Good Pope/Bad Pope

I’m not sure how it’s even possible, long term or not, for the Church to accept gays. How can they with that bible verse saying it’s an abomination (Leviticus 18:22)? Is there any wiggle room when interpreting that verse? Or can it be ignored like Leviticus 19:19 which prohibits stuff like mixing seeds when sowing and wearing garments with mixed fibers?

For the 2,478th time, Catholics (and Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, and you-name-its) do not think that your life is constrained by the Bible taken as some sort of handy-dandy legal manual. That verse, along with the other ones, has had several passes through Great Debates in which the significance of it in context [“Don’t take part in Ba’alite fertility rites, whether they involve sacrificing babies, making love to your sheep, or copulating with the priest or priestess”] and its total inapplicability to a committed same-sex union, has been set forth, including by people with theological degrees in interpreting this stuff.

All I can figure is that it must be a fun way to have on hand to slam somebody else, that it’s cool to take the evangelical literalist position and tarbrush everybody else for holding it, and that the facts about what different groups believe don’t make any difference if you have a desire to slam them. But it does get rather irritating to keep explaining it and have the same arguments thrown back at you over and over again, especially from people who were here the last six times it was dealt with.

I’d say bad overall… in a honest bigoted religious way of course… but bad nonetheless.

I sure hope this is a chance for the Church to get a bit more modern and less conservative on health, sex and family issues… or the final decline and fall of an archaic and corrupt institution.

I loved thatPet Shop Boys song. :slight_smile: But the full line is as follows.
(Confiteor Deo omnipotenti vobis fratres, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione,
verbo, opere et omissione, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa)
[trans. “I confess to almighty god, and to you my brothers, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, act and omission, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”]

I believe the origin of this belief is due to a belief that it has been for much of history,as far as I can tell from following history and people are usually judged by past experiences.
P.S. I know full well that mea culpa is taken from the catholic mass, and was not originaly from a pop-song, I was just kidding. Also, I have to put myself in the no good popes catagory.

It seems to me that his contribution to the world’s political stage (fall of communism mostly) is largely annecdotal. The timing was right for change and he was one of a series of minor cogs in the process. Had the communist party maintained the will and commitment to rule with the iron fist of the past (Stalin through Brezniev) then neither the Pope nor anyone in the west would get a sniff of Eastern Europe. The truth is, communism became unsustainable and its most recent leadership became increasingly progressive and reticent to enforce the old socialist doctrines with the vigor of the past.

The fate of many disenfranchised people of the third world, and arguably the Pope’s legacy, would have been far better served if the financial resources the Vatican used to help “disassemble Communism” were spent on helping the people who needed it most (third world), in ways that would serve them best (contraception and education about STD’s).

I’m afraid I can’t give him a passing mark but I do agree with those who say he was an imperfect man in an imperfect world doing the best he could under the guidance of his personal convictions and dogmatic beliefs. I think he came up short on many things.

See Book of Acts, chapter on the Council of Jerusalem, during the lifetime of the original Apostles. Decreed the Christians were not bound to follow all the minutiae of Levitical Law. Substituted a catch-all non-specific ban on “fornication”. But hey, a smart, wise, and lawyerly-enough future Council should be able to work around that…

…oh, right, also:

It’s kinda unfair to rate and grade a Pope based on our desire or preference that he should have completely reversed long-held institutional doctrines, or gone around ditching/adopting policies with the degree of commitment and consistency exemplified by the leadership of the Democrats, Republicans, Tories or Labour; or that such a large, cumbersome and, yes, archaically organized entity as the RCC can change directions on a dime (historically speaking). I’ll grade him as Pope of the RCC as it exists, not as what I would do in his shoes, and give him a Pass grade, with the following notations:

Pluses for: Outreach to youth; opposition to communism; pronouncements against runaway capitalism, the death penalty, war; rapprochement(sp?) with Israel and Jews

Minuses for: Retro policies on women’s roles, and on birth/STD control in face of 3d world problems

Well, yes, but indeed, I believe that that makes him a horrible person. It would certainly be near impossible to keep such an institution from being a force for harm, but one easy way to do so would be for him to stop talking so much against birth control. Thus, I rate him as having failed at bringing more good than harm in the world. Oh, and I see no grade of consistancy amoung republican leaders in sticking to previously held positions when they don’t feel like it.

I’m going to make a guess that the next change could be on celibacy. I think THAT needs to be addressed before the ordination of women. That and birth control.

(BTW, what’s with some of the cardinals or Vatican clergy wearing purple sashes and caps instead of red? Is that for mourning?)

Ignored mainly in the west perhaps. In other regions of the world, this stance has inflicted a heap of misery, poverty, disease, and death on the masses. I’m not the patient type to say it’s ok by me if it takes 1000 more years to change this particular stance.

Well, the problem with that is that they’re listening to the part of the teaching that says, “Don’t use birth control”, but not the part that says, “and don’t have sex unless you want a baby.”

Chill out, I’m not “tarring” anybody. I didn’t realize the Pope wasn’t a literalist.

And I do not recall any previous debates where it was ascertained that a line that says “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” doesn’t apply to same-sex union. Seems to be only talking about same-sex union.

Anything that can keep religious folks from hassling gays is fine in my book, though.

Literalism is a very recent school of theology, only coming about in the early 19th century, from what I recall.

No, see, it is condeming the use of the missionary position in gay sex. :smiley:
Re Guinastasia’s talking about Literalism: it may have been assembled by that name recently, but am I allowed to claim that many people who have effected much change throughout history took the bible literaly?

A fact which should be roughly as surprising as, say, rain being wet. I don’t think the Church’s refusal to step forward here does them any credit.

(Purple is the color for penitence, might that be part of the reason?)

And I definitely agree with you. I’m from German/Frenchish Catholic* and Polish/Slovak Catholic stock and went to Catholic school K-12. I definitely agree that the rule of celibacy should (and hopefully will) be the first to change. I bet many, many more men would be willing to put on the collar if they were able to marry, etc. And I agree that birth control/condom issues need to be addressed ASAP as well.

  • My grandmother and her sisters were all named after Mary (with different middle names of female saints) and her brothers were all named after Popes (either first or middle)!

Am I wrong in thinking that the Roman Catholic Church permits the rhythm method? And isn’t the rhythm method used when you want to have sex without a baby being the result?

A Catholic friend of mine joked that the rhythm methods works great. “We use it and we only have 11 kids.”

They probably turn a blind eye to it ,but they do not permit it. A contra-ception practice is no different from putting on a condom, or using an IUD from their point of view.

Declan

Actually, it is explicitly permitted. In fact, Natural Family Planning (which combines the rhythm’s calendar with the basal temperature method of determining ovulation and a few more attempts at safeguards) is actually promoted within the church. They do not express happiness on the topic, but with a reluctant nod that sometimes pregnancies can prove to be a hardship, the church notes that the act of sex when fertilization is not possible differs from actual steps (chemical or physical barrier) that actively inhibit fertilization or methods that terminate a pregnancy.

Just curious. Are you advocating the position that one should not have sex unless they want a baby, or just stating it as a position of the RCC?