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You are here: Home / Politics / Religion / Religious Nuts 2 / Holy, Holy, Holy – There is No Other Story

Holy, Holy, Holy – There is No Other Story

by @heymistermix.com|  March 17, 201311:14 am| 87 Comments

This post is in: Religious Nuts 2

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Benedict better hold his Prada slippers tight:

In a clear signal of his desire to reset the priorities of the embattled Catholic church after Benedict XVI’s intellectual, remote-seeming reign, Francis added that the reminder had made him think of St Francis – a man “who wanted a poor church”. “Ah, how I would like a church,” he said, “that is poor and is for the poor.”

I’ll file that in the “believe it when I see it” file, and note that there are many ways to be “for the poor”. One of them is to dress down and live modestly (and credit to him for that) while advocating policies that keep people poor:

Bergoglio has supported the social justice ethos of Latin American Catholicism, including a robust defense of the poor.

“We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least,” Bergoglio said during a gathering of Latin American bishops in 2007. “The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers.”

At the same time, he has generally tended to accent growth in personal holiness over efforts for structural reform.

Bergoglio is seen an unwaveringly orthodox on matters of sexual morality, staunchly opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception. In 2010 he asserted that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children, earning a public rebuke from Argentina’s President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

“Personal holiness” never put a meal on anyone’s table, practicing Vatican Roulette is a good way to make a few more mouths to feed, and keeping gays from adopting babies makes more impoverished orphans. A gay-hater who wants to keep women in their place is still a chauvinist homophobe whether he’s riding in a city bus or a Popemobile.

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Reader Interactions

87Comments

  1. 1.

    Davis X. Machina

    March 17, 2013 at 11:18 am

    Think of the insurance companies and the Pentagon getting vocal about the impact of anthropogenic global warming.

    Same deal.

  2. 2.

    MattF

    March 17, 2013 at 11:20 am

    Is St. Patrick the patron of front page trolling?

  3. 3.

    jeffreyw

    March 17, 2013 at 11:21 am

    In honor of the “fuck the fucking pope” vibe I shall make an Irish Stew today with the lamb that laid down with the lion.

  4. 4.

    Tokyokie

    March 17, 2013 at 11:21 am

    I’d argue that Joey Ratz’s regime was “remote-seeming” in the same way the KKK is “racist-seeming” or Jim Inhofe is “stupid-seeming.” And I didn’t know that being up to one’s eyeballs in scandal and cover-up is now considered “intellectual.”

  5. 5.

    Baud

    March 17, 2013 at 11:23 am

    note that there are many ways to be “for the poor”

    The rank-and-file Catholics I know do say that the Church nominally supports economic welfare programs, but the media image the hierarchy projects in the U.S. has focused on abortion, gays, and other social issues rather than economic justice. Whether that’s the fault of the media or the Church, if the emphasis changes for the better, that will be a good thing.

  6. 6.

    c u n d gulag

    March 17, 2013 at 11:23 am

    Hey, you, new Pope!
    You know how to have less poor people?

    Advocate for taxing the rich, and “redistributing” some of their wealth – down – and not like now, where the money goes uphill.

    Educate people, via tax dollars.

    And, of you’re not going to be pro-choice (since that would lower the number of future tithe-payers), at least be pro-contraception!

    Let woman have the pill, and whatever else they feel they need, and tell men to slap some rubber on their meat-mitre!

  7. 7.

    Southern Beale

    March 17, 2013 at 11:28 am

    Hey this just in, Steubenville teens were found guilty of rape.

  8. 8.

    Mandalay

    March 17, 2013 at 11:28 am

    More pathetic trolling.

    It’s all poutrage for the precious FPers this weekend.

  9. 9.

    Redshift

    March 17, 2013 at 11:30 am

    @Baud:

    Whether that’s the fault of the media or the Church, if the emphasis changes for the better, that will be a good thing.

    When you allow bishops to talk about refusing communion for pro-choice politicians but not for voting for the Ryan budget, and you discipline nuns for working on behalf of the poor rather than focusing on abortion, that’s not the fault of the media.

    But I agree, if it changes, it would be better.

  10. 10.

    c u n d gulag

    March 17, 2013 at 11:31 am

    Look on the plus side, everyone, at least we don’t have to watch “Papal View” on our news shows 24X7, now that they’ve chosen their new “Child-schtupper-In-Chief.”

  11. 11.

