Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it’s a trap.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Come on, man.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Second rate reporter says what?

Battle won, war still ongoing.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Peak wingnut was a lie.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Motown is Joe-Town!

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Consistently wrong since 2002

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Reader Interactions

132Comments

  1. 1.

    Elizabelle

    Those conservative Catholics are practicing Scalia-ism.

    Which don’t have that much to do with what Jesus preached.

    John XXIII died of stomach cancer after 4.5 years. We’d be better off if he’d had a longer reign.

  2. 2.

    cathyx

    Pope Francis can kiss a man with boils all over his face, but not a selfish, aging, conservative old bag? Where’s the justice in this?

  6. 6.

    Lurking Buffoon

    Assassinating a pope over following what his messiah actually taught and not enough of a hate-on? Clearly a PR stunt, of course.

  7. 7.

    nancy darling

    I have been thinking the same thing, Doug. I just haven’t said it out loud yet. I have always had lingering doubts about the 30-day, smiling pope. As I recall, an autopsy was never performed on his body.

    Pope Francis has certainly afflicted the comfortable. I hope someone has his back.

  8. 8.

    catclub

    I think the comments were pretty good. Conservatives were complaining, not that they were being oppressed ( as the left side Catholics had been for decades) but that they were no longer allowed to oppress the others. Which is clearly an outrage.

  9. 9.

    catclub

    @nancy darling: “Pope Francis has certainly afflicted the comfortable.”

    No, he has simply stopped afflicting the afflicted, and the conservatives are getting upset about THAT.
    If he gets to comforting the afflicted, that will be great progress, plus we get to see heads explode.

  10. 10.

    j

    Not crazy at all. Wingers murdered JFK, they engineered the Iran embassy takeover, they totally screwed with South America and Central America by establishing “banana republics” and supporting murderous dictators, they invaded and occupied Iraq just because they wanted to, (because Saddam wasn’t their guy anymore, so he was expendable)…

    The list goes on. What makes a Pope special?

    The wingers probably killed Dead Andy Breitbart because he was making them look too bad in the MSM lens via James O’Keefe. Now Hannity is on the way out and the money guys of the GOP are trying to kill off the monster they created with teh Teabaggers.

    Right wingers have no ethics or morals, only love of money and power.

  11. 11.

    catclub

    @efgoldman: Just do some random shopping on the internets, and your recent interests will overwhelm the random. (Assuming you allow the cookies to hang around.)

  15. 15.

    Sir Laffs-a-lot

    No, Pope John Paul I most likely died of natural causes; his staff aparently tried to make it look like he died in bed with dignity not on sprawled on the floor:

  16. 16.

    cathyx

    The Pope is putting everyone on the same level. That is very upsetting to conservatives. Conservatives think they are better than others.

  17. 17.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Where’s the long thinkpiece on American Catholics who have always wanted a priority on social justice rather than palling around with the fundies?

    Oh, I forgot, only people on Bullshit Bill Donohue’s contact list count. Boo fucking hoo. Be content with your front row reserved seats at St Blowhardia’s.

  21. 21.

    scav

    How dare the Pope actually preach anything not vetted by conservative American Catholics. Just who does he think he is? The Shut Up and Serve It Our Way or the Highway religious buffet has broken through its Evangelical roots long past.

  23. 23.

    handsmile

    If Francis has anything to worry about, it won’t be from American conservatives.

    His real enemies will be found among officials of the scandal-plagued Vatican bank, whose bureaucracy he has begun to reform. Or from friends of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the long-time Vatican secretary of state (second highest administrative official), who was sacked last month by Francis.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/15/us-vatican-bertone-idUSBRE99E0L220131015

    Though if polonium were to be suspected in his conjectured demise, I’d be looking at Mossad.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/08/israel-killed-arafat-claims-palestinian-official-polonium

    ETA: Of course, when one is kissing the poor (and afflicted) rather than kicking the poor (and afflicted), wingnuts do take exception.

  24. 24.

    Gex

    I don’t know what they are upset about. Francis hasn’t changed any doctrine about women’s reproductive health or about gay’s lives one iota. The recipe the Church has for women is to get pregnant and stay pregnant and their recipe for gays is to ex-gay ourselves or live celibate lives. He’s mastered the art of saying things that make it sound like the Church is being progressive while not being one tiny bit more progressive.

