I’m with the new pope on this one.
My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centred mindset bent on profit at any cost.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) May 2, 2013
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.
The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.
The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.
Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.
It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.
The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)
… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact
If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.
Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.
Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.
If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.
Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.
Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.
Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.
fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)
The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.
Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!
“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”
Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.
jibeaux
Whatever else he may be, he’s an improvement on the last guy.
Zandar
Lighten up, Francis.
eric
Murikan Jesus doesnt fire anyone, he terminates them with extreme prejudice.
Todd
He just gave Scalia a sad, and Alito is tightening up his cilice.
Scott S.
That dude is *so* gonna get mysteriously-deathed.
Elizabelle
A pope who gets it.
Well, some of it.
Miracle.
Biff Longbotham
I hear the sound of conservative Catholics’ heads exploding.
Punchy
Why is the Argentinian living in Italy spelling “centered” like a Englishman?
Also, too…when do his thoughts turn to all the mentally anguished, often as a result of a self-centered mindset bent on engaging in and then hiding pedophilia at any cost?
Brandon
@Scott S.: cantarella perhaps?
beltane
The pope’s May Day homily regarding austerity/greed/unemployment was even more explicit. I think I’m liking this guy.
Morzer
@Punchy:
One character fewer on Twitter, maybe? Or perhaps his translator is English?
Anyway, at least Pope Frankie Commie is annoying the right people, which is an improvement over Pope Joey Ratzi.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Punchy: Also, when is he going to stop wearing the tall hats because they really make midgets feel inferior? And when is he going to sell off the Vatican to help feed the poor?
shortstop
This would be a good time for the Vatican to sell off some of its assets to and use the funds to help the poor.
danielx
Clearly a bleeding heart commie.
shortstop
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Jinx.
EconWatcher
The rest of the hierarchy should realize that this guy is showing the way for the Church to begin restoring its reputation.
I’m a fallen, agnostic ex-Catholic, but I always give them their due on the charitable works the Church does, including educating poor kids in inner cities, soup kitchens, and the like. Emphasizing this side of the Church, instead of trying to be a moral scold when everyone remembers the pedophilia scandals, is the way back.
And the fact that this guy has refused to live in the Vatican palace wins big points with me. He seems to walk the walk.
shortstop
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
Narcissus
Man imagine if the Pope started talking about the whole humility and poverty thing all the time
Peggy Noonan would turn inside-out, ass-first
peach flavored shampoo
Sorry, I’m not buying it that a man of his age knows how to tweet. This was a liberal hack-tweet designed to make the old wrinkly look squishy.
Snarki, child of Loki
@Punchy: “Why is the Argentinian living in Italy spelling “centered” like a Englishman?”
Because when people from outside the US learn English, they sometimes prefer to learn it from someone, you know, ENGLISH.
I would be absolutely hilarious if he’d learned “english” from a Texan. Or an Aussie. He’d have to change his name to Pope Hilarious II.
Punchy
OT:
Half of Kris-Kross (the Kris part) just kicked it. Wonder if they’ll bury him with his pants on backwards.
Gex
Until they actually show the same kind of motivation to fight for their poverty, war, and death penalty positions as they did the gay issue, I will assume this is just PR.
ETA: The last two Popes also talked about these issues. They just didn’t get praised for it like this one does.
Gex
@EconWatcher: “Seems” being the operative word if you ask me. We will see.
Wag
@EconWatcher:
As a fellow fallen away ex catholic, I agree 100%. He’s only been Bishop of Rome for a couple if months, and every homily seems to be focused on economic justice. I’ll be interested to see where the Church is in a year or two if this keeps up. The Vatican wasn’t razed in a day.
Biff Longbotham
@peach flavored shampoo: Clearly a false flag event. Alert Alex Jones.
jrg
Been a while since you’ve worked with someone who should be fired, has it?
shortstop
@Snarki, child of Loki: I don’t disagree, but who was Hilarious I?
@Gex: This. Popes talk about a lot of things. The amount of action that takes place is the only useful measuring stick.
Ben Franklin
Words are cheap. Gimme that Olde Tyme Religion where deeds back up the bullshit.
Ben Grimm
@jibeaux:
Pope Baked Potato would be an improvement on the last guy.
Citizen_X
@Narcissus:
How could anyone tell?
catclub
@beltane: With a name like that, who would not like May day.
Anyway, I like the sound, too, but if the only excommunications are over abortion or gay marriage rather than greed and war, if the only administrative changes in the church are further crackdowns on the nuns, I will not be surprised.
Amir Khalid
@Punchy:
I have myself reverted to British spelling of late when commenting here, after using American spelling for the first few years. As a Commonwealth country national, I did indeed learn British-style spelling in school.
Outside North America, I reckon most countries use British spelling with a dash of American for variety.
catclub
@Narcissus: It would indeed be great. Am not holding my breath.
catclub
Unlike all the other bits of the Bible that we are told must be taken literally. “A workman is worthy of his hire” is just a rhetorical flourish. Biblical inerrancy.
Cacti
Nice sentiments by Frank the Tank.
Now if he started denying communion to every business owner/corporate titan/big swinging dick who doesn’t pay their employees a living wage, I’d really be impressed.
gbear
@Snarki, child of Loki: The Minnesota translation.
I’m kinda thinkin’ ’bout all the people who don’t have a job, sometimes because their boss has been kind of a jerk, if ya know what I’m sayin’.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I won’t start accepting what a pope says until he walks on water.
hackenbush
It would have been somewhat happiness-inducing, if not for:
a) The first reply tweet, which implied that poverty was linked to governments “stealing half the profits” through taxation. I thought libertardians were too full of their own self-made-man-ness to ever use the internet (developed by the gub’mint).
b) The vast swath of insulting twitter replies *after* that one. One person said they wanted to pee on the pope.
c) The irony in a pope declaring that self-interest and hoarding wealth was creating poverty — from the organization who brought you the tithe and laundering Nazi money — not to mention that they’re the single largest landholder in the US (or at least, they were for quite some time).
Rosalita
dude better watch his back. actually caring about the masses doesn’t go over well with the Clan of the Red Beanie
Woodrowfan
@Snarki, child of Loki: And there were strong ties between Britain and Argentina (pre-1982) esp between their upper classes and educational institutions…
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@gbear: I have an ex boss that I’d still consider shooting. Four and a half years later, and I’m only just now getting to “unwilling to go to prison for doing the deed.”
Villago Delenda Est
Well, Paul Ryan always has the cult of Rand to fall back on if Pope Francis gets too commie for Ryan’s tastes.
Hillary Rettig
that’s pretty amazing
terraformer
Is our Popes learning?
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
Canadians primarily use British spelling, so it doesn’t even really apply in North America. IIRC from some recent work my department has done, South Korea and Taiwan both use American spelling when they publish things in English, so I think it has a lot to do with which English-speaking country had the most influence. I would guess that they primarily use British spelling in Hong Kong, but I don’t know for sure.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, on-topic, I am happy to encourage this new trend by the Pope even if I doubt it’s actually going to go anywhere.
muddy
The thing that is absolutely normal that still brings me up short is accent. Someone from Germany or anywhere, speaking English with an English accent, and it seems funny at first, ho ho why are they using an accent other than their own? Then realizing that in England people might say the German guy’s English was perfect, and had no accent at all. (not going down rabbit hole as to British Isles extreme demarkations of accent and how they would all know anyway)
Even after I figured this out a long time ago, I still notice and am taken by it every time.
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
I believe that Taiwan and South Korea (and more recently China) actually mandate the American spelling system as part of their English curriculum in schools.
Big R
Worth noting that the Pope’s tweet could also be read as deploring the fact that the UNEMPLOYED are so driven by greed etc. as to create their unemployment.
In other words, “Lower the minimum wage!” So there’s something here for everyone. Typical religious language; not applicable to politics except through a lens – and which lens you use is dependent on your pre-existing views.
Fair Economist
If he wants to revive the Catholic Church in Europe, this is the way to do it. When more than half of young Spaniards are unemployed, the one guy in authority saying “this is wrong” is going to get some respect.
Phil Perspective
@Scott S.: You mean like the guy who was Pope previous to JPII?
eataTREE
Uh, this is not a sentiment I’m accustomed to expressing, but you go, Pope.
Lee
Are we sure some internet troll did not get elected as Pope?
Because it really seems this Pope is just pulling one long gigantic troll on American Conservative Catholics.
A question those that that have met DougJ, does he look anything like this new Pope?
cminus
@shortstop:
Presumably Snarki was referring to Pope Hilarius.
lol
@Lee:
DougJ is more of a (more) sober Patrick Kennedy.
Mnemosyne
@muddy:
If you’ve ever seen a movie with the French actress Julie Delpy (like Before Sunrise), you might notice that her French accent sounds “wrong,” or at least different from what our ears usually hear as a French accent. That’s because most French people learned English from British or Irish teachers, while Delpy learned English in the US.
burritoboy
You don’t have to like Benedict XVI, but his economic message was indistinguishable from Francis’. He wrote a long essay on the recent financial crises where he subtly says that many capitalists are simply worshipers of Mammon.
HumboldtBlue
Fuck the motherfucking pope who lives in a fucking gilded cage surrounded by courtiers and sycophants.
Bubblegum Tate
@shortstop:
Yes. I’m not gonna knock myself out cheering for the guy, but I will say that baby steps in the right direction is a welcome change from giant leaps in the wrong direction.
Shortstop
@cminus: I’ll be damned (no, really). My husband, a staunch atheist, is an expert on the popes. He would never have made my rookie mistake.
LanceThruster
It was someone in here who cited Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when I mentioned a story of a conservative pastor who regretted his demonization of Bill Clinton because of Monica-gate after he saw how much his congregation was hurting due to GW’s trashing of the economy. He said that their lives were far more negatively impacted by bad economic policy than Clinton’s infidelity.
gnomedad
@Ben Grimm:
The first Sontaran Pope! Awesome!
gnomedad
@burritoboy:
True, but if Francis dials it back on traditionalist nostalgia, the economic message will be heard better.
Heliopause
I agree with the Pope’s statement as well. But you ask what Jesus thought about it? Well…
“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?…Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”
“The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”