    Todd

    March 17, 2013 at 11:32 am

    @c u n d gulag:

    And, of you’re not going to be pro-choice (since that would lower the number of future tithe-payers), at least be pro-contraception!
    Let woman have the pill, and whatever else they feel they need, and tell men to slap some rubber on their meat-mitre!

    He can’t. There’s a real problem with regard to infallibility, inasmuch as Humanae Vitae (the document which addresses contraception and bans it) was uttered ex cathedra. To unwind it will require that the notion of infallibility must go away as well, upending 150 years of theological doctrine.

  12. 12.

    Chris

    March 17, 2013 at 11:34 am

    @Baud:

    They support them in the sense that they talk about them. Full stop. If you’re counting on them to put *any* pressure at all on our political leadership – say, by denying communion to “Catholic” Randroid politicians, or telling their congregations not to vote for them – you know, like they ROUTINELY do for abortion and gay marriage – you’ll be waiting until hell freezes over.

    You saw it in the HCR debate. They claim health care is a universal human right, but when they had a chance to push for that, they simply sat on the sidelines concern trolling about abortion – and refused to support the bill even AFTER Bart Stupak killed his own career to get them their “no money for abortion” clause.

    The most you can expect from the RCC is that they’ll fling coins to the beggars; restructuring the edifice that produces beggars isn’t in the cards, any more than it was back when the 1%ers were kings and nobles.

  13. 13.

    IowaOldLady

    March 17, 2013 at 11:35 am

    I was raised Catholic, gradually drifted away, and lived for years with a live-and-let-live feel for the church. Then, this February, I was visiting relatives and suddenly recognized the red-hot fury I feel at it now. As I looked back, I could see that child rape was most important in shifting my feelings, but the flap over birth control as part of ACA drove me over the top, particularly the all male panel advising congress (though that wasn’t exclusively Catholic). The church will have to make big, public changes before I soften, and I see that as highly unlikely. Not that they care.

  14. 14.

    ChrisNYC

    March 17, 2013 at 11:37 am

    I too am shocked that the Pope staunchly opposes abortion, same sex marriage and contraception! Didn’t see that coming.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    March 17, 2013 at 11:37 am

    @Chris:

    I certainly am not steeped enough in RCC dynamics or this new pope in particular to make a prediction about the extent to which he is willing and able to change things. As with most things, I’m neither holding my breadth nor am I wallowing in cynicism about the prospect for positive change.

  16. 16.

    Hank

    March 17, 2013 at 11:38 am

    I’m dismayed (though not surprised) by the modern fad that feels that a person has to be entirely good or entirely bad, rather than a mixture of virtue and vice. Moreover, this attitude is invariably accompanied by a sense that any mention of good qualities in a bad man or bad qualities in a good man needs to be instantly squelched. In fact, any virtues possessed by a “bad man” are almost worse than his vices, because they are perceived as a mask to dupe the unwary, and thus not properly virtues at all. And when totting up a man’s overall virtue or vice, it is curious that the more prominent the man, the less likely that the total comes close to zero; rather it almost inevitably comes to plus or minus infinity. This is not entirely a contemporary phenomenon, by any means, but it seems to be increasingly popular.

  17. 17.

    Cacti

    March 17, 2013 at 11:38 am

    “Ah, how I would like a church that is poor and is for the poor.”

    -He said as he sat on his gilded throne

  18. 18.

    Chris

    March 17, 2013 at 11:38 am

    @Todd:

    Oh, I’m sure they’ll find a way.

    If there’s one thing I’ve learned about religion, it’s that what the doctrine says doesn’t matter; what its adherents decide to say it says matters.

  19. 19.

    Mark

    March 17, 2013 at 11:41 am

    Your argument would be much stronger without your hate.

  20. 20.

    Arm The Homeless

    March 17, 2013 at 11:42 am

    All the Catholics I know are Hispanic/Chicano and they mostly just care that “one of their own” will be leading the homilies. The bloom will slough off this particular rose soon enough, and we will be back to salaciously disturbing tidbits about their protection of child rapists.

    But I enjoy reading these little spleen venting for nothing more than to watch our resident fuckwads like Mandalay Bay Social Club whine and moan about how silly they are. Since I am simply a godless heathen, I don’t put much stock in my own failures as a human being when I hope for an incurable disease which ends with their own intestines leaking from their anus someday soon while crossing a street. My only real pity in this little scenario is for the poor schlub who will have to hose down the aftermath.