    It has done wonders for the Church’s image outside of the Church and these idiots are complaining about that? Those tax dollars don’t funnel themselves towards the Church’s coffers. The taxpayers need to be okay with giving the Church $3 billion or more per year and the Church’s obsession with women and gays could start jeopardizing it. What better way to protect that easy money source than to give people the impression the Church is changing attitudes when they actually haven’t?

    These conservative Catholics are going to ruin a masterful PR job. They are like the Tea Party who doesn’t just want the exact same policies as the GOP – they need to have those exact same policies without bothering to talk in code or finesse their positions in any way.

  25. 25.

    j

    @Yatsuno: When I heard about “Obummer’s secret heart attack death ray” I wondered why he didn’t test it out on el-Rushbo; a morbidly obese rage-a-holic with a drug abuse history who has never been in shape his entire life. It just didn’t make any sense to use it on a common run of the mill wingnut welfare recipient drunk with a tiny audience like Dead Andy.

  26. 26.

    jl

    @efgoldman: I see a clicky ad thing that says I have a choice between a Silicon Valley dream house or 4 miiiilllliiiiioooon $$$ !!

    I’m in the money, I’m in the money!

    But which to choose… decisions decisions…

    As for better than usual pope guy, they elect mostly really old guys, kind of like the Soviet Union before if feel apart. The prissy Polish dude was an exception.So, kind of hard to tell whether a death is premature or suspicious.

    I hope the better than usual pope guy hangs in their for a long time.

    As for the hate brigade conservative Catholics, moar skizms, I say!

  28. 28.

    KG

    @handsmile: as with any potential assassination throughout history, there are a thousand potential suspects, each with a thousand motives. But usually, it comes down to power, someone had it and lost it or someone is trying to gain it.

  30. 30.

    jl

    @Gex: I agree with what you say. But still am glad that at least something in the direction of the original idea of Christianity is being said from high places (some mainstream Prot churches say the same thing, but it is mushed up with such corporate mumbo jumbo, no one cares).

    I am glad that at least a small precedent is being set, even if it has not made any difference in official dogma. But I guess that very small refreshing breeze, too small to move anything, is more than enough to upset the hate brigade.

  31. 31.

    Keith P.

    Gotta love the conceit of bloggers saying that the Pope is dangerously close to being a heretic. I’m sure next they’ll say he should be excommunicated. Guess they’d rather have a pope that tells the boil-infected to pick themselves up by their bootstraps (or slap them on the forehead and say “BE HEALED-UH!”)

  34. 34.

    raven

    @jl: Oxfam is one of the best as far as money going directly to those in need. They are highly rated by Charity Navigator unlike, say, the Wounded Warrior Project.

  35. 35.

    jl

    @Belafon: The conservatives in the U.S. are infected with Jansenism (IMHO), like the French and Irish franchises. Used to be a heresy. But I think that general thought tendency was too handy a tool to beat back commies and science, when the RCC started its epic panic attack over a century ago.

  37. 37.

    handsmile

    @KG:

    Yes, that’s why disgruntled ex-employees or unhappy banksters would be more likely suspects than the perennially-peeved Catholic Leaguers of Bill Donohue.

    @jl:

    Other suggestions as well for humanitarian relief organizations may be found on dpm’s “Awful” thread from this morning.

    @raven:

    A most happy birthday! I hope this year will bring you nothing but days of fishing – even when you’re far from the ocean.

  39. 39.

    jl

    @Baud: I don’t think Francis will even try to change much, since I think he agrees with most of it. But just the idea of not bashing all those people goin’ to hell, and obs on their way already, is considered an outrage. I heard he was still dogging progressive nuns over BS.

    If he can start the process of getting rid of some BS, like the priest celibacy weirdness, it will do a world of good. Then a lot of RC priests can be normal married hypocrites like that Prot preacherman.down the street. At least they might be more likely to leave little boys and girls alone, after having sex with a grown up woman isn’t considered totally icky and sinful. Maybe lay off the men too, unless they are more or less consenting, That would so a lot of good.

    Edit: and women clergy! Maybe he can lay the groundwork for that. I don’t think he will go that far. That would be the envelope.

  41. 41.

    TG Chicago

    OT: Lara Logan apologized on 60 Minutes for their bogus Benghazi story. Of course, it was a brief piece at the end of the show. And they didn’t make it clear that the entire story was based on the one liar’s account. They used the liar’s real name (Dylan Davies), while on the original show, they gave him a pseudonym. So you might still think “Morgan Jones” (the pseudonym) was telling the truth.

