Obviously I’m no fan of this religion to begin with, but are you really going to sell me that Pope Francis decides to do the shower thing and the homeless lunch thing all on his own? This is all a planned show. At least we know that about the little girl with the sign. That was planned for over a year.
And the homeless lunch-- of COURSE he’s invited to the white house. He’s invited to the local White Castle too! So am I to believe his security team and advisors had to scramble to find a homeless group, some lunch and security for him because HE decided, “Nope. I want to have lunch with the homeless NOW!” ??
This little ploy inspires journalists and bloggers to write about how “just like Jesus, Pope Francis fed the poor.” He didn’t feed them. He didn’t spend a single Vatican Euro.
Again, it’s just a show, people. And if you look to your right, folks, Snakeoil Sam has a new product for you! Why it wipes, it dices, it thrices, it churns, it burns…
He’s probably trying to up his “miracle” count so he can be sainted after he dies. Maybe he thinks he can cure cerebral palsy. I mean, John Paul II allegedly cured someone of Parkinson’s* as one of his two required “miracles” that got him declared a saint.
*Actually happened after he died, but never hurts to get started on your miracle resumé early, IMO.
I’m pleased I’m not the only one who sees it as “meh!” He is better than previous popes but that is such a low bar to clear. He only seems enlightened when compared to his child-abuse enabling predecessors.
Lest anyone think I’m anti-catholic…I’m not…I’m anti-catholic church which is a massive distinction. The fact is that the vast majority of catholics I know (which is a small amount I admit) are good people and have far more progressive and inclusive views than the pope. They are the ones setting the example to him. He is playing catch up and he is slow, slow, slow. Eating with the poor, being kind to a child, doling out platitudes…this is all very simple stuff and nothing he has done seems particularly revolutionary when compared to the inclusive and anti-discriminatory policies put in place by secular governments within even majority catholic countries.
I recall years ago when a Doper started a Pit Thread criticizing Time for naming Bill & Melinda Gates as People of the Year for creating their phenomenal foundation (that gives away millions of dollars each year, providing among other things, free vaccinations and education resources to the poorest people in the world).
The gist of his criticism was that they were so wealthy that they wouldn’t miss the billions they were giving away.
What I took away from that is that there are some people who are so blinded by their prejudices that they cannot recognize, or acknowledge, true goodness, even when it’s right in front of them. They will always suspect a hidden agenda and always expect to see a scheister behind the curtain.
Of course the lunch was planned. But I don’t recall other popes making the same plans, so it’s laudable. The shower thing, no, I don’t think that was some subverted goal of the RC church all along that they were just waiting for the right pope to push it through. Dude hangs out with homeless people and knows they have a hard time showering, and that he had the power to fix it. So he did.
Why does making a plan to do something good negate the goodness of doing it?
I’ve gotten loads of cheers for saying I believe in global warming at the weekly First Atheist SubGenius Fellowship Beloved Holy Global Warming Celebration Ministry Outreach meetings I attend. Y’all should show up, we have a fantastic band and we have cookies.
Obviously no matter what the pope (or anyone it seems) does there will be those who find something horrible in it, and in this case there’s obviously nothing that the pope can do right.
Cynicism and paranoia are mental illnesses, not “reality”, get treatment folks.
It wasn’t planned by the Pope, tho, was it? So what’s your point?
There’s a lot of venom and hate coming across in your posts, Locrian. Pope Francis has spent his lifetime working in a system that seeks to control what he sees and how he sees it and he’s at least peeked around the edges and seen that there’s more there than his system wants him to see. And instead of pulling back and hiding and doubling down on orthodoxy, he seems to be pushing the blinders away and embracing, even enacting, some changes. That’s freaking astounding for a Pope to do that, IMO.
Imagine if Fred Phelps had one day appeared on the steps of Westboro Baptist Church and told the media “We’re not going to protest funerals anymore; it alienates the public and dilutes our message.” That would have been a HUGE step for an organization like WBC and for the man Phelps was. It would have been barely a shuffle for most of us, but for them/him it would have been astounding.