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 17, 2013 at 11:43 am

    Meet the new Pope.

    Same as the old Pope.

    Tumbrels for all red beanies. No exceptions.

  22. 22.

    Mandalay

    March 17, 2013 at 11:45 am

    @Baud:

    I’m neither holding my breadth nor am I wallowing in cynicism about the prospect for positive change.

    This. Let’s see what happens.

    A hate-filled FP rant about the pope a few days after he got the job is ridiculous.

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 17, 2013 at 11:45 am

    @Hank:

    In this case, Hank, it’s another case of cause and effect cluelessness on the part of Francis the talking mule.

  24. 24.

    Irving

    March 17, 2013 at 11:48 am

    @Cacti: …you aren’t paying attention. Pope Frances has moved very, very far indeed from the gilded throne aspects of the Papacy in just a few short weeks.

  25. 25.

    MomSense

    March 17, 2013 at 11:49 am

    @IowaOldLady:

    Here in Maine the Catholic Churches were doing second offerings to raise money to fight marriage equality. In 2009 after marriage equality was defeated, I saw a catholic school van the next day and felt this urge to ram it with my little car.

    I also remember during the Rev. Wright flap watching a bunch of Catholic pundits. It may have been Buchanan who finally said something like ‘how could he sit in the pew for 20 years’ blah, blah, blah. I wanted to shout at him how can you still belong to the Catholic Church after finding out that they were raping children and covering it up?

  26. 26.

    Roger Moore

    March 17, 2013 at 11:51 am

    @Todd:
    Who better than a Jesuit to unwind an undoubtedly flawed doctrine like Papal infallibility?

  27. 27.

    Corner Stone

    March 17, 2013 at 11:52 am

    @Mandalay:

    It’s all poutrage for the precious FPers this weekend.

    I think we should have a post on Catholic Boomers who love/hate GG.

  28. 28.

    Alex S.

    March 17, 2013 at 11:52 am

    Oh yeah, he’s a jesuit and goes by the name Francis, so we assume that he is a humble intellectual, and that’s exactly how Benedict XVI was described. There will be no changes. If anything, they’ll try to turn hispanic catholics into social conservatives. It won’t work, Argentina, for example, is a VERY socially liberal country. Brazil as well. They’ll probably try to kill the remnants of liberation theology in the name of Francis.

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    March 17, 2013 at 11:52 am

    @Mandalay:

    It’s all poutrage for the precious FPers Mandalay this weekend lifetime.

    FTFY

  30. 30.

    Cacti

    March 17, 2013 at 11:53 am

    @Irving:

    you aren’t paying attention. Pope Frances has moved very, very far indeed from the gilded throne aspects of the Papacy in just a few short weeks.

    Yes, I’m sure he lives in the same sort of hovel as a third world family with 7 kids, who followed the Holy Mother Church’s teaching on birth control being a sin.

  31. 31.

    Redshift

    March 17, 2013 at 11:56 am

    @Mark:

    Your argument would be much stronger without your hate.

    Wow, what a compelling and specific argument! Perhaps you could identify which parts you consider “hate,” and then we could all read it with those parts removed, and decide whether it is indeed “much stronger.”

  32. 32.

    Chris

    March 17, 2013 at 11:56 am

    @Hank:

    I don’t expect “all good or all bad.” LBJ was a corrupt asshole and a dick on a personal level who got tons of kids killed in Vietnam (ours and theirs). FDR was a cheating scumbag who interned hundreds based on their ethnicity alone. Jefferson and Washington owned slaves – it doesn’t get any scummier than that. Doesn’t mean I don’t revere the achievements of the Great Society, the New Deal and the original building of America.

    That said do I hold religious leaders to a higher standard. You bet I do. When you hold yourself up as a promoter of absolute moral values as the RCC does, you surely won’t mind if I judge you the same way.

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 17, 2013 at 11:57 am

    Step 1: Stop saying it is every woman’s holy duty to create as many undernourished, poverty-stricken children as possible.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    March 17, 2013 at 11:58 am

    @Todd:

    There’s a real problem with regard to infallibility, inasmuch as Humanae Vitae (the document which addresses contraception and bans it) was uttered ex cathedra. To unwind it will require that the notion of infallibility must go away as well, upending 150 years of theological doctrine.

    Vatican II upended over 1,000 years of theological doctrine, so I don’t really see why a new pope would be barred from upending a mere 150 years of it.