    And perhaps worst of all, they still didn’t disclose that the liar’s book was supposed to be released by a division of CBS. I’m sure their reason for that is that the book got pulled, but that’s weak sauce. They should have disclosed that originally, and they had no excuse for hiding that tonight.

  42. 42.

    Ash Can

    I’m a liberal Catholic who was too stubborn to leave the Church while Pope Benedict was actively trying to push me and my ilk away. Now the conservatives are all bent out of shape because this pope is trying to remind them of what the Church is really all about. Boo fucking hoo. If Pope Francis were to treat them the way Benedict treated the liberals, then they really would have something to whine about.

  43. 43.

    Anoniminous

    So, the Pope is no longer a former member of the Hitler Jugend but a supporter of a military junta that “disappeared” 15,000 to 30,000 people.

    Color me unimpressed.

  47. 47.

    andy

    Conservative Catholics are not down with the Peace-Love-and-Beads-Jesus thing. For the functionally sociopathic, it doesn’t pay as well and they hate being asked to be interested in the well-being of ishy people. (Poors,Browns,Fags, etc).

  48. 48.

    Belafon

    @Anoniminous: Yeah, we got that in the last eight posts about the pope. This one, on the other hand, is about American conservative’s reactions to the pope.

  49. 49.

    Older

    everyone should “follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them”

    I am not Catholic, but from conversations and reading, it’s my impression that traditionally the church ranks individual conscience at the top of the virtues. God hopes you will decide to agree with him, but he wants you to decide.

    So this would be the church’s traditional position? The nerve.

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @cathyx:

    A liberal Catholic? So you pick and choose which doctrine you’ll follow?

    Why not?  Conservative US Catholics choose not to follow the Church’s teachings on capital punishment (against it) and economic justice including universal healthcare (for it), so why is it bad for liberal Catholics to follow suit?

    Oh, you mean because conservative Catholics have been sneering that liberals are “cafeteria Catholics” who pick and choose which teachings to follow while hypocritically doing the exact same thing?  I think that answers the question right there.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Gex:

    I don’t think the fundamental teachings of Catholicism will change until they drop the obsession with reproduction, but it would be nice to at least get back to the neutral “AIDS is not God’s punishment” days.

  54. 54.

    Baud

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    Actually, one area that the Church could put more emphasis on without any doctrinal difficulties is economic justice. If Francis can pull that off, that would be game changing.

  55. 55.

    Robert

    No, it’s not crazy to think that the top level of the Catholic Church has…exerted their influence over who maintains the papacy. You really think the last pope voluntarily stepped down?

  61. 61.

    Ash Can

    @cathyx: Yep, just like conservative Catholics do. Catholics who follow every pronouncement from the Vatican, without exception, are few and far between.

    ETA: And, what Mnemosyne @ #54 said.

  62. 62.

    catclub

    I was also amused in the article that one person mentioned 2000 year old doctrines that Francis is not overturning.
    Naturally, clergy celibacy isn’t that old.

    Maybe he meant 200 year old doctrines.

  63. 63.

    Ash Can

    @cathyx: How am I a hypocrite when I admit it? Are you saying that only those who faithfully follow every single one of the Church hierarchy’s strictures should call themselves Catholics? That’s what the last pope wanted, but there was no way he was going to get it.

  64. 64.

    jonas

    I have to say, I’m more impressed every day with the caliber of people this pope is pissing off. More please.

  65. 65.

    MikeJ

    @Ash Can: Fundamentalists call everybody who doesn’t read the bible in the same distorted fashion they do a hypocrite. Fundamentalist atheists are as bad or worse than fundamentalist xtians.

  66. 66.

    Mike in NC

    The wingers are getting restless about Pope Francis.

    Can we get 95 year old shitbird Billy Graham converted to Catholicism soon enough to cover the bases? Pope Billy the First!

  68. 68.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @cathyx:

    A liberal Catholic? So you pick and choose which doctrine you’ll follow?

    Uh, yeah. That’s how Catholicism actually functions as a 1.2-billion person religion, as opposed to Holy Blessed Fundie Church of Baby Jesus, congregation 7, where if you disagree on doctrine you head across the road and join the Perpetual Sacred Holy God Church, congregation 9.

  69. 69.

    Villago Delenda Est

    They’re all Mammon worshiping scum. Every last one of them.

    Kill them all and let FSM deal with which ones go to which levels of Hell.

    Scalia goes to level N.

  70. 70.

    magurakurin

    @cathyx:

    no, they are not hypocrites, they are confused. Liberal Catholics are Episcopalians, they just don’t know it. And Conservative Catholics are just assholes.

