Do you think that in the organization of the Catholic Church, the Pope is maybe just a little, a tad higher in the org chart than “a priest”?
It’s a bit like if a customer had a problem with Windows 8, and Bill Gates offered to come to their house and personally fix their operating system. That would be pretty amazing, no?
To me, a closer analogy would be if Microsoft wouldn’t let you buy Windows 8 and were being nasty to you and Bill Gates said if you couldn’t find it anywhere he’d personally sell you a copy. You’re still having to go through the effort, still having to deal with all the shit from the people treating you badly, and it doesn’t actually address the problem of getting treated like shit in the first place. Oh, and you have to pony up the cost of the software.
Wait, it would be hard to find a regular priest who would baptize the baby? Seriously? I mean, sure, it’s a nice gesture, but why is a priest allowed to deny the baby a baptism? Says a lot about just how backward the church is that this is even an issue.
Yeah. Maybe he could change things so that all babies are eligible for baptism. Make it wrong for priests to deny baptism in cases like this.
Meh. It’s great that he may be trying to drag the church into the twentieth century. He probably does see a religion heading towards irrelevancy and wants to stop that (good luck with that). Wake my up when they get around to becoming a twenty-first century church.
Hey! 
Seriously, it’s nice to see this level of the church even talking about change but until we see a papal bull actually telling the various diocese around the world to pull their heads in and stop screwing with things I shall remain sceptical.
I think that he understands that life and fellowship were being overshadowed by traditions and emphasis on the authority of the Church. Love thy neighbor as thyself is a central teaching of the church, and it isn’t an obvious part of life and culture. The RCC has developed a reputation about being involved in all the “do nots”. Well, the do nots are pretty damn obvious for the ones everyone agrees on, the the controversial ones have come to dominate all aspects of the public face of the Church.
This guy impresses me. And I’m a Protestant.
As for doing things, the Pope doesn’t get to just pass the equivalent of new Church laws. He is very powerful, but largely as an example and saying things. And this guy knows it. I hope that he has a long enough tenure to appoint like minded people. The last two Popes relied for decades on appointments recommended by Ratzinger (Benedict) and removed a lot of diversity in the leadership. How Francis got elected must be a very interesting piece of history.
This guy impresses me and I am an Atheist
Capt
I’m pretty impressed so far and I’m kind of a lapsed Catholic (mostly about attending church). Even if he’s obviously conservative and won’t change some things, I love his more humble tone and his apparent charisma (I really liked JPII for similar things). I couldn’t stand Benedict and his fumbling ways.
I would love to see what he does with the sex abuse crisis and the calls for more openness about past abuses.
I think you’re being a little cynical here -
It’s an unwed mother, so by the precepts of the church, it’s a baby conceived in sin* - and here you have the leader of the church (not just any old priest) saying that he will back the mother’s decision to go ahead as an unwed mother. It’s a pretty symbolic and supportive thing to do in aid of “pro life” (IMHO)
Well, Catholicism is also a religion, and the Bible does condemn homosexuality. Even the Pope can’t amend the Bible. Sure, churches all over fudge meanings and interpretations, but the Bible is too clear on that particular issue for there to be any fudging.
The symbolism and the message that would send is pretty epic though right?
it’s like all the stories you hear about the CEOs that still “walk the shop floor floor” - those organisations pretty invariably have a whole culture of great customer service,
To have the titular head of an organisation willing to do something, in person, that many of the rank and file see as controversial sets the sort of example that can bring about change -
Hell, if my CEO can do it, then I pretty damn sure can as well right? And it gives priests a way to “pushback” against their higher ups in any sort of controversy, and the “authority” to buck and push back against colleagues and superiors that perhaps hold a more traditional view.
At this point even the catholic church admits that illegitimate children are not inherently guilty of anything more than any other infant. A priest who refuses to baptize the child of an unwed mother who wishes to raise the child in the catholic church and simply doesn’t have a spouse is an asshole.
It’s an interesting quote given that one of Benedict’s more famous comments is that he’d rather the church be a small mustard seed of the truly faithful. I can’t help but read it as a slight rebuff.
It is also clear on not condemning slavery. In any case, the Catholic Church did not look at just the bible for guidance on what to do regarding slavery in modern times, and when it finally accepted Galileo and Darwin the Bible still reports that the sun circles around the earth and that there was no evolution.
I see no reason why not to expect that someday the hang up against homosexuality will also fade for the C Church.
There’s a difference between tolerating something, as the Bible does with slavery and polygamy, and forbidding something, as the Bible does with divorce and sex outside of marriage.
Christians aren’t required to have slaves. They are required to wait until marriage to have sex. Fornication will never cease to be a sin anymore than Jews will start saying it’s okay to work on Sabbath.
And I can’t figure out why the hell you wouldn’t be impressed by that. It’s Bill Gates flat out saying that everyone else is wrong. And admitting that, since he’s not directly in control of his company anymore, he can’t make people do the right thing. The only thing he can do is withdraw his money, which would result in Microsoft failing, not forcing people to do what he wants.
Similarly, the Pope can’t force priests to do something that said priests think go against what the Bible says. He risks a schism in the church, along with a forced retirement in order to fix it. The Pope’s power is rather limited, just like Gates’s power.
Not really. They could do what a lot of Episcopalians do and say that the word for homosexuality doesn’t include loving relationships between equals, and only talks about the homosexual practices of the day, which are remarkably different.
Heck, that’s pretty much what I argue now. The word is not nearly so clear cut as most modern Bible translations would have you believe.
Far more problematic are scriptures about women, and yet those have been mostly ignored–you don’t see anyone in the Catholic church saying that women can’t teach, for example, or that they can’t cut their hair or wear jewelry. (They do do it about priests, but that’s based on a different scripture and more Tradition than anything.)
I suppose if gays can marry, then the church could say that it’s not a sin if done only in marriage.
It also forbids lobster and shrimps. And do not get funny by mixing materials in your clothing.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl2.htm
Now go, except where the Catholic Church did go, and do not eat Beef Stroganoff. 
Only two people weren’t, so this isn’t surprising.
Jews actually do consider disobeying these laws to be a sin. That being said, most Jews pay no attention to the Law. But you’ll never see Jews lobbying rabbis to endorse their behavior.
As humans we have the right to rebel, but we don’t have the right to have our rebellion endorsed by religious authorities. Jews have long been comfortable just being sinners, Christians should get used to it too. recognizing that we are sinners holds out hope that we might change. Declaring us to no longer be sinners, that now our pork-eating and sabbath-working is okay, means we not only won’t change, we’ve flatly rejected our heritage. We Jews don’t try to change God.
Likewise, most Christians fornicate. Yet many insist that they are not sinning, which is ridiculous. Christians seem to be trying to change God, rather than just living with the fact of their disobedience or disbelief. They want the “Buddy Jesus”.
As Paolo Pasolini and others could point out, Christianity was a rebellion. They eventually won over Rome. Chances are that even this Pope will not make many changes, But religions that do not change ever eventually fade, the best and most successful option is to change with the times as the dropping of slavery (that was mentioned even in the ten commandments with no condemnation of it) is helping to the continuation of the old time religions.