    They could probably manage to come up with some rationalization where barrier methods that block the egg and sperm from ever meeting are okay but hormonal methods are still bad, assuming they wanted to. But I’m guessing they won’t want to.

  35. 35.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 17, 2013 at 12:01 pm

    @Mnemosyne: They could probably manage to come up with some rationalization

    Isn’t that one of the definitions of “jesuitical”?

  36. 36.

    Gex

    March 17, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    Frankly, the optics of the church working hard to keep kids from being adopted to good homes when they seem to have such a terrible time responding to child abusers in their midst is not good.

    Or as Jamie Kilstein would say, “I’d rather have gay people adopt them than have them spend one more night with Father Diddlyhands.”

  37. 37.

    Ted & Hellen

    March 17, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    I continue to be amazed that after what has gone down over the last 15 years, not to mention the last 15 centuries, any civilized/educated/sane person gives a shit what a fucking pope of the Catholic church thinks about anything.

  38. 38.

    Ben Franklin

    March 17, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I think we should have a post on Catholic Boomers who love/hate GG.

    Mix is trolling with a gillnet as we speak.

  39. 39.

    aimai

    March 17, 2013 at 12:07 pm

    @Baud:

    The Catholic Church’s stand against contraception has absolutely destroyed the Phillipines–although I think it has finally been politically demolished. A radical stance against family planning is a thousand times worse, from the point of view of the poor and of women than a pro-rich people stance in terms of social justice. But the Church had both an theological reason and a demographic one to encourage uncontrolled natalist policies: its how they increased their growth as a church. Evangelical missions aren’t nearly as efficient as just forcing people to bear the next generation of membership.

  40. 40.

    Arm The Homeless

    March 17, 2013 at 12:07 pm

    @Mnemosyne: The RCC as with any large religious institution seeks to have it both ways. They want to be the signposts to an eternal afterlife, while being the border guards of the physio-temporal world. The lay person doesn’t follow their exact prescriptions because they understand that the underlying logic is silly. Religion simply seeks to continue its pincer move on both fronts in hopes that what they can’t accomplish by threats to one’s immortal soul can be enforced by mans’ law.

    Luckily, in my own experience Humanist inclinations tend to supplant the fairy tales told to those who are just now coming of age when the hard reality of the world smacks them in their face. It’s a numbers game, where the RCC hopes to have a net increase in their tithing customers by putting the kibosh on small families. It’s positively Darwinian, the best analogy being species who produce dozens, hundreds, or thousands of offspring knowing that most will never reach adulthood. Ironic to say the least.

  41. 41.

    Cacti

    March 17, 2013 at 12:07 pm

    @Alex S.:

    Oh yeah, he’s a jesuit and goes by the name Francis, so we assume that he is a humble intellectual, and that’s exactly how Benedict XVI was described. There will be no changes. If anything, they’ll try to turn hispanic catholics into social conservatives. It won’t work, Argentina, for example, is a VERY socially liberal country. Brazil as well. They’ll probably try to kill the remnants of liberation theology in the name of Francis

    A generation of Latin Americans were lost not because the Pope was insufficiently Hispanic. Rather, it was because the church ground Lat Am social justice movements into the ground with their heel, and either sat on their hands or actively abetted the abuses of dictatorships.

  42. 42.

    Todd

    March 17, 2013 at 12:13 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    They could probably manage to come up with some rationalization where barrier methods that block the egg and sperm from ever meeting are okay but hormonal methods are still bad, assuming they wanted to. But I’m guessing they won’t want to.

    I read the thing a while back, and it is a real dog’s breakfast of “thou shall not” – damn thing covers everything, and appears to do so explicitly in order to eliminate any potential for change.

    And remember, Vatican I (the 1869 conference that set infallibility into stone) was the culmination of about 500 years’ worth of theological development. Infallibility was in fact older, and informally applied (kind of like British constitutional law).

  43. 43.

    Donut

    March 17, 2013 at 12:21 pm

    @Mandalay:

    Trolling…what is trollish about this: fuck the fucking Catholic Church. Every bit of good the Church has done is negated ten-fold by the real and measurable harm it does to the world. These are not men of Christ.

    -ex-and-fully-recovered Catholic

  44. 44.

