I’m mostly on your side, but maybe you’re not giving Paco enough time. He’s already in trouble with his handlers over things he says off the cuff. He doesn’t care. He’s moved into smaller quarters in the Vatican in part to physically make it harder for his handlers to control who he sees, talks to, gets to read etc. He answers his own phone and calls whomever he wants. He has an agenda, and it’s his, not the church’s. He has a lot of cleaning to do, and he seems to seriously want to change the emphasis of what the church stands for and does.
Gay rights and gay marriage passed in France, a majority Catholic state. Gay rights & marriage is spreading among the largest Catholic nations in Latin America. Instead of railing against these things like his predecessor, he has taken a “who am I to judge?” stance. It’s possible he’s noticed the anti-gay fight is lost, unless he wants to preside over not only a “poorer” Catholic church, but also a much smaller one.
Are people really trying to argue that Francis’s words mean anything for RCC acceptance of same-sex sexual behaviors? Or are you just looking for some stupid reason to attack Valteron because you don’t like him?
I’ve never seen a post by the poster in question in my life, at least not that I remember.
I am arguing that, whatever you believe about the church, it is dishonest and useless to rephrase someone’s words into something completely different and then argue against your own reinterpretation. We ought to address the things people actually say, not the reimagined versions that better suit our prejudices.
Of course, you just did the same thing to me, by turning my simple statement above into one of two alternate interpretations neither of which is even remotely reflective of what I said, so this is probably a lost cause.
I am, just to kind of pre-empt the inevitable, neither Catholic nor religious (I was raised the former, theoretically, but disagree with the RCC on very nearly every issue imaginable, up to and including the whole god thing, so I’m quite definitely lapsed
I am pointing out a perfectly logical POSSIBLE interpretation of what he said.
The first part of the sentence is "If someone is gay. . . " That means “has a gay sexual orientation”. A person might be gay all his or her life and never once touch a member of the same sex in an erotic manner, but they would still be gay. Indeed, this is precisely what the RC Church proposes gay people should do.
The Pope is not saying he would not judge homosexual actions. His predecessors and his church have already judged them to be a “grave moral disorder” and an “intrinsic evil”.
The Pope is not saying he and his church will no longer lobby, spend funds and campaign against gay rights, marriage equality, etc.
He has not contradicted the statements of John Paul II when he declared that discrimination against gays in jobs like teaching could be acceptable (as opposed to priests who can all be trusted to keep it in their pants around children.)
He has simply said he cannot tell if a gay person who says he buys into his absolute condemnation of gay sex is sincere or not.
Now, the RC Church does not choose stupid people to become Pope. He knew very well how marvellously tolerant, humble and liberal his statement would sound, and how easily it could be interpreted as a step forward when it does not represent any change at all other than his admission that he cannot read minds.
Yes, we should address the things people actually say, and Valteron did address what Francis actually said, not what some people in the thread want to make it sound like he said. He did not change the RCC’s position on same sex relationships. There appears to be some confusion about that, which led to my question of you and of others.
So there has been no rephrasing of people’s words into something completely different. There has been attempted explanation of how Francis’s words do not mean what some people are assuming they meant, and linking those words to previous RCC texts and statements that his words did not eradicate or contradict except in a very narrow context.
Levdrakon, your statement above is completely typical of the sort of “message inflation” in which people indulge following such allegedly “liberal” statements by the Pope. You are implying that his “Who am I to judge” statement applies to the movement to same-sex marriage.
I am calling you on that. Prove it or retract it. Because it is obvious that he was referring to gay sexual orientation, nNOT same-sex activity and certainly NOT same-sex marriage. Prove it or retract it.
France is NOT a majority Catholic state. According to a 2011 survey by Ipsos MORI 45% of the French are Christians (almost all Roman Catholics), 35% are irreligious, atheist or agnostic, 3% are Muslims, 1% are Buddhists, 6% adhere to unspecified other religions, and 10% did not give an answer to the question.
Of course, this did not prevent the RC Church from organizing demos and allying itself with right-wing skinheads and other homophobic assholes to oppose the French ssm law, even though a large majority of Frenchmen supported it.
Right. Your interpretation is the one that is taking his actual words and putting them into the RCC context. You didn’t invent other words or other contexts, didn’t make grandiose claims about how earth shattering these words were, and didn’t ignore previous commentary from the RCC.
This is a discussion thread, at a website for discussion. How is that light or heavy? Go to another site if you don’t like my opinions.
What is happening with the Pope is that he is getting away with verbal hocus-pocus designed to make him look humble and broad-minded when in fact his organization continues to be one of the most viscously homophobic organizations on Earth. Look at the demos they organized in France against SSM, bussing in people from the conservative rural areas, joining with right-wing skinheads.
Maybe you are the one who should “heavy up” and stop giving the RC Church a special “benefit of clergy” when it promotes its homophobia and tries to cover its tracks with faux-liberal statements.
My take is similar to the take from the article I quoted above. I don’t know that Francis is engaging in this sort of commentary out of a desire to fool anyone. I think it’s more that he doesn’t care very much and it’s not his focus. But if push came to shove, he’d defend the RCC’s position on homosexual behaviors as grave moral disorders and the like.
Oh please. I’m not talking about bigots whining. I’m talking about people who then turn around and accuse liberal Christians of “cherry-picking”. The left (and I count myself as one) does it too. I see it here all the fucking time, and it’s fucking annoying.
I DON’T care about the church being attacked – it should be. Do you remember that woman in Ireland who died because they wouldn’t let her have a life-saving abortion, even though the fetus was dead, she was septic, etc? Or the bishop who excommunicated a doctor who performed an abortion on an eight-year-old rape victim, who would most likely die if she didn’t have one? The girl was raped by her stepfather for crissakes.
BUT…if you’re not making even an effort to change the church from within, if you’re going to ridicule those who actually do, make patronizing remarks about those who do, and claim that there’s no such thing as a liberal Catholic:
Which IS an insult to those who do try to make a difference. It’s also fucking retarded. It’s no different than the whole, “atheists are just people who are mad at God,” bullshit.
For the record, I don’t consider myself Catholic anymore, or even Christian.
Yes, ISTM that Francis was reiterating what is the doctrine all along, only in a more polite Catholic-PC manner as opposed to Benny Ratzinger’s abrasive style; I expect quite a few more instances of just that, differences mainly of style or of focus priority that will be reported like they are some grand change (if I may use a clumsy political analogy, in a sort of equivalency to Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize before doing anything to earn it – people are reacting to Francis just being Not Benedict).
And on those various pronouncements I don’t think he’ll expect to “fool anyone” who’s actually paying attention, but he’s not going to waste an opportunity to gain approval points from the congregation at large either. I’d rather scold those in the media reacting to it who went all OMG!!!11!1 POPE SEZ GAYS OK!!!1!!11 when he did not.
As for someone is “changing the RCC from within,” where’s the evidence? I don’t see these big changes. You yourself showed a big place where the church hasn’t changed despite a lot of disagreement: birth control. Where is the change from within?
You wouldn’t have any patience if someone claimed to be a KKK member changing the KKK from within. You’d say “Yeah, sure you are.” When someone gives allegiance to an organization, that’s their problem, not mine to split the finest hairs to determine which of the thousands of doctrines they do or do not embrace.
And yeah, lots of liberal religious people want to have their cake and eat it. They want to be Catholic when that’s convenient and then when it’s inconvenient they backpedal from all the nastiness the RCC does and claim that doesn’t represent them. They tried to do that with the child abuse scandals, abortion, and birth control, and are trying to do it with gay marriage as well. Those of us on the outside don’t have to agree to go along with this. You want the sweet? You have the sour, too.
So when real people are being hurt, stop sucking up to an organization that is doing the hurting, and stop acting like these are just intellectual exercises and that people are just whining. And you, especially you Guinastasia, stop hanging out on the surface of every question and seeing just where you can say something popular and use your fucking mind. Because that dead woman is dead because of the church, and the church is all of the people who sit there in their pews week after week. She isn’t dead because Valteron started a thread about Pope Francis.
If the church were to change and to catch flak for it, well that’s the price of doing business. Are they a bunch of fucking cowards, afraid of disagreement? Apparently, they don’t mind catching flak since they continue to do shitty things that people object to, so this claim that “Wah, no matter what they do, someone will complain!” is laughable. Who the fuck cares? You say you don’t, and I sure don’t, so who the fuck does?
I never said there were no liberal Catholics, just that I think they are delusional. I even know gay Catholics who have remained in the Church to “work from within”. What a fuckin’ crock! When I left the RC Church some 50 years ago, a gay friend said he was staying to “fight for change” from the inside.
In those days, the position of the RC Church was that it is not sinful to BE gay, but that any homosexual actions, even in the context of a committed relationship, are evil and sinful.
Fifty years later, the position of the RC Church is that it is not sinful to BE gay, but that any homosexual actions, even in the context of a committed relationship, are evil and sinful.
I have lost track of my gay Catholic friend over 5 decades, but if I could locate him, I would ask “How’s the inside job going?:rolleyes:”
Amen to this. The only person who can change the RCC from within is the Pope. Maybe this one will change it for the better; it would be a nice change, after the last two changed it for the worse.
But there’s no avenue for anyone else to make a difference. The only meaningful choices are to either condone what the RCC does by staying, or head for the exit.
You honestly compare the church to the KKK? :dubious: Okay, this is when I stop taking you seriously. I have my issues with Catholicism, as I said, but that’s just insane.
The Catholic church’s stand on human sexuality is the cause a a great deal of human suffering. Not just suffering because people cannot marry who the like. But death, disease a big increase in poverty in countries where they are powerful enough to deny people access to inexpensive birth control options.