    Both probably need to brush up on papal inafalability, it’s not a democracy, you don’t get a vote, or even an opinion. You can’t decide that the Pope is wrong, because according to their own “beliefs” the Pope can’t be wrong.

    But I think Francis is a good man, and even though the Church isn’t for me, it definitely is a very good thing that a good man is leading that extremely large and influential organization on the planet.

  71. 71.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    @magurakurin: You might want to actually try to understand Catholic theology before you start sneering at people who know more about it than you do, because you clearly have no idea what speaking ex cathedra means.

  72. 72.

    MikeJ

    @magurakurin:

    You can’t decide that the Pope is wrong, because according to their own “beliefs” the Pope can’t be wrong.

    No, according to the pope’s belief the pope can’t be wrong. According to the beliefs of the actual members of the religion, he can be.

  73. 73.

    TooManyJens

    @magurakurin:

    Both probably need to brush up on papal inafalability, it’s not a democracy, you don’t get a vote, or even an opinion. You can’t decide that the Pope is wrong, because according to their own “beliefs” the Pope can’t be wrong.

    Well, somebody needs to brush up on Papal infallibility, but it’s not people like Ash Can.

  75. 75.

    Kropadope

    @Gex: Don’t you understand? With these so-called conservatives, it’s never about the content of the policy. It’s all about the slogans and the policing of discourse. The Pope is muddying doctrine in much the same way we have a liberal-biased MSM, not at all.

  76. 76.

    Lurking Canadian

    @magurakurin: yeah, pope Benny the Nazi finally turned me into an Anglican on paper. As you say, I was an Anglican in thought long before. The new guy is better than Benny was, but he’s got a long way to come before he matches my current gay-friendly lady priest.

  77. 77.

    MikeJ

    @TooManyJens: 27.0a2 here and it’s fine. Have you looked in

    ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Crash Reports/
    (You may have to show hidden folders)

    to see what’s causing the crash?

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack

    @TooManyJens:

    I haven’t been having any problems. Firefox 25 on both Windows XP and Windows 7.

    ETA: The site has had periods of weirdness in the last few days, so maybe it’s not Firefox but the site? Are you having problems on other sites?

  80. 80.

    jonas

    Both probably need to brush up on papal inafalability, it’s not a democracy, you don’t get a vote, or even an opinion. You can’t decide that the Pope is wrong, because according to their own “beliefs” the Pope can’t be wrong.

    Not technically true. The pope is only “infallible” when making a definitive pronouncement on Catholic dogma “ex cathedra” — something which hasn’t been invoked, IIRC, since Pius IX’s proclamation of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the mid-19th century. The pope’s claims to authority rest much more on the fact that the Vatican is, in reality, a medieval royal state. The pope is an absolute monarch, like in Saudi Arabia, and the cardinals and bishops are his barons and have to do what he says. There’s nothing preventing the serfs from revolting, however.

  81. 81.

    handsmile

    And while the NYT regards the misgivings of conservative American Catholics to merit a front-page report, evidently Francis’s new papacy has prompted a rather different response in Italy and elsewhere:

    “Hundreds of thousands of Italian Catholics have flocked back to church since the election of the pope, according to a study published on Mondaythat credits the “Francis effect” for the boost in congregations.

    Researcher Massimo Introvigne, a sociologist and head of Italy’s Centre for the Study of New Religions (Cesnur), found that 51% of 250 priests he interviewed reported a significant rise in church attendance since the election of the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in March.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/10/pope-francis-effect-italy-catholicism

    Perhaps another example of American Exceptionalism.

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack

    Getting ready to switch over from the football game (now in the bag for the Saints, apparently) to The Mentalist on the DVR. I’m hoping for a good episode, because they have really been milking this “final search for Red John” thing way too long. It has reached the “which suspect gets voted off the island” point. Plus the writing has deteriorated.

  84. 84.

    TooManyJens

    @MikeJ: There’s nothing in there that gives me any information.

    @Steeplejack: Thanks. Maybe I’ve got a corrupt prefs file or something.

    I’m pretty sure it’s just been this site. Although of course, I always have eleventy tabs open so I can’t swear there isn’t something else causing it.

  88. 88.

    handsmile

    I’m not sure if Wikipedia is considered to be an instrument of godless secularism, but here is its introduction to “Papal Infallibility” and the entire link:

    Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error[1] “when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church”.[2] This doctrine was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870, but had been defended before that, appearing already in medieval tradition and becoming the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation.[3]

    The doctrine of infallibility relies on one of the cornerstones of Catholic dogma: that of petrine supremacy of the pope, and his authority to be the ruling agent in deciding what will be accepted as formal beliefs in the Roman Catholic Church.[4] The clearest example (though not the only one)[5] of the use of this power, referred to as speaking ex cathedra[6] expressed since the solemn declaration of papal infallibility by Vatican I on July 18, 1870, took place in 1950 when Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary as being an article of faith for Roman Catholics.[7] This authority is considered by Catholics to be apostolic and of divine origin.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility

    In the interests of theological debate here.

  90. 90.

    The Tragically Flip

    Despised Benedict, but always felt calling him a Nazi was unfair. He was a child in a crazy time & place doing what was expected.

  91. 91.

    jl

    @TG Chicago:

    ” OT: Lara Logan apologized on 60 Minutes for their bogus Benghazi story. Of course, it was a brief piece at the end of the show. ”

    Josh Marshall was not impressed either.

    Lara Logan’s Bogus “Correction”
    Josh Marshall, TPM
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/lara-logan-s-bogus-correction

    Some excerpts

    “Logan said 60 Minutes had found out Thursday that they had been “misled and it was a mistake to include him in our report.”

    Include him in their report? He was the report. And even in conceding that her team had been “misled”, Logan tiptoed around the real news, which is that it seems clear that Davies’ entire story was a fabrication. He wasn’t there. So none of the stuff he did could have happened and he cannot have witnessed any of what he claimed to describe.”
    …
    “At a minimum this was a big red flag.”
    …
    “Again, how much does it take to warn these people off a liar?”
    …
    “I don’t know the players involved enough to know whether this happened because of bias, indifference, arrogance or wild sloppiness. But you can’t screw up much bigger than this.”

  92. 92.

    Hal

    This to me is the religious version of white privilege. Conservative Catholics have had their run of the place for centuries, in opposition to anyone who might think even remotely differently. Catholicism in turn as paid the price in the western world as people have left the faith. Now there is one Pope who is at most saying there are other things to focus on, and that the original mission of the Church was perhaps not just to sit around telling others they are going to hell, and these people are freaking out.

    Like how one black President in the history of this country means to some white people that they are about to be thrown in chains. Poor conservative Catholics. Feeling their power to condemn a little less diminished.

  94. 94.

    Kyle

    @efgoldman:

    Some Catholics in the church’s conservative wing in the United States say Francis has left them feeling abandoned and deeply unsettled…after 35 years in which the previous popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, drew clear boundaries between right and wrong, reaffirmed their bigotries, Francis is muddying Catholic doctrine to appeal to the broadest possible audience.

    Fixed.
    Waaah, the church won’t justify the hatred of others that gives my life force and meaning and a deeply satisfying feeling of smug superiority, I’m so sad.

  101. 101.

    handsmile

    @NotMax:

    Thanks for the alert, but that’s a bit late for this EST viewer.

    A couple of nights ago, TCM presented Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. Very glad to have seen that again after a number of years: its fusing of natural beauty, sexual tension, and the uncanny remains compelling.

    If we’re lucky, his The Last Wave and The Year of Living Dangerously (a film I adore) will also be making an appearance in the near future.

    @Steeplejack:

    Is it “Hail Australia Month” at TCM? If so, lots of Naomi Watts please!

  102. 102.

    eemom

    @Jewish Steel:

    fuckin WORD. THANK YOU.

    Every time there’s one of these interminable “Catholic Church sucks one millionth of an iota less than it did yesterday because of XYZ” posts up, I try to explain how there really does exist this actual alternative institution that has NONE of the suckage — cool with married priests, divorce, birth control, even abortion. Who listens? NOBODY listens.

  104. 104.

    Steeplejack

    @handsmile:

    Naomi Watts is too new for TCM.

    The Year of Living Dangerously was on TCM a couple of months ago. An excellent movie that holds up well. Great soundtrack.

  105. 105.

    Ruckus

    @TooManyJens:
    Yes. I had to switch to Safari just to read the blog. Not sure what causes it. I’ve tried numerous remedies and get nowhere.
    Mac 10.8.5 FF 25 adblock, greasemonkey, pie filter.
    Tried running FF bare and had the same issues.

  106. 106.

    handsmile

    @eemom:

    I listen.

    “Catholic Church sucks one millionth of an iota less than it did yesterday…” The USA has a blah president.

    We live in an Age of Miracles, you ingrate.