    Chris

    March 17, 2013 at 12:23 pm

    @Ted & Hellen:

    I agree and disagree. Certainly no one SHOULD give a shit because the institution should’ve been either discredited or thoroughly reformed by now, but the fact is that it hasn’t and continues to shape how millions of people think and vote. If you don’t care about their theology, then think of them as a worldwide political machine, with tons of voters and quite a bit of money to throw behind causes. Wingnuts learned long ago that churches could be political tools. They’re worth paying attention to by that measure alone.

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 17, 2013 at 12:28 pm

    Oh, and by the way…

    Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Take a green beer to lunch!

  46. 46.

    Baud

    March 17, 2013 at 12:28 pm

    @aimai:

    A radical stance against family planning is a thousand times worse, from the point of view of the poor and of women than a pro-rich people stance in terms of social justice.

    No argument, but they unfortunately aren’t seeking my advice about their policy positions. I tend to take social justice wherever I can find it, all else being equal (recognizing that often times all else isn’t equal).

  47. 47.

    grandpa john

    March 17, 2013 at 12:30 pm

    @MomSense: Catholics are masters of hypocrisy and lying.

  48. 48.

    Mandalay

    March 17, 2013 at 12:32 pm

    @Donut:

    Trolling…what is trollish about this: fuck the fucking Catholic Church.

    Nothing, but that wasn’t really what FP was about. It was more about attacking the pope as a “gay-hater”, and being preciously appalled about the lack of reform in the Catholic Church in the past week.

    Pure troll.

  49. 49.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 17, 2013 at 12:34 pm

    @Baud: The rank-and-file Catholics I know do say that the Church nominally supports economic welfare programs, but the media image the hierarchy projects in the U.S. has focused on abortion, gays, and other social issues rather than economic justice

    The Bishops certainly speak louder about anything related to sex than they do about poverty, and Dolan seems both more interested in crotch-sniffing than your average bemitred bear, and better at media manipulation than any Catholic poobah of my memory, certainly in this country. I will say too that JP II seemed genuinely offended by the Iraq War, and if he had been in better health might have been more of a problem for the Bush/Blair/Cheney contingent. Blair has officially converted, hasn’t he?

  50. 50.

    rikyrah

    March 17, 2013 at 12:42 pm

    taking a wait-and-see on Francis I

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    March 17, 2013 at 12:47 pm

    @Todd:

    I read the thing a while back, and it is a real dog’s breakfast of “thou shall not” – damn thing covers everything, and appears to do so explicitly in order to eliminate any potential for change.

    Pre-Vatican II, people probably would have said the same thing about holding the Jews responsible for Jesus’s execution. I think people who grew up in the post-Vatican II church have very little idea how all-pervasive the anti-Semitism was — not just in pronouncements from the altar, but in the actual liturgy.

    So, again, I think they could change their minds about barrier methods without damaging infallibility, the same way they changed their minds about Galileo and evolution. It’s just a matter of will and, as someone else said, a little jesuitical reasoning. But I seriously doubt it’s going to happen.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne

    March 17, 2013 at 12:49 pm

    @rikyrah:

    You never really know. John XXIII was supposed to be a placeholder, and he did the most massive reform of the Church in 500 years even though he was only pope for 5 years. So I’m not massively hopeful, but miracles do happen. ;-)

  53. 53.

    TooManyJens

    March 17, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    @Todd:

    There’s a real problem with regard to infallibility, inasmuch as Humanae Vitae (the document which addresses contraception and bans it) was uttered ex cathedra.

    No, it wasn’t. It’s true that Paul VI overrode the conclusions of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control (which had found that contraception was permissible) because of a concern for the perception of the church’s authority. After all, if he were to say that the Church had been wrong on contraception for centuries, it could prompt people to wonder what else the hierarchy had been wrong about. But Humanae Vitae wasn’t issued ex cathedra; that’s extremely rare and wasn’t invoked in that case.

    Changing the Church’s stance on contraception would provoke a crisis of authority, I’m sure. But the infallibility doctrine isn’t the issue.

  54. 54.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    March 17, 2013 at 1:15 pm

    I’m sure the $20 million apartments owned by the church and located above Europe’s largest gay resort will be used for ‘the poorz’.

  55. 55.

    jamick6000

    March 17, 2013 at 1:18 pm

    @Todd:

    He can’t. There’s a real problem with regard to infallibility, inasmuch as Humanae Vitae (the document which addresses contraception and bans it) was uttered ex cathedra. To unwind it will require that the notion of infallibility must go away as well, upending 150 years of theological doctrine.

    actually, this isn’t correct, for what it’s worth. Humanae Vitae is not covered under papal infallibility. It was understood (especially at the time it was released) to be non-infallible. It could be changed (or everyone can just keep ignoring it haha).

