Which part of this is a joke?
The wry recognition that no good deed goes unpunished.
I am an atheist, formerly Catholic. If it were for me there would be no churches, no organized religions, but the expectations some of you have of the pope seem highly unrealistic. As somebody that has visited the Vatican (already as an atheist) I would not like those treasures in private hands when we’ll never see them again. They are already a huge source of income to the church. I’d rather they keep their golden shoes in those glass boxes and actually accept gays fully to the church and let go of the birth control bullshit.
I assume that was supposed to be the joke, but “the Pope is about to let tons of homeless people live in St. Peter’s” is WAY more of a joke.
Except for not being funny.
It’s not ha-ha funny, but it’s ludicrous.
Granted wholeheartedly, but then again the last dude was Inquisitor Palpatine so that’s a rather low bar 
There was at least one assassination attempt on John Paul II.
He DID give away that one bishop’s private mansion and had it turned into a homeless shelter. I don’t know if he has the sole authority to sell the MASSIVE PALACE – I think it belongs to the church, and not the Pope himself. I could be wrong, though.
Pleased as I am to see MASSIVE PALACE take on a life of it’s own (and for total accuracy you should hear it in your head as if spoken by Alan Partridge) I don’t want anyone to think that I’m completely dismissive of anything this pope tries to do.
Whether I like it or not the Catholic church has enormous reach and influence. It has the ability to use that influence to make people’s lives far better merely through small changes in ideology and behaviour. It has changed in the past, it can change in the future and such changes do start with the examples of the man at the top.
He has taken small steps (to my secular eyes) and that is to be applauded and encouraged. I hope that these small changes are softening the old guard for something far more revolutionary and that will be a very good thing indeed.
I just don’t think that we should go overboard just yet, to cheer too soon may make the church think that their change journey is complete.
Christian, non-Catholic checking in.
I’m pretty sure the Catholic Church knew going in exactly what kind of man Pope Francis is, and the fact that they elected him anyway says to me that they’re serious about changing the way they do things.
And that can only be a net positive for the world in general, and Christianity in specific.
Well, none of it really. Taking in a few homeless, if only to set an example, is not too far-fetched for this guy. And people getting wacky about scrutinizing who he took in and who he didn’t is also not an unreasonable assumption. Lighten up a bit Marls. Nobody’s elevating him to Tebow status (yet), just remarking how he seems to be, if only superficially, more Christ-like than his predecessors.
That’s kind of the point, though: a nice superficial gesture is indeed nice but ultimately superficial. And yes, people are making a pretty big deal out of those things. He’s said some good things, but the RCC was very much aware that it needed a new image and I’m not eager to give them too much credit for a marketing campaign before the real changes happen.
I’m sure there was a Canterbury tale (maybe it was The Decameron?) where a church employee puts on the image of purity and good deeds when he’s official and in the public eye, but in his private life he is thoroughly corrupt. When someone calls him out on his hypocrisy he comes back with something like, “Do my own personal failings make my official words & deeds any less righteous?” Point being, unless we want to call Pope’s good stuff a feint while the church refreshes its plot for world domination (and I’ll grant that), his acts serve as examples and ought to be duplicated by those who claim to follow him. At that point we end up with something better than superficial.
Ok. So in theory I’d say we should recognize a charm offensive when we see one and table the Nobel Prize/martyr talk until the church as a whole starts living up to this example. Until then, yes, to a degree he’s putting a smiley face on an institution with some very backward views. By all accounts he’s a very nice guy, but eight months is not enough time to determine if this is a seismic change or a cosmetic one.
Fair enough.
Sneaky bastard! :mad:
nm.
He has one, but he refuses to live there.