He was elected almost a year ago. Any thoughts? To me it looks like very minor changes from tradition–as it doesn’t look like he is going to make changes concerning contraception, married priests, women priests, remarried Catholics receiving holy communion…
I believe that American Catholics will do what they have done for generations: pretty much ignore everything that comes out of Rome. Anyway, it’s been a year. How could he have changed all that?
As for Frank, he’s exceeded my expectations. My favorite pope since John XXIII.
Popes don’t generally execute sweeping changes to centuries-old doctrine unilaterally. You may as well wait on him to declare Kurt Cobain a saint.
It seemed every time his predecessor, Benedict, opened his mouth and was quoted in the press saying something, the first thought that would enter my mind was “what an asshole.” The new guy seems to understand that being the world’s leading Christian might require that he appear to actually, you know, care about the sick and the poor.
Atheist here,
Anyone who perpetuates the nonsense dogma of the Catholic Church is someone I’ll fundamentally disagree with on many important issues.
However, compared to 99 percent of all Catholics I’ve met or even read about, he’s miles and miles ahead. His presence within that organization vastly improves it.
The stuff about women priests and sanctioning remarriage after divorce isn’t ever going to change. I’m less sure about the teachings against contraception , but I suspect they are here to stay too.
A lot of people are losing their minds over how great this Pope is, and I can’t help but think they are going to be disappointed in the long run. He’s already raised eyebrows with his remarks about the church’s role in sex abuse scandals. And as others have pointed out, he’s not going to change major church teachings anytime soon.
Having said that, a Pope who is truly dedicated to serving the sick and the poor is light years ahead of most Vatican higher-ups. It remains to be seen if he’ll really be a transformative figure though.
Yeah, I’m not exactly the most religious guy around but just hearing him talk more about the sick and the poor instead of doctrinal or political stuff has caught my eye. I await events to see how he comes through.
There’s a good article in the Economist, although I suspect access to it may be limited.
Well, a couple of days ago Pope Francis said something that I think is important:
Basically: In a speech, he took personal responsibility and apologized for the (paraphrased) “evil of the sexual abuse of children by members of the church”.
He has been critiziced for a seemingly wishy-washy approach to the issue in the past – and although I would tend to agree with that, I have to say that I cannot even imagine Pope Benedict XVI saying something even remotely like that in a public speech.
I am a lapsed Catholic; there are many things I don’t like in my (ex)church. However I cannot deny that Pope Francis is someone I would love to chat and have a coffee with. He strikes me as fundamentally decent. Deity knows it is rare enough to see that kind of people in positions of power and influence!
I had no trouble accessing it, though I do not subscribe to the Economist. It was well worth reading.
One thing he is doing that is very good, is that he realizes his vision of what the Catholic Church should be about will not outlive him unless he appoints people with a similar vision to be cardinals and bishops and so forth. And he is doing this.
One thing supporters and detractors alike need to understand is that, though his ability and willingness to change existing Catholic doctrine are surely very limited, the Catholic Church has a great deal of doctrine on a great many issues, and so what issues it decides to place emphasis on makes a huge difference.
Ratzi said all the right things about economic issues, but there was no ‘push’ behind those words; he clearly cared a great deal more about adherence to traditional positions concerning sex and reproduction. Francis clearly thinks it’s time for the Church to make its stance on economic justice actually matter, and that’s a good thing.
While I’m glad he’s finally addressing the Church’s disgraceful history of priestly sexual abuse, it remains to be seen what he’ll really do about it. He needs to understand that there need to be consequences not just for the priests that sexually exploited young children, but also for the bishops, archbishops, and cardinals who helped cover the tracks of the abusive priests who were under their authority. As I’ve said before, the response to date has been as if the response to the Watergate burglary had begun and ended with the convictions of the seven burglars.
Finally, I would hope that he’d find a way for the concerns of the laity to have a regular hearing at high levels of the Church. In a Church whose hierarchy consists entirely of celibate males, the understanding of what it’s like to be a woman, or what it’s like to deal with the challenges of being married, or raising children, don’t have a natural ‘in’ at a very high level.
For instance, there are many married couples whose economic situation leaves them too little time and energy to raise a family, but the sexual bond between them is essential to the well-being of their marriage. If anything, that bond is even more important to them than it is to couples who have the time and money to responsibly raise a family, because they may have few other comforts. To the extent that the Church as an organization reflects on the wisdom of its stance on birth control, it’s hard for me to believe this outlook gets a voice in the discussion.
IMHO, people who’ve been through that need to have a place at the table when these issues are discussed, even if only priests can be among those making the decisions. If Francis is to keep the Church hierarchy and the laity (at least in America and Europe) from following practically unrelated paths, I think he needs to do something about this.
It’s not like he rode in on a coup d’état from out of nowhere. He was elected by the Church orthodoxy. Of course he’s not going to make any sweeping changes.
To think otherwise is just like those people who call for Eric Holder to be fired. Who do they think Obama is going to replace him with, John Ashcroft? Well it’s the same with Popes, only more so.
The cynical part of me is impressed at how he’s done the near impossible: swayed million of hearts and slapped a new face on Christianity without, you know, actually doing anything. The non-cynical part thinks that he’s just a very kind man in a difficult position; in reality he’s more of a figurehead than someone who has tons of power (although he does have heaps of influence), so he can’t make any of the reforms he wants to, even though the current state of the Church pains him. Either way, yeah, not much is going to change, but that’s to be expected - having a Pope who seems like a decent human being is definitely a positive. I’m keeping my expectations pretty low in terms of any real change, so if he has the incredible amount of force needed to get things done, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
The Pope is about as far from a figurehead as it gets. Operationally he’s basically an absolute dictator. He gets to decide who becomes a bishop and who becomes a cardinal, and gets to assign them to their specific assignments. He can recall them (“firing”) at will or even defrock them if he wants. The collective bishops are the princes of the church and have tons of influence, and he is the guy who gets to decide who they are, and he decides which ones get to be part of the college of cardinals as well.
But on issue of doctrines the guys who are at that level of the Church view themselves as only caretakers, they aren’t going to dramatically change anything. And if they did it would never be via fiat, but through an ecumenical council. If the Popes just changed doctrine by fiat then the Church would dramatically change with every Pope and most likely would have fractured into a thousand constituent parts generations ago, much like Protestant groups have tended to do over time.