  56. 56.

    Mnemosyne

    March 17, 2013 at 1:23 pm

    Also, while Googling for other things, I stumbled across this essay that explains in reasonably simple terms why the new pope is not a supporter of liberation theology but is still more economically liberal than most Americans.

  57. 57.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    March 17, 2013 at 1:25 pm

    @TooManyJens: According to Gary Wills, Paul VI couldn’t change the stance on contraception not because it was the belief for centuries but because a papal declaration had been issued on the subject too recently. (in the ’30’s?) (I can’t link to the New York Review of Books article since I buy individual issues through B&N and not a subscription from their website). It was brought up in a discussion of the Church’s change on their relationship with Jews at Vatican II. That was less controversial because there hadn’t been a papal declaration on the subject. Apparently if you desire change on a dogma, its important that the pope never talk about the subject.

  58. 58.

    jamick6000

    March 17, 2013 at 1:27 pm

    to be fair, obama has destroyed the lives of more children with his escalated occupation of afghanistan, sanctions on iran and drone war than the church could destroy in its wildest dreams.

  59. 59.

    Ted & Hellen

    March 17, 2013 at 1:32 pm

    @jamick6000:

    Well, there is that too…

  60. 60.

    aimai

    March 17, 2013 at 1:42 pm

    @jamick6000:
    Doubtful. Obama has been (and will be) in power for 8 years. The Catholic church has over a billion adherents and has been ruining lives for 2000 years. Try to have a little perspective.

  61. 61.

    jamick6000

    March 17, 2013 at 1:48 pm

    balloon juice theologians unveil doctrine of Presidential Infallibility.

  62. 62.

    Irving

    March 17, 2013 at 1:51 pm

    @Cacti: …hey, would you mind bringing those goalposts back? I was addressing them when you ran to the state line with them.

    No, the pope isn’t going to move the Vatican to a slum in Calcutta. He couldn’t if he wanted to. But this Pope is quite literally not sitting on a golden throne. That’s where he was supposed to be sitting when the bishops came to see him the first time. He stood to greet them. This is a big deal an a major symbolic act, in an institution that is quite literally defined by symbolism.

  63. 63.

    Comrade Mary

    March 17, 2013 at 1:59 pm

    Ooh, how about this?

    It’s easy — maybe too easy — for people with progressive political views to dismiss the Roman Catholic Church as a vile anachronism, a nightmarish patriarchy of aging pedophiles, woman-haters, homophobes and/or closet cases that can offer nothing of value to the contemporary world. When it comes to the church hierarchy, and especially the Roman Curia, the corrupt and labyrinthine Vatican bureaucracy that makes the Soviet-era Kremlin look like a model of transparency, that point of view seems more than justified.

    But the church is not just the hierarchy, and as the spectacle of the last several days has demonstrated, there are millions or billions of people around the world — Catholics and non-Catholics alike — who wish the newly elected Pope Francis well and yearn to see in him the possibility of hope and renewal for this ancient, powerful and heavily tarnished institution that claims direct succession from the apostles of Jesus. …

    Fox believes that the last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, departed so far from both the letter and spirit of Vatican II — which should have been viewed as the authoritative teachings of the church — that they should be considered “schismatic,” or illegitimate. “In the Catholic tradition, a council trumps a pope,” he says. “A pope does not trump a council.” (In the great tradition of Catholic intellectuals, he cites precedence in the Council of Constance, convened in 1414, which fired three warring popes and appointed a new one.) “What’s happened since John Paul II is that he and Ratzinger have turned back all the basic principles of Vatican II. I would include the principle of freedom of conscience, the principle that theologians have a right to think. They brought the Inquisition back, there’s no question about it.”

  64. 64.

    Cacti

    March 17, 2013 at 2:04 pm

    @Irving:

    He stood to greet them

    Truly a prince among men.

  65. 65.

    jamick6000

    March 17, 2013 at 2:10 pm

    According to the Most Progressive Gene Sperling’s recent pastoral letter to Reddit, President Obama was speaking ex cathedra when he proposed the Chained CPI, therefore all ballon juice commenters are obliged to support him.