Well, I think Pope Francis is that kind of astounding. And you don’t encourage more steps in the right direction by bitching that those baby steps aren’t breaking any landspeed records.
So think about what your end goal is, and then think about how you’re going to help things get to where you want them.
I don’t think anyone is saying what he is doing is horrible, just that what he is doing is not remarkable by the standards of normal, everyday, decent human behaviour.
Certainly if I had to choose between the pope or Bill and Belinda Gates in the Humanitarian of the year award then there is no contest. Speccy Bill all the way.
As for the sexual abuse scandal, the last I heard Cardinal Law is still living a peaceful and un-jailed life in the Vatican. How does that show a willingness to deal with the issue?
Yeah and that is obviously bullshit. Here’s what’s actually happening:
Side A: Wow! Pop Francis seems to be a really good person.
Side B: No. He’s acting just like everyone else.
That is false unless Side B happens to live in a paradise community where everyone is loving, caring and compassionate towards each other.
Side A: Wow! Pop Francis seems to be a really good person.
Side B: No. All previous popes have been bad so this one is bad too.
That’s just irrational.
Side A: Wow! Pop Francis seems to be a really good person.
Side B: No. The Catholic Church is evil.
We’re talking about the person that is the new leader of the organization, not the historic record of that organization.
Side A: Wow! Pop Francis seems to be a really good person.
Side B: No. He’s just faking it, he just wants people to think he’s a nice person.
That’s an expression of cynicism that says more about the person that expresses it than the pope. Unless they have mind reading skills they know nothing about what motivates him and it makes much more sense that he’s exactly what he seems like. An actual Good Person ™.
No one has said that but it is true that he hasn’t done anything particularly remarkable, By remarkable I mean an action or statement beyond that which you’d expect from a normal, decent person in the street.
good job no-one has said it then. I said that he only looks good in comparison to previous popes and I’ll stand by that.
has anyone said “evil”? He may be “good” by the standards of the catholic church but as I’ve said, they are pretty low standards. I certainly don’t think he comes up to the fairly average standards of moral and ethical behaviour I see in friends and acquaintances. Yes, you heard that right. I’d be happy to measure them against him and be fairly confident of them coming out on top. Go on…test me.
Again, to my knowledge no-one has said that.
so yeah, he may be a good person…but is he an especially good person? What puts he above and beyond other good people that I know?
I don’t mean that being the Pope makes him inherently better, but rather that he’s continuing to act according to what is, by all accounts, a decent conscience despite being elevated to such a high status. He’s doing a lot of things that are surprisingly humble, and people like him for that.
Maybe that doesn’t make him better than anybody that you personally know, but it makes him stand out among other Popes in living memory. That’s pretty cool.
That depends on how much you believe in the adage “Power corrupts.” Try comparing him, not to the average person in the street, but to what that average person would be like given the power and status of the Pope.
Heck, there’s been people on this Board and the media at large who have that position on the Pope and RCC for all our lifetimes.
And, to be fair, there are also some in the general media at large who, when dealing with the Pope, no matter how just plain humanly decent an action or simply factually correct an observation/statement, while clearly staying entirely within established Church policy, will act like “OMG, never before heard, earthshaking! historic!” I’ve caught some of MSNBC’s coverage and the gushing (and the deliberate ignoring of the parts that don’t fit the editorial line) is embarassing.
I find most of my Catholic friends are kind of embarrassed about this. They know that the church hasn’t been in favor of *hating *gay people for a rather long time. I wonder if that’s the disconnect here - that non-Catholics thought RCs were out picketing funerals and screaming about the evils of gay people, while RCs have been quietly “loving the sinner” for at least a couple of decades.
Same for the other stuff that’s been attributed (or mis-attributed) to the Pope. No, the Pope didn’t say that the traditional notion of God is outdated. He did say,
Which, yay, good job. I like it. But Catholics who have been paying attention know that this isn’t news. This is the old “pagan babies will be saved” idea, which the church was quick to clarify.
So, I think he’s surprising non-Catholics more than Catholics, because non-Catholics had some ideas about Catholics and Catholic doctrine that aren’t true.
