an afternoon on.
Alright so wiki link to getcha started here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle
Is where a lot of early Christians got their message and first ideas of Christianity from. He never met Jesus when Jesus was alive. From the writings it’s easy to get a vibe that he was a sex repulsed asexual who didn’t want anybody to have sex. That it be within the confines of marriage and strictly procreative in purpose in that context reads a bit more like a concession to the practicality of his followership being a majority bunch of allosexuals. Jesus didn’t say much about sex outside of marriage and even refused to carry out punishments levied against adulterers. Arguably because God’s law is not for people to judge. Side note - Given that “washing of feet” is sometimes used as a period euphemism for sex and “feet or foot” often used to refer to the male member… Well Mary Magdeline drying his “feet” with her “hair” may not have been referring to the hair on her head so to speak and Jesus may have been fairly sex positive.
But back to Paul. Paul comes along and writes rather eloquently about how he had a vision and that Jesus signed off on him… But the bits that biblically vouch for Paul’s authority as personally invested by Jesus is all written of by Paul. Dude basically pulled a "here’s the rules I wrote about why the rules I wrote are rules. Paul’s teachings being included in the Bible does make sense from the perspective of figuring out where certain cultural aspects of Christianity came from. By establishing himself as an early authority he basically got to codify and pass his veiws off as gospel… But his stuff is also lousy with contradictions because people used him as an easy way to hijack stuff. Out of the 27 bible sections attributed to him only 14 show consistency in syntax and style prompting the belief that there are more than a few forgeries slipped into the mix.
In general what we can gather from Paul’s veiws is he is pro-establishment. He preaches that government rule is legitimate and backed by God. He is where we get such gems as women not being eligible for priesthood (aside from the exceptions of the one he elevated) and that leadership “dignity” and authority in the Church was a suitable reward for supplying the church with material wealth and resources.
He also was fairly dismissive and even supportive of slavery framing metaphorically everyone as slaves to Jesus first… Which was pretty rich given he was hobnobbing with rich folks and encouraging them to support the church he was building. Modern Christian scholarship gets around this by proclaiming that slavery at the time “really wasn’t all that bad” … Which is bullshit. Slavery at the time absolutely was chattel slavery. You were legally allowed to do whatever you wanted to slaves including killing them and the children of slaves became your property by extention. This all makes sense for Paul though because he fetishized suffering making him a solid foundation for the Christian martyr complex. A lot of the things the Church has been criticized for - the abuses of power, the hoarding of wealth the frank misogyny and exploitation… A lot of it finds it’s justification in Paul.
“He is where we get such gems as women not being eligible for priesthood (aside from the exceptions of the one he elevated)”
Oh yeah, this guy’s teachings are absolutely the word of God to many people.
Great post too.
Thank you!
Paul’s inclusion in the bible does make sense…I just don’t think it does from an actual “this is what the intentions of Jesus were” kind of way. Problem is too many people read every inclusion in the book as though it is a tacit endorsement of everything in there and not just citations of early deviations in the intergenerational game of telephone.
My Grans and Gramps on my Mum’s side were major critics of Paul and I think three generations down it’s the best gift we coulda had. Growing up with zero religious trauma coming from inside the house was a blessing. My fam are the most lovable and happy buncha muppets you can find.
Thanks a lot!
No fair, him being infallible and all.
I wonder if this guy has ever heard of the reformation.
Someone should nail a note to his door that spells out everything wrong with what he believes and at the bottom a url to a rickroll
More like 95 feces, amirite?
Luther was a literal shit eater.
The Pope, according to Catholics, is God’s chosen mouthpiece here on Earth. The only divisions he could possibly be creating are divisions between who are faithful servants of God and who are sinners. This isn’t my opinion, it’s in the book they all claim to have read.
The pope’s infallibility isn’t really in “the book”, being a fairly recent innovation circa 1870.
Look, he’s banking on them not reading the bible and you are not helping.
Yeah it’s always fun how when these folks disagree with someone else, the pope even, it’s the other guy’s fault for the disagreement happening. As if the moral universe revolved around them and it really was as simple as if everyone agreed with me there’d be “no division”.
Also, there’s this
Pope: Who are you to tell me, you heretical non-Catholic!
But seriously, I think the Evangelical leader is just trying to win brownie points from his own flock. “See I am right unlike the heathen Catholics!”
There’s no infighting like church infighting. One of them has to be right, right??
