Well, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin aren’t Catholic, so why WOULD anyone expect them to fall in line with whatever the Pope says?
He’s saying pretty much the same things about any given issue that his immediate predecessors did, no argument there.
The difference seems to be where his emphasis is. Ratzinger may have said the right things about wealth and poverty, but once he gave some remarks on that subject, it wasn’t clear that he gave it another thought for the next several months. But what people did with their naughty bits clearly mattered to him on all the days in between.
With Francis, it seems to be exactly the other way around. And that makes a difference.
I don’t know what makes you think I believe the pope is pro-gay or pro-life. I know pretty well that this is a change of marketing for the same defective product, but messaging also matters. When he says “who I am to judge gays?” or says that atheists should be judge by their actions (I am paraphrasing) it sounds a lot better than the whole, constant “rah, rah, rah, the gays will go to hell” we were used to.
And yeah, when a cardinal goes on TV to call someone a “faggot” and “queer”, well, what do you know, some of us don’t like that.
WTF? If you accept the post, do the freaking job… what the hell is a ‘caretaker’ Pope, he only works 9-5 and 1 weekend a month?
Yup, mean and dour really did describe Benedict.
Good.
One of my main beefs with the Catholic Church is in how it seemed like all the money was going in and nothing seemed to bounce back out. For most of my life all I would hear about is parish after parish closing schools and churches while off in the Vatican and the various regional headquarters we have some old farts wearing silks and bling and living in a palace or expensive buildings. Instead of a new crown, how about keeping a church or two open - if not in a huge building, why not in a storefront chapel? Britain is littered with cute little churches with small congregations, hell you can’t swing a freaking cat in some areas for all the vicars. Hell, maybe the Catholic Church needs to roll back a couple thousand years and meet in houses again - look at all the fundie protestant churches in the US are effectively a large meeting room attached to a house - it has to be a lot cheaper than a large church and a large house - and if they are complaining about the falling attendence that seems to indicate they need to think about shrinking the size of their ostentatious presentation and simplify.
I’ve been going to weekly Mass for 47 years, and spent 13 years in Catholic schools.
Wanna know how many sermons I’ve heard on the subject of homosexuality? Two, and BOTH of them were attacks on homophobia. I have NEVER heard the kind of fire-and-brimstone “Queers are going to Hell” rants you seem to think are ubiquitous in the Catholic Church.
Know how many times I heard teachers or nuns at my school preach against homosexuality? Zero!
I’d love to know when you’ve seen a Catholic cardinal using the word “faggot” on TV. Name and date, please.
Beyond that, Pope Francis DID say “Who am I to judge,” but in a specific context. He was asked about gay priests and a so-called “Lavender Mafia” within the Church hierarchy. His answer was that gay cliques and gay factionalism were unhealthy, but if a man with gay inclinations became a priest and was trying to live a holy and celibate life, that wasn’t a problem.
astorian, you may not know Mighty Girl is posting from the Dominican Republic, where the Cardinal did publicly call a designated appointee ( US ambassador?) a fag, and under Church pressure the constitution was amended to ban all abortion regardless of reason.
Catholics and Protestants are both still Christians so Rush and Sarah frequently buoy their opinions by claiming they’re grounded in scripture. The Pope is still a spiritual authority figure to Protestants (even if they don’t recognize him as infallible) and Rush has used the church’s stance on abortion, gay marriage, and numerous other traditional value topics to appeal to the Christian right. He sells the idea that it’s their God given duty to support whatever the topic du jour is.
But Pope Francis has made poverty and wealth inequality a larger issue. So called “class warfare” is a topic that is rising in political importance and Francis’ message is one that the Left can use to buoy their own message. It could break the Republican stronghold on faith.
Here you go. That was cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez, archbishop of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), in July this year, reacting to the US appointing a gay ambassador to the Dominican Republic, James “Wally” Brewster.
Article in Spanish #1: El cardenal de Santo Domingo insulta al embajador gay USA - Periodista Digital
Article in Spanish #2: http://www.acento.com.do/index.php/news/94972/56/Cardenal-De-EEUU-se-puede-esperar-cualquier-cosa-por-embajador-homosexual.html
In public declarations during a press conference the cardinal called the ambassador “maricón”, a Spanish-language slur similar to “fag”, only harsher in feeling.
Translation of the relevant parts of the cardinal’s declarations:
“So, after fags and lesbians, are we going to be getting chickens next? In the US anything may happen, but everybody here knows my position on the subject. I hope he doesn’t come here because he will suffer and he will have to go away.”
He also said that the US perpetrated “savagery” (regarding the allowance of gay marriage in certain areas) and that “what God said about creating them ‘man’ and ‘woman’ will always be true, no matter what the world’s degenerates say or do” (paraphrased).
So, yes. At least one cardinal of the Catholic Church made public declarations decrying “fags” and their “degeneracy”, in early July 2013.
Snip.
I went to Mass at least until adulthood, and homosexuality was mentioned every week. Granted, it was always by the same woman during the “if anyone has any prayers section.” Here wording was of more support than a prayer to steer them clear or make them stop (*the Catholic church is not not evangelical protestants in that the latter treats it as something to be cured, the former as something to be chaste with). The fact that it wasn’t like she did it two or three times and was asked to shut up, but instead was able to offer positive messages was telling. Granted this was a city known for its hard left slant.
I’d be more concerned that the ambassador is an adult who goes by Wally. Maybe he can hang and talk politics with Scooter Libby.
JoseB and JRDelirious already answered that, but to expand:
Is that enough?
The guy is not only deeply homophobic (this last outburst made the news because there was a US ambassador involved, but he’s a regular at it), he’s also racist.
The irony of it all is that shortly thereafter the Vatican ambassador fled the country amidst accusations of pedophilia and was recently indicted, the DR is seeking extradition. The cardinal suddenly disappeared from public view until he couldn’t just keep hiding. And to salt the cardinal’s wounds, the pope apologized for the several recent scandals of pedophilia in the Dominican church, and appointed a very black ambassador. This has not escaped some of our best local journalists. 
And if you think our ambassador is the only Catholic authority mouthing off against gays, well, what can I say… Compared to some of those the pope is practically Harvey Milk.
Oh, and even though JoseB mentioned it, let me reiterate, fag, faggot or queer do not quite carry the punch that “maricón” does. It is the kind of thing that no “polite” person, however homophobic, says in private, let alone public.
I am pretty heterosexual (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and I was VERY offended.
I think this very much varies by parish. I’m an ex-Catholic, but I’ve discovered that some Catholic churches are way, way more liberal than the ones I grew up with. Hell, we were taught masturbation was a mortal sin growing up (I’m 38), and I remember Lents guiltily trying to swear off masturbating for 40 days and that lasted about…40 hours. My wife’s church, on the other hand, let us do a Catholic wedding mass and the priest gave me communion even though I told him I was a non-believer. His attitude was “Jesus can take it.”
But I attend various masses in various parishes from time to time, and there are homilies I’ve sat through that just got my blood boiling with the priest going on and on about the threat of same-sex marriage and how it’s one man, one woman, and all that crap, and me thinking what the heck does this have to do with today’s Gospel? It sounds like you’re in a more open-minded parish. A good many are not like this.
As I said earlier, I’m 52. And NO, my churches were NOT particularly liberal or “open-minded.” Rather, I got the last of the old pre-Vatican II Church AND the post-Vatican II church. The old school nuns drilled us constantly about the TRAPPINGS of Catholicism, but taught little or nothing about the substance. After say, 1970, all the Church ever seemed to teach was “Jesus wants everyone to be nice.”
THAT is the lesson most Catholics absorbed, which is why surveys show most Catholics either don’t know what the Church’s doctrines are or never got the feeling they were important. It’s also why most “Catholics” disagree with MOST of the Church’s moral teachings.
After all, if you believe the only important commandment is “Be Nice,” not letting gay people get married seems… well, not nice. And trying to convert other people to Catholicism seems… not nice (I’ve actually heard nominal Catholics argue that it’s “Unchristian” to believe Christianity is better than other religions!).
Like I said, this varies very much by parish. No Catholic church I’ve been to in the last year have I heard any priest say gay marriage is okay, and I’ve been to a couple where it’s been explicitly forbidden. The most liberal parishes I go to don’t even broach the topic. Abortion, too, is a huge topic, so much so that the priest was essentially telling the congregants to vote Republican for this reason without explicitly saying so (this was on the eve of the 2012 national elections). Sounds like you have much a much more open-minded parish, even if you do not consider it so.
What made my eyebrows lift, was Rush Limbaugh thinking the Pope was evil because he said that (in a way) Capitalism was wrong, And of all people to complain, it is Limbaugh, He surely doesn’t live by what Jesus told Christians to do (according to the NT). If one thinks about what was written to be the Life of Jesus he was a liberal and a socialist. And I doubt that if Jesus was running for president a lot of so called Christians would not follow his teachings or vote for him!
But will they be around in ten years?