Filum Romanum - A Thread for the Catholic Church

Dude excommunicated the Mafia. And believe me, in Italy that's both a big thing (as the Mafia draws from a heavily-religious subset of society) and takes balls of steel. And as mentioned above, his reform of the Vatican Bank was also a serious managerial improvement.

Yeah, he's an incrementalist, but he is a reformer and has been doing a lot to push the needle forward in an inherently conservative institution.

Edited by Ramidel on Oct 23rd 2020 at 6:12:57 AM

The Catholic Church's Gorbachev. I just hope this doesn't end the way Gorbachev's reign did...

The Catholic Church has changed, and is no longer the same one from the midaeval era. Which, when one considers the amount of unholiness infesting the Church at times, such as with the Borgia Pope, is a good thing.

I'm personally of the view that gay relationships are just as much of the soul as straight ones, but even if the Church teaches otherwise, allowing for civil unions - not gay marriage, but not opposing secular states making lives easier for gay people - is not some great grievous sin at the heart of the spirit. Its just common courtesy.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Oct 23rd 2020 at 10:16:52 AM

Just for clarification: is calling Francis "the Catholic Gorbachev" meant as an insult, compliment, or neutral statement?

Neutral statement. The description of Francis as a reformer with genuine ideals but works within the system and uses incrementalism, in a massive institution with serious, clear and present fault lines and crisis, reminded me of Gorbachev. Consider it an offhand comment rather than genuine analysis.

I think the Gorbatchev comparison is actually pretty good, both in the positive ways (Gorbatchev's reforms were sorely needed) and the possible bad ways (it crashed and burned toward the end). Nicely observed.

And honestly I think the main difference here is that Jhim is against gay marriage while everyone else in this conversation is pretty much entirely for gay marriage. The Catholics on this thread (and adjacent people) are largely reformists. My brother's a openly gay Catholic, after all, and I ain't here to tell he can't marry whomsoever he desires or that his soul is lesser for thinking so, or to hear others say that, if I'm to be clear.

Edited by Gaon on Oct 23rd 2020 at 8:49:37 AM

One obvious thing that comes to mind is that if Francis does come out further in support of civil unions, and this results in policy changes within heavily-Catholic countries, then it's more likely to stick despite however much messing around the College of Cardinals has simply because flip-flopping to overturn domestic policy is a very real waste of power and influence.

I do think there is unfortunate habit of people loving to be really negative about incrementalists I mean I can understand being sad that change doesn't happen fast enough, but I think its kinda weird to not give credit to change happening at all.

Its kinda like how some people insist that world hasn't changed at all in 100 years. Like just because lot of things are same in the end, doesn't really change that lot of things have changed and are still changing.

Edited by SpookyMask on Oct 23rd 2020 at 8:17:36 PM

That ship has largely sailed already, though. Most Catholic-majority countries have already said yes to marriage.

OTOH, I don't expect Poland to move until their current leadership is ousted.

Speaking of Francis going ham on the cardinal appointments:

• Pope Francis appoints the first african-american Cardinal of the US, Wilton Gregory.

Cardinal Wilton Gregory being a BLM-supporting Cardinal who denounced the police after the George Floyd shooting and shit-talked Trump for using churches for a quick photo op, as well as giving statements of support for LGBTQ peoples.

A Francis progressive slam-dunk, by all accounts.

Now that I know more of the details, this is pretty much a very formal insult to Trump and his white supremacist ilk.

Random Catholic joke.

Pope must be one of the toughest jobs in human history.

For 600 years, only one person lived to see retirement!

Women need not be priests to lead church, Francis says in new book

It's interesting, watching very old foundations finally begin to crumble.

The article does note he said that he’s not advocating to actually ordain women

Yeah I’d say it’s less crumbling and more shifting.

All crumbling begins with that first crumb. A hundred years from now, they will say it started now.

His Holiness' definition of leadership is overbroad. If anything, I see this as hewing toward a more conservative position and telling women to seek leadership positions within the limits of not taking positions where a penis is a qualification.

Said positions include the Pope, the College of Cardinals, and other positions where Church policy is set.

I agree, which I find dissapointing.

I mean granted he might just be testing the waters here, but still.

I think he’s testing the waters, the fact that he’s acknowledging that women can have positions of power within the Church is one step in the right direction.

I mean.

For a milleniums old institution (technically, the 2k year of the canonical "birth" of the catholic church is coming up soon, right?), starting to consider the possibility of women in leadership positions may be, to an institution defined by remaining defiant to change, could be considered a "shift" or a "crumble", deending on how far on the traditionalist spectrum you lay.

Comparatively to the rest of society, it's a low, low bar, but the Catholic Church is not society itself.

That very much depends on which parts of society from which places you're using as a frame of reference.

Last time I checked, "society" wasn't a monolith.

Edited by HailMuffins on Nov 24th 2020 at 1:23:59 PM

From that article

TIL that clericalism is a derogatory term

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/hongkong-security-church/

A Reuters Investigation on Beijing arresting two nuns in mainland China and the Hong Kong diocese is trying to avoid making activists from the congregation and those working as priests/nuns/lay people in HK.

So, a completely random thought came to me.

During both of the World Wars, I bet there were not a small number of Christians who thought that the Book of Revelations was coming true. Hell, I bet some people are doing that right now with the COVID pandemic.

Not without some reason mind you when you consider that last year we had a short but significant scare in the Caucasus due to the Armenia/Azerbaijan conflict, one that was too close to comfort in bringing more powerful players (Turkey, Russia, France) into it.