Creating “division” with inclusion… yes how dare he?
When was the last time a Protestant leader had something good to say about the Pope?
Last week, Pope Francis approved a ruling at the Vatican that permitted priests to administer blessings to same-sex couples.
I don’t think so.
Edit:
This is also the understanding of marriage that is offered by the Gospel. For this reason, when it comes to blessings, the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion. Such is also the meaning of the Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which states that the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2023/12/18/0901/01963.html#en
What do you mean, you don’t think so? He did.
This is also the understanding of marriage that is offered by the Gospel. For this reason, when it comes to blessings, the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion. Such is also the meaning of the Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which states that the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2023/12/18/0901/01963.html#en
picking the part you like and presenting it out of context. Very Christian of you.
As opposed to everyone else who is ignoring that part.
There is nuance, but people are saying things like “the pope created another kind of marriage.”
Arguably, the Pope has said it was always like this and hasn’t changed anything.
Which is… A tall argument to make given how many priests are pissed off about the Pope’s announcement.
Note: I am Catholic. Ama I guess, lol. But technically speaking, this is just how the Church always has been and therefore no change happened.
You’re contradicting yourself in your own comment my guy. It’s always been this way, but that’s a tall argument to make, but no change happened? What are you even arguing?
They are catholic after all
Would it be Christianity without the contradictions?
I’m saying that technically speaking, the Pope hasn’t invoked any change in Catholic faith with his preaching, and is instead arguing to a change of understanding of the Catholic doctrine. Its both a big deal and a not-big-deal. It’s only a big deal if people make it into a big deal kinda thing. And… yes… people are making it into a bigger deal than it should be.
Not gay people mind you. This is good for LGBT+ communities. The people who are mistaken are the ultra-conservatives who think that things have changed dramatically with this announcement.
Jesus always called upon us to preach and try to understand outsiders. The Good Samaritan for example, was literally a non-religious outsider who Jesus specifically called out as a blessed person. None of this is necessarily “new preaching” from the current Pope, but instead a focus upon other elements of scripture.
Priests can bless sinners, heathens, pagans, etc. etc. Jesus chose literally corrupt Tax Collectors to become his Apostles for example. As such: Priests are supposed to bless even the most sinful among us… and are called to do so. A blessing is not supposed to be condoning a person’s behavior or a statement of morality. So even if you are a priest who believes that homosexuality is sinful, there’s nothing stopping you from blessing homosexuals (or if you are in that position, its arguably more important for you to bless them. A priest’s damn job is to reach out to sinners after all).
The reason such a statement is so annoying to the ultra-conservatives, is because they want to use Catholicism / Religion as a cudgel against gay people, when that never was the purpose of religion to begin with. This is literally a faith that was supposed to spread universally across the world after all. That’s literally what it means to be Catholic (IE: universal)
Ultimately, I’m saying yall should work with what the Pope is trying to say here. He’s thought deeply about this preaching and its a good argument. Both for Catholics and those outside of it (at least, if you want to understand how Catholics think/preach/etc. etc.)
That’s kind of the rule in Catholicism. They don’t really believe in changing a perfect church. They just reinterpret what obviously already was sacred tradition.
Ehhh. Two Truths from St. Thomas Aquinas says otherwise. If science is true and if God doesn’t lie to us, then whatever God teaches must be compatible with science. So yes, discoveries of the scientific type force us to change our understanding of faith.
But its not like say… Gravity didn’t exist 2000 years ago or something. Earth always was a floating orb circling the sun, even if earlier Catholics didn’t believe that (just as an example). And therefore, St. Thomas Aquinas would argue the Good Catholic would change their mind and understanding of faith.
If we have two truths that contradict, then the only alternative is that our understanding of those truths is faulty.
The Church has immobile “Mysteries” that have been documented by the Council of Nicea as per our Nicene Creed. These are (in practice), the only immobile elements of our faith that remain unchanging. Most other elements and arguments of morality are (and have) changed as society has changed. None of this is new to a Catholic who has studied our history. A large element of change and improvement is built into the Church.
IE: The concept of Limbo has been removed from our faith within the lifetimes of the elders. If you want a more recent example. The indulgence thing back from Martin Luther’s days (the 1500s guy, not the 1950s guy) is also a change.