    @Steeplejack:

    Drat. Drat. Yes. Oh my, yes!

  109. 109.

    Jewish Steel

    @NotMax: Wow, that’s supercool.

    That first part is in 7, btw

    123-12-12.

    ETA: And then 5 at the end? I think? Who are these guys, Rush? :)

  110. 110.

    Tehanu

    @handsmile:

    A couple of nights ago, TCM presented Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock.

    Oh, I’m so sorry I missed that, especially as I recently found out that Jacki Weaver was in it. Terrific actress! The Last Wave is also a wonderful film.

  113. 113.

    Chris

    @jonas:

    The pope is only “infallible” when making a definitive pronouncement on Catholic dogma “ex cathedra” — something which hasn’t been invoked, IIRC, since Pius IX’s proclamation of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the mid-19th century.

    I think they know to use the ex cathedra hammer sparingly. The more you use it, the more doctrines you use it for, the more people in your congregations risk reacting with a “wait, what? I just can’t accept that” to a teaching that they might’ve ignored back when it was just a regular-old-maybe-they’ll-change-it-someday teaching rather than a triple-santified-this-is-really-serious-shit-up-there-with-the-holy-trinity teaching. It’s one of these things whose main value is in existing rather than actually being used.

  115. 115.

    Heywood J.

    I have always assumed that Albino Luciani (JP1) pissed off the wrong people and met with foul play. So far I like the new guy, which doesn’t bode well for him.

  117. 117.

    piratedan

    talk about your low hurdles… hey at least this Pope isn’t a flaming asshole!!!!!!!! and shows a modicum of compassion for people… well yeah, I would hope so since he supposedly represents (incarnate) the embodiment of the church itself.

    Lets see him kick out some fatcat priests and issue some monetary compensation to those molested kids and stop treating everyone not of the faith as an anethema.. sure, then we can start raising hosannahs.

  118. 118.

    John Casey

    I’m such an old fart that I remember when Paulie Walnuts… er Paul VI told Father Drinan that a seat in the US House was no place for a good jesuit padre, so get the heck out.

    Wouldn’t it be nice if Francis were to tell the US Bishops, ‘Minister to your flocks, and stay out of politics.’

  120. 120.

    HeartlandLiberal

    @j: It had to be said, but clearly you would not last as a commenter at DailyKos. I recently commented on a thread about JFK with a reference to a book from a few years ago that stated the thesis that the JFK kill shot came from the automatic rifle of a rookie Secret Service agent in the following vehicle, a totally accidental discharge. The evidence is actually pretty good. I then posted a link to a scene from one of my favorite “blow em up good” movies, “Shooter”.

    Just watch the first 50 seconds for the explanation of where the shovel is.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mn60YWO218k

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

    @MikeJ:

    No, Mike, because fundy athiests aren’t crazy believers in malicious lies like fundy christinaists are; also the atheists don’t give a rat’sass about what other folks believe – they don’t believe in hell like the funcy christianists do.

    They also don’t steal other folks’ money to spend it on brainswashing kids in private or charter schools. So many ways atheists are better than fundy christianists.

    In fact one way they’re better is that they aren’t fundamentalists at all, in any real world sense of that world. Because they don’t believe in supernatural things and hate and wish that people who don’t believe like they do will burn in hell forever.

  123. 123.

    boatboy_srq

    @magurakurin:

    Liberal Catholics are Episcopalians, they just don’t know it. And Conservative Catholics are just assholes neo-Calvinists in drag.

    FIFY. Although the latter really is rearticulation of the former – just a wee bit more specific.

  124. 124.

    boatboy_srq

    @magurakurin:

    Liberal Catholics are Episcopalians, they just don’t know it. And Conservative Catholics are just assholes neo-Calvinists in drag.

    FIFY. Although the latter really is rearticulation of the former – just a wee bit more specific.

  128. 128.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    I wondered how long it would take the wingnut Catholics to start claiming they’re more Catholic than the Pope.

  130. 130.

    Keith G

    A study of the history of the Catholic Church, from it’s early roots (c. 40 AD), is wicked interesting. It is the story of the development of a major foundation of the Western world and it is an amazing study of humans being human in all their glory and all their darkness. The Church has at the same time been a driving force and a mirror for the human condition.

    Part of my time studying was formally academic. some has been as a history nerd hobbyist. either way, get a half dozen or so centuries of inspection and you will learn that there is indeed nothing new under the sun. These story lines have all played out before in slightly different iterations. There always will be reformers and there will always be reactionaries.

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