  66. 66.

    scav

    March 17, 2013 at 2:12 pm

    We are still so deep into the shiny-object publicity stage of this papacy and this is all this vapourware, hype and promises. Call me in a year with change, possible convictions and results. Without that, all we’ve witnessed is a change of wrapping paper and bow. No idea what’s in the box, let alone its ship-date.

  67. 67.

    Irving

    March 17, 2013 at 2:18 pm

    @Cacti: You’ve never been Catholic, have you?

  68. 68.

    pseudonymous in nc

    March 17, 2013 at 2:18 pm

    I’m just going to tip the hat for the Wye Oak reference in the title.

  69. 69.

    Alex S.

    March 17, 2013 at 2:25 pm

    @Comrade Mary:

    I like to think of Vatican II as the religious counterpart of the Great Society and the general liberalism of the 60s. The election of John Paul II in 1978 reminds me of Thatcher’s election in 1979 and Reagan’s election in 1980. These are all parts of a sneaking conservative counterrevolution that has lasted for about 30 years. In the USA, that kind of conservatism is obviously dying. Europe and the Catholic Church will destroy themselves if the conservative forced prevail. Thank you for the link.

  70. 70.

    Cacti

    March 17, 2013 at 2:25 pm

    @Irving:

    You’ve never been Catholic, have you?

    By the grace of FSM, no.

    Neither have 3/4 of Americans, or 5.8 billion people currently living in the world.

    But that doesn’t exactly stop this sect from trying to have its outdated, patriarchal, and homophobic theology form the public policy for all of the world’s non-catholics, now does it?

  71. 71.

    Irving

    March 17, 2013 at 2:40 pm

    @Cacti: …well, it does when you’re trying to decipher what the various things that happen in Vatican City are all about.

    I mean, did you know when you posted your comment about “He said as he sat on his gilded throne” that the Pope actually does have a gilded throne? That he’s expected, by hundreds of years of tradition, to sit on? It’s not a metaphor. That’s the sort of institution we’re dealing with here.

    This whole organization is based on the notion that when a priest holds up a wafer of bread and says, “This is my body”, it becomes something fundamentally holy and different than what it was three seconds ago. Symbolic acts really, really matter here. If you’re going to bitch about the political direction of the Catholic Church without understanding the rather radical power shifts and changes in direction the Pope is signalling less than two weeks into his reign, you need to learn a little bit before you go off half cocked. It’s like complaining about changes to the NFL without knowing what a quarterback is.

    Pope Francis is directly defying the power structure that Ratzinger put in place. He’s not wearing the “official” garb the Ratzinger insisted on, and he’s not doing things according to some very ancient traditions that Ratzinger revived. This means, very bluntly, that in the next year or so a lot of Vatican staff are going to be “reassigned”; i.e. fired. At which point, yes, the direction of the Church is definitely going to change.

    But the Church doesn’t become something wholly other within two weeks, so maybe learning how to interpret the symbolism of what’s going on might give you a clue as to what’s happening here as opposed to just general anti-religious hysteria, eh?

  72. 72.

    Cacti

    March 17, 2013 at 2:47 pm

    @Irving:

    Pope Francis is directly defying the power structure that Ratzinger put in place. He’s not wearing the “official” garb the Ratzinger insisted on, and he’s not doing things according to some very ancient traditions that Ratzinger revived. This means, very bluntly, that in the next year or so a lot of Vatican staff are going to be “reassigned”; i.e. fired. At which point, yes, the direction of the Church is definitely going to change.

    Again, color me less than impressed at his cosmetic changes, while remaining predictably homophobic and misogynistic. The ritual hoo-hah about his chair, his cross, and his vestments means precisely dick in anyone’s day to day lives.

    Opposition to access to birth control on the other hand has very tangible and far reaching consequences.

  73. 73.

    Chris

    March 17, 2013 at 2:47 pm

    @Alex S.:

    Yeah, I think that’s exactly the way to look at it. It was the big liberal accomplishment that brought the Church into the 20th century, and like its counterparts in the political world, it immediately engendered a mother of all conservative backlashes.

  74. 74.

    scav

    March 17, 2013 at 2:51 pm

    For the crumbs of change that the Catholic devout are willing to accept, let the entire rest of the world be truly thankful, forever and ever, ages upon ages, amen.

  75. 75.

    geg6

    March 17, 2013 at 2:58 pm

    @Mandalay:

    Hahahahahahahahahahaha! I can tell you exactly what will happen. Nothing, absolutely fucking nothing. The Church will continue exactly as it has forever or, rather, exactly the way it always has. By grudging the faithful, raping their children, elevating and enabling the rapists and their complicit bishops, fearing and enslaving women, encouraging the killing of gays, and piously lamenting the poors for whom they make a show of caring about but do nothing to alleviate the root of their sufferings.

    Just because you obviously weren’t raised in the Church (or you’d know better than to even entertain the idea of any sort of change or progression) doesn’t mean that those of us who were don’t know it well enough to assert what we have known to be true all our lives.

    Fuck this Pope and all popes, fuck the Church and fuck their apologists like you. The entire ediface is nothing but a seething cauldron of misogyny, sexual dysfunction and grift. That’s what it’s all about, that’s what it’s always been about and that’s all it will ever be about. John XXIII was an unexpected anomaly. They’ll never make that mistake again.

  76. 76.

    geg6

    March 17, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    @jamick6000:

    You really don’t know a lick of history, especially Church history, do you? This might be the stupidest statement ever posted on the Internet.

  77. 77.

    Corner Stone

    March 17, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    @jamick6000:

    balloon juice theologians unveil doctrine of Presidential Infallibility.

    The resident apologia are the spiritual progeny of the Nixonian “If the president does it, it’s not illegal” and the GWB Church Camps where children were led to pray to a cardboard cutout of Himself.

  78. 78.

    lojasmo

    March 17, 2013 at 3:18 pm

    @jamick6000:

    to be fair, obama has destroyed the lives of more children with his escalated occupation of afghanistan, sanctions on iran and drone war than the church could destroy in its wildest dreams

    The Cruisades called. They want their idiotic hyperbole back.

  79. 79.

    geg6

    March 17, 2013 at 3:21 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    You know, I’ve always known you’re a lying dick but I never thought you stupid. But heh indeedying that idiot who thinks the RCC has fewer mortal sins to answer for than Obama is the epitome of stupid and just goes to show that you are what you most hate: a mindless idiot reflexively blaming Obama, just as you accuse us, inexplicably, of worshipping him. Proud of being on a par with the Tea Party?

  80. 80.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 17, 2013 at 3:21 pm

    @lojasmo: And the poor and hungry of the Philippines, large parts of India, Africa, Central and South America, and no small number of US citizens wish their condition held some interest for self righteous veterans of Nader 2000.

  81. 81.

    scav

    March 17, 2013 at 3:26 pm

    I’m thinking the jabberwocky6000 is a home schooled Catholic: jesuit-trained ones tend not to use logic and history like foreign objects. Still, as a sign of hope(?) he does seem to say that the wildest dreams of the church might very well involve destroying kids. Or is that just the usual problems with the native tongue?

  82. 82.

    Corner Stone

    March 17, 2013 at 3:33 pm

    @geg6: Well, I’ve always known you were a mindless reactionary blowhard buffoon. And this nonsensical post, with no actual ties to my comment, just furthers that assessment.

  83. 83.

    IowaOldLady

    March 17, 2013 at 3:44 pm

    I refuse to be grateful because the institution that devalues me doesn’t devalue some others.

  84. 84.

    El Cid

    March 17, 2013 at 6:51 pm

    “When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why so many people are poor they call me a communist.” — Brazilian bishop and arch-bishop Dom Helder Camara.

    He was so serious about these sorts of things that he favored the work of Brazilian governments who sought to develop Brazil for Brazilians over more important foreign investors and companies, and even when we tried to help Brazilians to avoid this error by backing military overthrow of these irresponsible elected governments, he continued to oppose these wise military leaders who had saved them all from Communism.

    People aiming to truly help the poor by becoming pope know better than to make such noise in the face of, well, their betters.

  85. 85.

    EvolutionaryDesign

    March 17, 2013 at 9:11 pm

    @pseudonymous in nc: I would like to second that. What a great band – and song!

  86. 86.

    cleek

    March 18, 2013 at 9:26 am

    Wye Oak. well played.

  87. 87.

    Another Halocene Human

    March 18, 2013 at 2:42 pm

    To be fair (much as it pains me), Bergoglio’s city bus days are over. (And too bad, there really is nothing like the joy of being bounced all over the place riding a Roman bus over the city’s evil 18th cent. style cobblestones–these fuckers had asphalt and took it away to affect, what, that beloved time before the unification?!) The popemobile was instituted after the attempted assassination of John Paul II by a crazy dude.

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