But in any case, this particular doctrine with regards to blessings of homosexuals isn’t a change on the scale of Limbo or whatever. Pope Francis is just saying that Priests are 100% absolutely allowed (and probably preferred) to bless homosexuals together, as long as the ritual isn’t confused for marriage (which is one of our deeply sacred sacraments, of which we believe has a large element of procreation / making babies).
Priests are called upon to do all kinds of blessings: house blessings, throat blessings, etc. etc. It shouldn’t be too surprising that Priests can make other blessings on the spot or invent new ones. This sort of thing (IE: Blessing of two Homosexuals) that is going on has always been part of a Priest’s power, so to speak.
Its only “confusing” to ultra-conservatives because they wanted an excuse from on-high saying that blessings of homosexuals was against our faith for some reason.
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It’s just my religion dude. Just like living and breathing to me. No big deal. I grew up and memorized this stuff.
It’s near effortless. So don’t worry about it. A lot of this stuff is just base level precanned arguments honestly.
On the other hand, imagine coming to a topic about the Pope and matters of faith and deciding to close your mind about basic facts pertaining to Catholicism. Like, what the hell are YOU doing in this topic?
What? As a Catholic you would know the pope is a representative of Jesus Christ. It isn’t up for discussion if he decrees something
What? As a Catholic you would know the pope is a representative of Jesus Christ.
Ummm… you mean Peter, right? The Pope as an institution is derived of Jesus’s promise to Peter, and not from Jesus himself per se. Jesus is God. If God wants to do something, He needs no representative. It just happens.
It isn’t up for discussion if he decrees something
Did the Pope speak ex cathedra here?
Note: there are only a few times in the past millennia that a Pope has ever invoked ex cathedra.
What kind of bad Hollywood movie or anime did you learn Catholic values from?
EDIT: I’m just noticing now that your post is 10 days old. It looks like lemm.ee had some sync issues with lemmy.world. The server finally notified me of your response. Apologies if this is digging up an old, week old subject. But I promise it was at the top of my inbox yesterday when I responded.
Yes, he actually did.
To keep in line with the scripture that defines the sacrament of marriage as between a man and a woman, he created a second type of marriage for everyone else so their unions may be officially blessed by the church, and basically said that it is not up to the church to judge people for their way of life but up to god. Francis has actually been a very progressive pope, making great strides to make the church a more welcoming place.
Disclaimer: I’m an atheist myself, not a catholic. Still I can commend positive change, and the fact that so many more bigoted church people are bitching about what he did should emphasize the seriousness of his changes.
So people ask priests to bless stuff rather often. Stuff like babies, boats, cars, fields, tractors, running shoes, and whatever else. This is the kind of religious tradition that goes back a long way before Christianity, but nevertheless, the Roman Catholic church has policies, procedures, and liturgical texts for how to do it.
These types of blessings are not usually a major part of spiritual life for most people.
Previously, it was explicitly forbidden for a priest to offer this kind of blessing to a sane-sex couple. That is now permitted, but the priest must take steps to ensure that no one is confused that this might be a marriage, which it is definitely not (in the eyes of the church).
The holy blessing of the server room
If Radius stays up for a week I’ll convert.
sane-sex couple
Heh
Mythical, no such entity
he created a second type of marriage for everyone else so their unions may be officially blessed by the church
The church doesn’t have the power to create different types of marriages and neither does the pope. I do not believe the nature of the change made is being described or reported accurately. It is being oversimplified.
Francis has actually been a very progressive pope, making great strides to make the church a more welcoming place.
I agree. I think a lot of changes he has made are good. I think this change is good. I think reporting on it has been dumbed down to the point of being incorrect.
From my understanding he didn’t create any sort of new officially sanctioned union. He simply allowed blessings of same sex couples with some caveats. Mostly that the blessing cannot occur directly in connection with any sort of union ceremony (marriage, civil union, etc) and that it cannot involve any of the typical trappings of a marriage ceremony so as to avoid confusion.
So basically, you can’t get the blessing at your actual wedding. You can’t get the blessing if you show up in tuxedos/bridal dresses, exchange rings, whatever else even if technically it isn’t a wedding. Simply show up together on any random day as a couple and ask for a blessing without those things? Sure they’ll do it. Whereas before they couldn’t.
Whereas before they couldn’t.
In the USA. But I hear that German priests were doing this blessing. So the Pope needs to make an announcement to keep the Church unified on this issue.
Keep reading:
Within the horizon outlined here appears the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex
