I grew up Catholic in Chicago, so the selection of local boy Pope Leo feels more personal than it otherwise might. I feel certain that my two aunts who were nuns in Chicago (my Dad’s sisters) are celebrating in whatever afterlife there is. If there is none, then we will surely feel the ground rumbling as they celebrate from there.
But really, I am just so relieved to see this choice, a man with a good face and kind eyes.
And I love that he smiles with his eyes!
Not that I’m Catholic anymore, but I do believe in the teachings of Christ.
Barack Obama could not have been more right when he said this, however many years ago.
The biggest deficit that we have in our society and in the world right now is an empathy deficit. We are in great need of people being able to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes.
I am so relieved that once again – as the United States is faltering and many of our institutions are failing – much of the rest of the world is stepping up.
Canada. Australia. The Vatican.
Huge stumbling blocks to the road to autocracy that the world seemed to be on.
USA Today has a fun column from Rex Huppke today.
h/t Jackie
Well, MAGA, it looks like you got yourself another “woke pope” to contend with.
In the right-wing loon-o-sphere, the reaction to Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost becoming the first American-born pope has been one of outrage and disgust. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who is regularly in President Donald Trump’s ear, posted of the new pontiff: “WOKE MARXIST POPE.”
Hardcore Trump supporter Ryan Selkis, a former crypto CEO, shared past social media posts believed to be from the new pope. They included things like support for George Floyd and criticism of Trump’s family separation policy. Selkis wrote: “A new woke pope. BLM. Kids in cages. Suicidal empathy. American who mostly posts en espanol.”
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States appears on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican, May 8, 2025. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
“‘Woke pope”, screams the MAGA crowd. Apparently, Jesus’ own teachings go too far.
Not familiar with the empathy is bad part of the Bible.
I’m not familiar with the “empathy is bad” portion of the Bible. But it seems the MAGA crowd is generally upset at the new pope, who took the name Leo XIV, because he believes in the things Jesus taught. The fact that those things – loving others, embracing peace, welcoming immigrants – are deemed “woke” and thus intolerable by parishioners of the Church of Trump tells you all you need to know about the congregation.
Who knows, maybe they’re just upset other places keep choosing leaders who stand against much of what Trump stands for.
Conservatives in Canada and Australia took a beating in recent elections thanks to widespread dislike of Trump, and now the Vatican gets a U.S. pope who: believes climate change is an urgent crisis; hails from Chicago, a city Trump has routinely derided as a liberal sanctuary city; preaches love for immigrants; and, like his papal predecessor and most humans, doesn’t seem to like Vice President JD Vance.
On his verified X account, then-Cardinal Prevost shared a column about Vance that included the headline, “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
That’s a double sad trombone for Vance, a fairly recent convert to Catholicism who has now taken heat from two popes.
Rabid Trump supporters see new pope as threat to MAGA cruelty.
Rabid Trump supporters see new pope as threat to MAGA cruelty.
In 2015, Prevost shared a Washington Post opinion column written by Cardinal Timothy Dolan with the headline: “Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic.”
Such horrible wrongs led Loomer to sum up the new pope like this: “He is anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis.”
Somebody get these folks a Bible or a hobby, or both.
You might remember back when Trump was inaugurated for the second time, an Episcopal bishop had the gall to ask the new president and vice president to “have mercy upon the people in our country,” saying: “The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”
Trump himself and the MAGA-verse erupted in outrage, as if those were the cruelest, most outrageous words ever spoken. That set the stage for the May 8 reaction to Pope Leo XIV.
Sean Feucht, a wildly pro-Trump Christian nationalist singer and pastor, posted of the new pope: “This is all a very calculated move people. IT IS TIME TO WAKE UP! They chose a globalist and woke Pope from the West ON PURPOSE to stand up and criticize the leaders of the Free World.”
And right-wing conspiracy nutter Mike Cernovich posted: “Sorry, Catholics. This new Pope is an open borders globalist. He will be pushing for abortion soon.
Oh no, the new pope is a Catholic. It’s a true nightmare for MAGA.
Hey, it wouldn’t be MAGA without 24/7 victimhood. The Catholic Church got a new pope from Chicago who seems to be … you know … Catholic.
And apparently that makes him a regular Pope Woke Marxist II. Which in turn makes him a threat to Trump, his policies and the army of dipstick influencers that bow at Trump’s feet.
Whatever your faith, conclude from that what you will.
Anyway… I am heartened by what I am seeing. A lot of heels digging in on the slide off the cliff – individual heels as well as entire countries like Canada and Australian and institutions like the Vatican and some of our courts.
These are hard times and rough roads ahead, but I am thinking all is not lost.
Open thread.
Baud
It would be nice if more US Catholics end up outraged by the evangelicals.
NotMax
RWNJs: “impeach the Pope” in 3…2…1….
JPL
He’s a White Sox fan. 🤦
NotMax
@JPL
“Well, at least he’s got the White part right.”
//
Old Man Shadow
I would have liked to see the reaction to the election of a Black Pope, but I’m happy whenever they’re yelling and screaming about someone confronting them with the teachings of Jesus about the poor and the oppressed.
They have made a god in their own MAGA image and they do not like this Jesus fellow telling them their god is an abomination.
NotMax
“Your Holiness, J.D. Vance is on line 1 requesting an audience.”
“Are you shi*tting me? Not no way, not no how>”
Captain C
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Also, can we start calling these anti-teachings-of-Jesus-pro-greed-and-sadism types ‘Christians Against Christ’ in the spirit of the late Sam Kinison.
Captain C
@NotMax: Or alternately:
“Does the Holy Office still have its chambers? Take him there and leave him.”
cain
@Baud: Silly catholics think that maga evangelicals are their friends.
TONYG
These fucking idiots. As a former Catholic (who hasn’t gone to mass since I was 17) I have no use for the institution of the Catholic Church … but these morons. The Catholic Church is an international institution with more than 1.4 billion members. Of COURSE it’s a “globalist” organization. Start your own fucking church if you’re not happy with the fact. The Church of Kissing Trump’s Ass, or whatever.
cain
It’s amazing to me how much these maga people reject Christ’s teaching. Of course, what do you expect of a sect of Christianity that gives unlimited “take backs” and forgiveness. Like, I swear it’s like an addition to Christianity akin to Citizens United. “sin all you want, motherfucker, skyfather will forgive you unlimited times as long as your contrite”. How can you feel contrite when you hate someone from the bottom of your being because their skins is a different color, or their orientation is different, or their ideology is different?
It’s no wonder that Christianity in America is losing adherents because there is nothing but grift, fakeness, and maliciousness.
NotMax
As it’s Open Thread –
Media note.
Intense watch . Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on Hulu/Disney.
JPL
@TONYG: Wait until they discover that the previous Leo was opposed to the inequities that occurred during the Gilded Age. Apparently, that is why the new Pope chose the name.
cain
@NotMax:
You know, if you moved the comma after Holiness to after Vance” the sentence still works. :D
catclub
IF you are in their tribe – so Trump gets all that forgiveness. Biden? Obama? Not so much. They pray for their deaths.
Sister Golden Bear
Trump has now elected liberal leaders in Canada, Australia, and the Vatican.
NotMax
@cain
Lenny Bruce, Christ and Moses.
;)
JPL
@NotMax: Thanks
bbleh
I am thinking all is not lost.
Definitely all is not lost. The real questions are, how do we limit the damage, what’s it gonna take to build back, and what is pretty much lost for good?
One arguably silver-ish lining to an otherwise large and dark cloud: the masks are off. Ain’t no mystery now who is who and what they stand for. Fool me once etc.
catclub
@cain:
There is a whole lot of those, but check out the Catholic workers projects ( for one example). Not quite all.
Darkrose
@JPL: So he understands human suffering.
I want to know how to say “SELL THE TEAM” in Latin.
RevRick
Jesus’s central message was “wake up!” He went around telling people to “repent”, metanoia, which literally means “turn your minds.” He preached the gospel that the way the world is organized is insane, because the beliefs on which it’s based are insane. He lived in a world of hierarchies, domination, exploitation and violence, and he rejected that emphatically. And out of his message flowed his work of including those who were excluded and oppressed. His feeding of the 5000 wasn’t just something nice. It represented a radical yes to life and a no to systems which impoverished the multitude. His healing miracles weren’t just haphazard health care. They pointed an accusing finger at the system that literally made people sick.
The Roman Empire has been described as a wealth pump, extracting surpluses from its perimeter and channeling it to Rome. This meant that in times of hardship those places on the outskirts had no surpluses to draw upon. Inevitably, the weak suffered.
Everything about his message and work embodied what the right decides as woke. But it’s not surprising that they feel this way since they are dedicated to preserving the very systems Jesus wants to break down.
bbleh
@JPL: yes. See also De Rerum Novarum and the “Labor Pope.” And now both the current Leo’s remarks from the balcony AND his first homily.
Being a bad person, I am not uncomfortable with the notion of wingnut heads exploding …
NotMax
@RevRick
Clearly disrespecting the gluten-free.
//
Shakti
@Old Man Shadow: There are black cardinals but they are also much more conservative than this guy.
It does amuse me that the Pope is from Chicago and his maternal grandparents are creoles of color who decided to pass after moving from the 7th ward of NOLA to Chicago.
ETA link:Pope Leo XIV has roots in New Orleans’ 7th Ward. See his family lineage and history.
Not sure why people are getting so agitated or ecstatic over the Pope’s views — he has Catholic views. He’s just not in lockstep with MAGA who just seems to have one collective braincell devoted to outrage or mean gloating.
Source: I went to Catholic school for eight years.
Darkrose
So about that…I’m on my phone, so I can’t link to the story, but it seems that the Prevost family has roots in Creole New Orleans by way of Haiti. He does have some Black ancestry.
trollhattan
@NotMax: Is that the Little Mermaid sequel everybody’s been talking about?
terraformer
Indeed. One thing I’ve always noticed in Hair Führer and his acolytes is a distinct absence of the kind eyes.
Try as they might, when people who are either part of or supports the MAGA regime attempt to smile, it never quite reaches their eyes. Like there’s something missing from within, or perhaps spiritually, that ensures whatever passes for a smile is strained and is nowhere near real.
rikyrah
The Pope has New Orleans CREOLE ROOTS
Congressman Troy A. Carter
@RepTroyCarter
As a Black man, a proud son of New Orleans, and the U.S. Congressman representing the very 7th Ward neighborhood where our new Pope’s family hails from, I am bursting with pride today.
This is history! The first American Pope, with Creole and Haitian roots, rising from the streets of New Orleans to the Vatican. As a Xavier University alum, I know how deeply faith and resilience run in our community.
We celebrate this moment — with joy, with prayers, and with pride!
—TAC
4:03 PM · May 8, 2025
·
39.5K
https://x.com/RepTroyCarter/status/1920585449195626682
Bunter
@cain:
I think many Catholics are unaware that evangelicals (and many others) don’t consider us Christians. I (lapsed for the majority of my life) went to college down south in the 80s and that was when I first encountered the anti-Catholic rhetoric. I was taken aback. I’ve found that the Catholics I know are mostly unaware. I’ve spoken to a few in the last decade or so and every time I’ve brought up that, at least in the US, many denominations do not like or outright hate Catholics for being Catholic, not for the issues in the Church. The new converts and the weirdo hardcore old, old, old, school are the ones in bed with the evangelicals. Idiots all.
Soprano2
@Baud: Strangely enough, I was at a Catholic funeral yesterday morning for the father of my best friend while they were voting for Pope! Her father had Lewy Body dementia; he was 90, so he had a good long life. I didn’t get a chance to ask any of them about their reaction to the new Pope, but they probably didn’t know anything about him at that time anyway.
rikyrah
Suzie rizzio (@Suzierizzo1) posted at 8:52 PM on Thu, May 08, 2025:![]()
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https://t.co/CCO5Vokxhz
A Judge blocks a deportation flight of Asian migrants to Libya! WTF first of all why are we trying to deport them with no due process and to a Country they’ve never been too before. So when do we start calling these deportations ethnic cleansing and not deportations!
(https://x.com/Suzierizzo1/status/1920658046771982453?t=kDzChX0AbQ_afw5Zsg_URw&s=03)
eclare
I watched the coverage on tv yesterday, and it was so good to see a massive crowd of deliriously happy people. I haven’t seen one of those for a while.
Baud
Another well fed leopard.
waspuppet
@cain: For all its faults, and there are many (I stopped going to mass in 1987 and have never been tempted back), Catholicism believes that what you actually do in the world matters — that it’s a reflection on your soul and your relationship with God. The Church of Trump (and that phrase needs to get a lot more popular) thinks what you say is what counts, which makes sense because in addition to being hateful they’re incredibly lazy.
Also: I’m not the first to point this out, but the new pope is eligible to be president. One AI image would make millions of new Catholics in an afternoon. Just saying.
rikyrah
OUTRAGEOUS
Jackie Singh![]()
(@HackingButLegal) posted at 0:52 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
A transgender military member mourns his lost years and the retirement he busted his ass for—now stolen from him by the Trump administration.
Make sure your parents know *this* is who they hate: Those who have honorably served. https://t.co/8VJl28hR4z
(https://x.com/HackingButLegal/status/1920718619714965645?t=xjbczlcgkBZ6t–MyrfzEw&s=03)
rikyrah
Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) posted at 8:14 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
Children dying of starvation and AIDS in Africa. Air safety imperiled. Community health centers eliminated, Head Start eviscerated. And tens or hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for a North Korea style military parade. Welcome to Trumpland.
(https://x.com/NormOrnstein/status/1920829715985703198?t=lD_93tITNodlFPUFezJl-A&s=03)
RevRick
@NotMax: gluttony is a sin.
rikyrah
Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) posted at 9:49 PM on Thu, May 08, 2025:
President Trump has fired the Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden.
The position of Librarian of Congress is so apolitical that only 14 people have held the role since 1802.
Hayden, who was the first woman and Black American to serve as Librarian of Congress, has held the position since 2016.
Her predecessor served in the role for 28 years before retiring.
https://t.co/KbYuB9mFfR
(https://x.com/yashar/status/1920672391308452239?t=diWIeWKNs75AeLgnJuSazw&s=03)
Dave
@Shakti: The agitated is easy enough to understand their really horrible beliefs can’t survive being challenged and you want the cultists primed to only accept the authority of these nasty little people.
I suppose the excited is that at least he isn’t on the more reactionary side of the Church and at this point people who we might otherwise disagree with but do agree that maybe society shouldn’t try to be a maximally cruel wealth extractor are people we have disagreements with at a later date.
eclare
Another great photo, WaterGirl! I seem to be partial to photos with water, which makes sense since the only water here in Memphis is the Mississippi. It’s not really attractive, and I can’t imagine how many pollutants are in it, as we are downstream from a lot of farms.
Suzanne
@catclub: The fundamental issue I have with the right-wing versions of Christianity, Catholic, Protestant, LDS, Orthodox, whatever…. is that it’s essentially transactional, and I don’t see how that’s compatible with an ethic of sacrificial love.
Jackie
At certain angles and when Pope Leo smiles (with his eyes :) ) he resembles Doug Emhoff. At least he does to me lol
PAM Dirac
I remember the old Twilight Zone episode where the doctors were trying everything they could to fix a badly deformed woman and failed. Of course the twist at the end was that she was (by our standards) beautiful. She got to go off with a very handsome guy to live with people like her someplace off in the woods. When the orange fart cloud got elected I thought I could live like that. It is seeming more and more that the place in the woods might only be nice, but might be pretty big.
Suzanne
@Bunter:
This prejudice is not solely theological. There’s a lot of holdover of anti-Irish and anti-Italian bigotry, as well as a bunch of classism.
Geo Wilcox
@Old Man Shadow: He IS black. His paternal grandparent was a black man from Haiti who married a Creole lady from NOLA! He does not present as black but he definitely has black ancestors.
So first American AND black pope for the RCC. I wonder how many of them knew his background
NotMax
@RevRick
Triumph of Gluttony, a decadent dessert.
;)
rikyrah
LongTime🤓FirstTime👨💻 (@LongTimeHistory) posted at 6:33 PM on Thu, May 08, 2025:
Chaos erupts in Massachusetts neighborhood as ICE drags away mom—clinging to her baby.
The crowd asked ICE to show an ID or warrant for the arrest—agents replied, “We don’t have to show you anything.”
Local police then arrested the teen daughter of woman ICE had just detained for being “hostile.”
Ashley Spring, a Worcester resident and candidate for the Worcester School Committee, was also arrested by local police.
It was unclear what happened to the baby after the arrest—last seen on Eureka Street in Worcester, Massachusetts.
#DemVoice1 #wtpBLUE #DemsUnited
https://t.co/94DOsJ7cqQ
(https://x.com/LongTimeHistory/status/1920623143481446838?t=lpcqwnKXFDgTm0baszcyIQ&s=03)
rikyrah
Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) posted at 8:41 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
You guys see what Trump’s doing, right?
YESTERDAY: “You better go out and buy stocks now! This country will be like a rocket ship!”
TODAY: Tariffs on China should be cut to 80%.
Market manipulation… https://t.co/3jgRWrKSW3
(https://x.com/cwebbonline/status/1920836447721886142?t=rL231rgQhwdJ4k13gj4dzA&s=03)
Fair Economist
@Shakti:
Sure, he’s got pretty standard views for a liberal-leaning member of the church hierarchy. It’s just disappointing to go back to the usual full-on homophobia and abortion nuttiness* after Francis, who clearly sympathized with LGBTQ and women who needed abortions, even if he didn’t officially change the doctrine. Leo is good on the stuff Catholics are usually good on, and that is a positive thing.
*The Catholic anti-abortion stand is just an *amazing* piece of sophistry. The claim is that we don’t know when fetuses gain a soul, therefore they must always be treated like they have one. Silly as it is to claim a 2-cell zygote has a soul. Must have had some serious hangups about sex to move away from Aquinas’ far more plausible idea that ensoulment happens at quickening.
Searcher
So one of the things I admire about Biden is that he has had a life I do not envy — losing his wife, losing his children, dealing with his other children flailing and suffering — and I feel like he has taken from that a deep empathy for the suffering of others and a desire to lessen it.
Jackie
@Sister Golden Bear:
I loled out loud! Then thinking about how pissed off FFOTUS must be, snickered joyously and, yes, evilly. Thanks for that, SGB!
Steve LaBonne
@rikyrah: Local cops will always be more than happy to serve as adjuncts to the Gestapo. It’s who they are.
rikyrah
Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) posted at 1:35 PM on Thu, May 08, 2025:
MAGA is finding out the new pope is
Pro-refugee
Anti-gun violence
Preaches climate action
Pro-poor, not pro-profit
Against nationalist hate
Big on helping migrants
All the things Jesus teaches
And they are LIVID!!!![]()
(https://x.com/acnewsitics/status/1920548089242472943?t=wdMy8J9p4BntTtLroOBIzg&s=03)
scav
@Fair Economist: So, when exactly did Catholics start letting unbaptized actual full-term dead babies be buried in sanctified ground?
billcoop4
One of my former debate coach colleagues, a black man who teaches at an inner-city school, pointed out on FB that Leo XIV has more of the Middle Passage in him than does Barack Obama.
BC
Baud
@rikyrah:
But what about Jesus’s teachings about the importance of cutting capital gains taxes?
Steve LaBonne
@Fair Economist: Given the high rate of early-pregnancy miscarriages, this ridiculous doctrine also makes their God an incredibly prolific abortionist.
NotMax
@Baud
Hey, he didn’t transport the moneychangers to Libya.
//
Jeffg166
A writer whose name I forgot said he thought Christ’s teachings were great. Speculated they would be a great idea to base a religion on.
Professor Bigfoot
@cain:
“In the first century in Palestine, Christianity was a community of believers. Then Christianity moved to Greece and became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome and became an institution. Then it moved to Europe and became a culture. And then it moved to America and became a business.” Priscilla Shirer
PAM Dirac
@Baud:
probably an appropriate time to re-read The Ecstasy of Owen Muir.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Like.
Suzanne
@Jeffg166: I am interested in the ethical and aesthetic aspects of religion. I have zero interest in the supernatural stuff, and I in fact think it’s toxic.
sab
I detect sloppy reasoning by Sean Feucht: ” People, wake up! The new pope is woke!”
Also, how is Mr Feuchts’s last name pronounced?
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: Same, which is why I’m a UU.
RevRick
@NotMax: Okay, I am definitely sinning now. But as Luther said, “Sin boldly!”
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
What’s the difference between UU and UCC?
They Call Me Noni
@Baud: I’m trying to feel sorry for him but just cannot.
Fair Economist
@scav:
After Vatican II, according to this remarkable document showing the incredible twists theologians have to come up with to deal with the weird outcomes of church doctrine.
Which reminded me that Vatican II dispensed with the concept of Limbo, which means all the dead babies before Vatican II were now consigned to – well, you can’t say limbo anymore, so I guess they’re just hanging out waiting for some Vatican III to say where they go?
Baud
@They Call Me Noni:
You shouldn’t try. He’s not a good person.
Shakti
@Dave: But the kicker of it is, that most MAGAs are not Catholic [because most US Christians aren’t].
Crashing out over the idea a Pope might say abortion is ok [not going to happen] and is globalist [the Catholic church is a global institution; it doesn’t have an army, the Vatican is like one castle nestled inside Rome] is just absurd.
Celebrating over this man retweeting the most anodyne column people take as rebukes is also silly. But it’s also dismal.
The United States is not the center of the world, and I’m sure the Cardinals’ political considerations, if any, reflected that.
It’s just funny as hell that MAGAS are acting like scalded cats when they proudly proclaim they don’t feel guilt or shame in reaction to an institution which has Catholic guilt as a superpower. Come on.
OT: FWIW, my mother, a normie, really did like Francis. Also, I have the combo of guilt from two or three different traditions so freaking out like this is for amateurs. LMAO.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: UUs have no creed and only a smallish minority of us consider themselves Christians. An atheist like me is perfectly at home.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Thanks.
sab
@Baud: UU is Unitarian Universalist. They don’t believe in the Trinity.
UCC is United Church of Christ, which grew out of Congregationalism, i.e. the New England pilgrims. Needless to say, their politics have changed a lot over the centuries.
ETA For UCC, think of Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louisa May Alcott as typical.
Jackie
@Baud: Too bad, so sad… NOT!
Spanky
FTfy, USA Today.
Baud
@sab:
Thanks. UCC is pretty liberal, right? Is there another cheered that’s liberal besides UU?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Professor Bigfoot:
A dear friend of mine, an Asst Prof at Univ of Helsinki who’s area of expertise is the late Bronze Age Levant had this great exchange with me years ago describing Christianity:
Me:
I’m really upset that we never got the FEMA reeducation camps for conservative white Christians that Obama promised us. This Bronze Age tribal goatherd apocalyptic death cult cannot wither away fast enough.
Her:
Strictly speaking, Christianity is an Iron Age apocalyptic death cult that grew out of an older Bronze Age goatherd tradition.
Accuracy in offhand slurs is important.
But strictly speaking Christianity is a Roman era apocalyptic death cult that grew out of Persian era apocalyptic death cults which grew out of Iron Age goatherd traditions that may contain some echoes of older Bronze Age tribal religions.
Suzanne
@Baud: Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) is super-duper liberal.
Steve LaBonne
@sab: UU resulted from a merger of Unitarians, who historically didn’t believe in the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus (though by the 1961 date of the merger Humanism was a major presence in Unitarianism and the Christian element was already much diminished) and Universalists who believed that everyone would be saved.
PJ
@rikyrah:
Huh. I wonder what problem Trump could have had with the first black woman Librarian of Congress.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Don’t think I’ve heard of them (other than hearing of Lutherans generally).
sab
@Baud: Isn’t our RevRick a UCC pastor?
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Who’s doing the saving if they don’t believe in a divine Jesus?
Suzanne
@sab: UU isn’t just Unitarian rather than Trinitarian. They are explicitly creedless, so there are atheist members, or any other religion.
sab
@Suzanne: Weren’t they one of the first denominations to have gay marriages?
sab
@Suzanne: Yes. You are correct.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: They’re the normal mainstream Lutherans, as opposed to the nutjob Missouri and (worse yet) Wisconsin synods.
Baud
@sab:
I think so. I couldn’t remember if he’s representative of the entire UCC, but I was pretty sure UCC was on the liberal side of Christianity, and others have confirmed that.
Gretchen
@Baud: The right-wing Catholics thought they could make an alliance with evangelicals on their signature issue of abortion. They don’t realize that evangelicals actually think that Catholics are devils from the pit of hell, and having used them, are willing to grind them under their heels just like atheists. Marjorie Taylor Greene came right out and said so.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Oh wow. I didn’t realize mainstream Lutherans had become liberal.
Suzanne
@Baud: There’s an ELCA Church in my neighborhood that does fantastic work.
Other MJS
“Oh no, the new pope is a Catholic.” 🤣🤣🤣
There’s a meme circulating showing Jan-Sixers in Vatican Square with “Stop the Steal” signs, etc.
jimmirabob
@rikyrah: “So when do we start calling these deportations ethnic cleansing and not deportations!”
I’ve been calling it that since Trump 1.0. It is not an accident that Trump hails Andrew Jackson, father of the Trail of Tears, as his hero. Same thing happening in GAZA. And, technically, they are not deportations since deportations involve due process. I call them exportations.![]()
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scav
@Baud: Well, what happened to the original beardy guy? He just didn’t outsource the function in this tradition?
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: There are various kinds of theistic beliefs among UUs including a remnant of Universalist Christianity, as well as plenty of agnostics / atheists / Humanists. We reject the idea that a religious movement must be based on shared beliefs rather than shared values.
Baud
@scav:
Gotcha. But I thought the whole concept of “saving” was tied to Jesus.
Steve LaBonne
@jimmirabob: When unidentified masked armed men grab people off the street, I call that kidnapping.
Other MJS
@PJ:
Not racist at all*; she just wanted people to be able to read books. Unacceptable!
* Sarcasm; most likely racist/sexist as well.
trollhattan
Profiles in excellence, Trump’s FAA edition.
sab
@jimmirabob: And we can’t deport American citizens. Those also are exportations.
rikyrah
Tiff4Mahogany_44![]()
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NATO MEMBER (@tiff4mahogany) posted at 10:42 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
A white man told me, a black woman, straight up he was voting for Trump because he didn’t want a black woman president.
It wasn’t at a klan rally either.
This man wouldn’t consider this racism or sexism, but it is. https://t.co/jXdDAcg5zw
(https://x.com/tiff4mahogany/status/1920867035304632450?t=i417Q0JKhf4XTz4CdTngqQ&s=03)
rikyrah
Acyn (@Acyn) posted at 5:27 PM on Thu, May 08, 2025:
Baier: She never finished her residency and doesn’t currently have an active medical license.
RFK JR: She was top of her medical class at Stanford. During her residency, she won every award that she can win. She walked away from traditional medicine because she was not curing patients .
https://t.co/Sa19P2MgnI
(https://x.com/Acyn/status/1920606388566511941?t=4U7j98eyW6G-GQzffThZ0g&s=03)
Theory of the Dog (@TheoryoftheDog) posted at 5:36 PM on Thu, May 08, 2025:
Casey Means is unfit to serve as U.S. Surgeon General. She holds an M.D. from Stanford but never completed residency, is not board-certified, and, as of January 2024, lacks an active medical license. She is not a practicing physician and has not treated patients in years, having left an otolaryngology residency early. Since then, she has promoted pseudoscientific wellness products, monetized lifestyle advice, and embraced the discredited “functional medicine” movement. No modern Surgeon General has lacked both board certification and a valid medical license or stopped practicing medicine in their early 30s to focus on social media and corporate wellness branding. Means lacks experience in managing healthcare institutions, leading federal programs, or coordinating emergency responses and has not published peer-reviewed research in public health or clinical medicine. Her only qualification is her M.D., despite no longer meeting legal requirements to practice medicine. She is not a scientist, not a practicing doctor, and unqualified to oversee national public health. The Surgeon General represents medical science; Means represents herself. Her nomination should be withdrawn.
(https://x.com/TheoryoftheDog/status/1920608686566678624?t=TuV_sUVm82rJL6j0M68Dxg&s=03)
scav
@Baud: Don’t look at me — the job roles in a family-run theocracy get confusing. Some claim the go-to for protection is absolutely the Lady Theotokos, who seems to gather everyone under her skirts for some reason.
rikyrah
David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) posted at 9:23 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
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Your US government has kidnapped this child. Not family separation. Kidnapping. It took a 2-year-old child from her parents, deported the mom to Venezuela, and have imprisoned the dad in a Salvadoran torture prison without charge or trial. Every day, new evil level reached https://t.co/xFmuIxUo1z
(https://x.com/David_J_Bier/status/1920847191377158631?t=a9szDPUCytGqnBShvak52Q&s=03)
Spanky
@Suzanne: Thank you! The No Nothing Party of the 1850s was virulently anti-Irish and anti-Catholic (I don’t think Italians had arrived in large numbers yet). Anti-Catholicism has a long history on our country, actually dating back to the English Civil War period, where there were military engagements here in Maryland, the only colony founded by Catholics.
Betty Cracker
I had a very liberal Quaker friend who told me some Quaker congregations are super liberal and others not so much. Nixon was a Quaker!
A close friend who is one of the most liberal Christians I know grew up in the Disciples of Christ church, where her dad was a liberal preacher. One of the associate pastors at her dad’s church officiated at our wedding.
We got to know her (the associate pastor) a bit before the ceremony, and she was okay with the fact that I am an atheist and Bill is agnostic. I don’t know if all DoC churches are that laid back.
TONYG
@Suzanne: As an Italian-American, it always annoys me when I meet an Italian-American Trump supporters. When my ancestors came here in the early twentieth century they were not considered to be “white”. It took another generation or two before they were allowed to think of themselves as “white”.
AWOL
Why’s a 21st Century Schizoid Jewish Trump Nazi like Loony Loomer—one of many 21st Century Schizoid Jewish Trump Nazis—getting involved in Papist shit for?
(Rhetorical. I only want to shit on Loomer and other Jewish Trump Nazis. I can’t think of a lower entity than a 21st Century Schizoid Jewish Trump Nazi.)
Jackie
HOLY CRAP! MSNBC is reporting ANOTHER partial radio and radar blackout happened at Newark Airport overnight!
rikyrah
Angry Staffer (@Angry_Staffer) posted at 9:20 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
There should be bipartisan concern about the reports that DOGE is merging HHS, Social Security, and IRS data into one database.
That is the trifecta of personal information, and any competent person (or machine) could essentially put together a complete profile of your life.
(https://x.com/Angry_Staffer/status/1920846330693320967?t=Z40Eh3eeUPFpqDmBPeAy5w&s=03)
Angry Staffer (@Angry_Staffer) posted at 9:20 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
There should be bipartisan concern about the reports that DOGE is merging HHS, Social Security, and IRS data into one database.
That is the trifecta of personal information, and any competent person (or machine) could essentially put together a complete profile of your life.
This is the kind of data that intelligence agencies drool over, and they’re putting it all in one place.
There’s obvious potential for abuse domestically by both parties, but this also severely raises the risk of a foreign compromise — that database will be an instant target.
(https://x.com/Angry_Staffer/status/1920846330693320967?t=hwhotwEqPO-EmK1DmRfiWA&s=03)
rikyrah
MAGA Cult Slayer🦅🇺🇸 (@MAGACult2) posted at 7:50 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
Oh, you thought the border was just about keeping people out?
Nah—now they’re stopping folks from leaving.
U.S. agents are running outbound checkpoints at Peace Arch and Pacific Highway. That’s right—they’re clocking who’s heading to Canada.
Not smugglers. You. Your mom. Your uterus.
They say it’s about “export laws,” but if you’ve read Project 2025, you already know—this is about control.
When a regime starts guarding the exits?
You’re not free. You’re contained.
This isn’t fearmongering. This is your f***ing wake-up call.
Watch the exits. Stay loud. And don’t
Your https://t.co/V92N1NRTnp
(https://x.com/MAGACult2/status/1920823603257286870?t=qpYNP8y8HUJSBt-QLk0veA&s=03)
Steve LaBonne
@TONYG: An Italian-American friend of mine calls those people “over-assimilated Italians”.
Baud
@TONYG:
They want to stay white. Therefore they support Republicans.
leeleeFL
@JPL: This is what gives me hope! And, perhaps Francis was able to convince Leo that lightening up on the divorced Catholics and the LGBTQ+ members of the Flock was very much in the wheelhouse of an Augustinian. After all, Augustine had a prayer, so I am told, when he was younger: “Lord, give me chastity, but not now!” Always liked that story!
scav
Wait! No one told me Mattel is now a country!
Baud
Y’all need to apologize to Trump for saying he hates immigrants
Baud
At least they won’t suffer from empty shelves.
Citizen Dave
So the new pope is from Naperville? Saw this local piece–interview with the brother. Brother of new pope on his reaction to learning the news. Two neighborhood women predicted it when he was a first grader.
https://youtu.be/zjnxt5mZ1Uc?si=aoc6deyzBmgyHEKi
Suzanne
@TONYG:
I’m also of Italian descent (and I look it, too), and I feel similarly. Like….. we weren’t white until about 20 minutes ago. Don’t you forget, because I guarantee that plenty of other white people have not. They maintain that bigotry even if they’re nice to your face.
JD Vance and the others who are trying to make “Heritage American” a thing would happily kick us all out. I tortured myself yesterday by listening to an interview with Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who might be the elected Dem that I most want to yeet into a volcano. She was blathering about how five generations of her family had all lived in the same place, and I was thinking about how much that sounded like Vance talking about his seven generations of family members buried in the same cemetery, and how that makes America a nation. Like, shut up. Manifesting destiny is also a core American value.
rikyrah
@Jackie:
this is CRAZY
CRAZY
CRAZY
scav
@Suzanne: seven generations of family members born in the same cemetery makes you a vampire, not necessarily an American.
sab
@rikyrah: I remember when the IRS wasn’t allowed to link up its different regions. If you moved between regions and they audited you, your auditor had to requisition information from back the other region you came from.
Now any random Muskrat will have access to everything.
Barbarai
@Baud: UCC (or the Congregationalists back in the 1770s) ordained the first African-American minister, was abolitionist, and in the 1800s the first woman minister. Of course, the merger with other small denominations in 1957 (hence United Church of Christ), combined with no central authority (like Anglicans/Episcopalians and Catholics) has meant that some churches in some regions are more conservative. It’s a big tent (for better or worse)
pajaro
I think we should listen to the MAGAT’s and take this win, even if he’s unlikely to abandon some positions that the Church holds with which most of us would disagree. It wasn’t that long ago that there were American Catholic Cardinals who were denying communion for Democratic politicians who had different attitudes on abortion regulation than the Church. There’s no evidence that this guy, like Francis, supports a Church that is based on exclusion. Rather, like Francis, he seems to be leaning in to what Jesus actually taught (If you accept the Gospels) on the humanity of migrants, the dignity of all people, including those who are poor, and other of what we would consider social justice concerns. And he comes to the job having already called out JD Vance.
I grew up in Chicago, and I’m just delighted that this multi-racial guy, who spent so much of his life in South America, is going to be the face of that denomination. As a Northsider, I am somewhat concerned to have learned that he’s a White Sox Fan, but I am sure that his grace will extend to Cubs fans as well. Finally, I’ve got to say, one of my first thoughts when I heard about him was, “I’d really like to meet this guy,” and it’s a thought that I don’t know I’ve ever had about a Pope before.
Suzanne
@scav: Quite the DYAC, wasn’t that? I corrected it.
Tablet typing often offers some laughs.
jonas
Don’t forget, you had a choice of bread or fish — so he had you covered.
sab
@Suzanne: That cemetary thing is hilarious. We have at least seven generations in Ohio but my nephews are still half Chinese and proud of it.
jimmirabob
@Steve LaBonne:
Kidnapping and exporting to places where their labor may be exploited sounds an awful lot like the slave trade.
jonas
It means your town is mostly a bunch of inbred freaks who could never escape to greener pastures is what that means.
dc
@PJ: Black, Woman, Library, Congress
Steve LaBonne
@jimmirabob: Given that MAGA is basically neo-Confederate ideology, this is no accident.
snoey
@sab: There is a strong connection between the two, as many old New England Congregationalist churches became Unitarian by vote of the congregation.
scav
@sab: Plus the whole let’s ignore the frontier aspect. Oldest (pre-revolutionary lines) I’ve got were exactly those moving multiple times a generation, sometimes slightly ahead of the legally permissible sites. Some buried in towns that have ceased to exist.
mayim
@Baud:
My UU parents said UCC actually stood for Unitarians Considering Christ.
My dad, an atheist as an adult, retained only 2 things from his fundamentalist Baptist childhood ~ that a sabbath <guaranteed day off each week> is a good idea for people plus a real skepticism about the Catholic church and its agenda.
jimmirabob
@AWOL:
I was sure that you were going for Stephen Miller.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Chicago also gave us the Obamas. So I have warm feelings toward Chicago.
Read something this morning about how the election of Polish pope John Paul II accelerated Poland’s path to democracy, and in the same way Leo XIV will have an intangible but real effect here.
Not just him. The resistance movement here is the real power. It’s growing and it’s working. Peace activist George Lakey, who I admire greatly, has spoken about how to overthrow violent coups with nonviolent protest. He has written about what was likely to happen in our own country since 2020, and what to do about it, and it largely looks like what is happening.
sab
@jonas: Not true. See #129. Not everyone was from Ohio. Mostly we married newcomers.
ETA People from Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Canada, China, Connecticut.
mayim
@sab:
To add a bit more: the Unitarians and Universalists in the U.S. mostly derive from the Congregational church environment. Many Congregational churches split into an ‘orthodox’ and a Unitarian group in the 1820s or so ~ which means that many of the early Pilgrim/Puritan churches of 17th century New England now have institutional descendants that are U.U.
jimmirabob
@snoey:
This is why I switched from bourbon to Canadian and Japanese Whiskey. And Irish and Mexican beer.
JPL
@leeleeFL: The fact that most comments against the lifestyle of gays are several years old. Pope Francis did work closely with him the last few years, so there is hope.
sab
@mayim: This has been a really informative comment thread. I am Episcopalian so I know much of that history. But not as much as I should about the others.
Suzanne
@sab:
The cemetery thing is bizarre. Like, I have one ancestor who was born in Boston, but served in the Union army, then went to California and then Alaska. Every generation is like that: we’re movers. Taught to be opportunity-chasers.
The multiple-generations-in-the-same-cemetery discourse is just more of the same blah blah blah about how people who live rurally are the only Real Americans. (See also: drinking Budweiser, guns, rolling coal, workin’ with your hands, the spiritual power of hands in the soil, etc.). It’s white nationalism whether or not it comes from Republicans or Democrats.
trollhattan
There’s that number again.
One of André Leon Talley's Fifty Pieces of Monogrammed Louis Vuitton Luggage
I’m waiting for Trump to appeal the Pope’s appointment to the Supreme Court.
sab
@mayim: That UCC definition made me laugh.
In my family history in the 19th century the Episcopal Church in America is where Catholics could marry Presbyterians, and Catholics could marry Jews. And Presbyterians could marry Congregationalists.
In the 20th century UCC was where different denominations of Christians could intermarry, and UU was where Christians, Jews and atheists could intermarry and still have a spiritual home and a place to raise their kids with a value structure.
I don’t know what 21st century parents do. My step-daughter has forsaken religion altogether. I think her daughter would like the support of a church, and also the chance to be in a choir. But that is just me.
jimmirabob
One complaint that I have heard from Trump/MAGA Evangelicals is that Catholics are too Cosmopolitan – too globalist.
As Cicero, a Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman, framed it,
“law in the proper sense is right reason in harmony with nature … there will not be one such law in Rome and another in Athens, one now and another in the future, but all peoples at all times will be embraced by a single and eternal unchangeable law.”
The authors, especially Jefferson, of our constitutional framework based on the natural law were very familiar with Cicero. In its early development, the Christian/Catholic scholars/philosophers adopted and adapted a lot of Pagan ideas (see also the Cardinal Virtues).
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Um, as usual, this isn’t just a rural thing. Yeah, that’s an easy target for self professed progressives to target since it provides the usual ability to pound on rurl whiteness. Having lived that back in Central Misery for all those years, sure, it’s pretty accurate.
But go to places like Denver and you easily hear the same kinds of things from the Hispanic community. As Denver’s been hit with the tsunami of entitled white professional gentrifiers over the last decade or so, longtime Hispanic residents involved in larger community issues almost always preface an introduction with something along the lines of “I’m a proud 4-gen Denver native, etc., etc.,”
Ain’t no white in that comment, it’s the exact opposite in terms of trying to fight back against the displacement pressures brought by self professed progressive whites. And then the Dem party wonders why it’s losing ‘market share’ outside of that demographic.
Baud
Lochnessmom
@Old Man Shadow: https://www.ncronline.org/news/white-smoke-black-pop
e-genealogist-says-leo-xiv-has-louisiana-african-roots
twbrandt
@Suzanne: My tribe, the Presbyterian Church (USA), is also pretty progressive. We ordain women and LGBTQ+ people to all offices, and are very involved with social justice issues.
There are several Presbyterian denominations in the US, but they are smaller and much more conservative than the PC(USA).
karen gail
Got to “love” all these people who call themselves Christians yet do the opposite of what they claim Jesus taught; we should never forget “by their fruits you will know them.”
Which is a big reason I have no desire to be in any way shape or form associated with any Christian; I will take my nature loving self out the door and always remind them that Mother Nature has more impact on their lives than a imaginary sky god.
Juju
@PJ: She was there during his first term. I surprised he didn’t fire her back then. Can he actually fire her? Isn’t there a process to go through to fire someone from that sort of position?
Lacuna Synecdoche
USAToday via WaterGirl @ Top:
So a literal money-changer, presumably identifying as Catholic, dislikes the man that Catholic dogma says is Jesus’s infallible (regarding church matters) representative on Earth?
Color me unsurprised.
I guess the new Pope upset his money-changing table.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Suzanne:
I think it’s a component of the right’s present-day prejudice against Mexicans too.
sab
@sab: My little sister had a Jewish classmate who joined a Black gospel choir just for the opportunity to sing American music.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Juju:
I’m guessing there is but then Hair Furor illegally fired two members of the FTC so he doesn’t care about pesky little details like laws.
Geminid
I was looking for foreign news on Ankara-based ClashReport and found plenty of items on the India/Pakistan conflict, which seems to getting worse.
There was some encouraging video though, of a Sherman tank crushing a Tesla sedan. A grizzled man with a white beard explains:
Turner explains that the world’s wealthiest man is financing far-right parties in Europe, and he gets money from selling Tesla cars.
Next you see Turner’s head sticking out of the driver hatch: he starts the 32-ton tank in motion and proceeds to run the Tesla over with his right-hand track. Another camera captures the view from inside the car.
The video ends with people whistling the theme from The Great Escape. It’s pretty fun so I’ll try to link it:
https://x.com/clashreport/status/1920799153258483997
Suzanne
@twbrandt: I was brought up in the PCUSA. Stopped attending in the early 2000s. The church I attended was the one I was raised in, and there were lots of tensions among that congregation about LGBT issues, women, etc etc etc. Other congregations were less angsty about that stuff, though.
West of the Rockies
@rikyrah:
It seems that Republicans don’t like qualified doctors. They at heart don’t believe in science because it makes them feel stupid. So they like quackery, magic remedies, one easy trick…
They also don’t like teachers, scientists, or other fact-having nincompoops who make Republicans confront their own idiocy.
Baud
@West of the Rockies:
Science also contains the will, since it’s bound by observable facts.
Suzanne
@West of the Rockies: Once again, I will recommend Joan Williams’ book White Working Class. There’s a passage in there about antipathy toward doctors, teachers, other professionals, etc.
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
THE CRAZYFICATION NUMBER
twbrandt
@Suzanne: yeah, there was a lot of tension then, and a lot of people and some congregations left the denomination because of those issues.
Suzanne
@twbrandt: But you know what….. I’m still friends with some of my youth group cohort. Most of us grew into lefties or liberals.
Jackie
@Geminid: That was so…. satisfying! Thanks for posting! My 99 year old dad WWII Veteran would have approved 100%!
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Haven’t read that, but, for me, the connection goes back to his first term. I never made the connection. How could these ALL WHITE AREAS have such an issue with Immigration, WHEN THEY NEVER SEE ANYONE NON-WHITE?
Then, I read a story about foreign-born doctors. How, in order to speed up their citizenship process, these doctors would accept assignments in RURAL AREAS . That’s when it all clicked for me. They were mad that the smart kids, who grew up to be doctors from their areas, LEFT AND NEVER CAME BACK, and they had to go to these NON-WHITE DOCTORS.
They RESENTED the NON-WHITES who provided them medical care.
bluefoot
@rikyrah: My (white, female, PhD-holding, lives in MA) boss said prior to the election that she didn’t want to vote for Harris because Harris wasn’t smart, and not smart enough to be President. When pressed on it and Harris’ record, she said, “you know, I just feel people like her can’t be smart.” IYKWIM…
Baud
@bluefoot:
I hope a leopard says her face.
bluefoot
@rikyrah: my sister is a doctor in one of the Midwestern major cities and many of her patients come from rural areas. The things they say to her are incredibly racist. Many demand to talk to the boss to get another doctor….she is the head of the department and is the boss.
Sister Golden Bear
@rikyrah: SCOTUS to trans troops: Fuck you for your service.
prostratedragon
@rikyrah:
A little more on this horrible story.
Steve LaBonne
@bluefoot: Good thing we elected a stable genius, huh.
jimmirabob
@rikyrah: “How could these ALL WHITE AREAS have such an issue with Immigration, WHEN THEY NEVER SEE ANYONE NON-WHITE?”
Resentment & outrage, yes.
I met a guy at a 50501 protest in Jeff City, MO that was there to disrupt the protest. I walked up to him and started a conversation starting with, why he was so angry at the protesters. His reply was that he was tired – resented – trans this and trans that that was constantly being shoved down his throat. I told him that if he just stopped watching Fox News, etc., that he’d probably never again have it rammed down his throat.
When the conversation was over he turned around, dropped trou and mooned the protesters. I turned to a young woman that was with him and asked if he was always like that. She chuckled.
Manufactured outrage. The end.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: Yes, racism and xenophobia are behind much of the dislike of doctors. And if you guessed that sexism is the underlying force behind dislike of teachers….. hey, you’d be right!
Common thread? Foreigners and women having a higher social station. Having more money, power, or respect than white men.
prostratedragon
@Steve LaBonne: I know of one explicitly creedless UCC congregation, though they do make the main Christian observances in some sense.
ETA and what sab said.
They Call Me Noni
@bluefoot: My husband is facing some health issues and due to a change in insurance at the beginning of the year we have had to change his doctor. So far all the specialists we have been referred to are foreign women. I’m just thankful to have access to doctors with their expertise.
tam1MI
@Professor Bigfoot: “In the first century in Palestine, Christianity was a community of believers. Then Christianity moved to Greece and became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome and became an institution. Then it moved to Europe and became a culture. And then it moved to America and became a business.” Priscilla Shirer
Then out moved to the Confederacy and became a grift.
Steve LaBonne
@prostratedragon: The whole denomination in fact does not have an official creed in the sense of people having to subscribe to it to be members.
Suzanne
@bluefoot: I have a good friend, a white lady, who is a doctor/professor at one of the bigger destination medical centers in the country, also in the Midwest. She told me she gets nonstop sexist comments from patients, some of whom will straight-up ask for men doctors once they meet her. (And she isn’t in an area of practice that requires seeing patients’ genitals, either.) Some of them refuse to address her as Doctor [Last Name] and insist on referring to her by her first name…. But, magically, that doesn’t happen to her male colleagues.
Melancholy Jaques
@scav:
The Church dropped limbo in 1992.
Suzanne
@jimmirabob:
Obligatory: Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?
prostratedragon
@Baud: Some Presbyterian organizations are also quite liberal.
Glidwrith
@Fair Economist: In the time of John Paul, the Church hired a panel of experts to determine if birth control should be allowed.
The panel came back with a resounding YES because of the poverty, health impacts, all of the reasons it should be available.
He ignored all of it and outlawed birth control.
Not that any American Catholic (including yours truly, though lapsed) pays any attention to the Church on this.
Citizen Alan
@Old Man Shadow: i think they would have been fine with a black pope if he had been an ultra conservative. My biggest fear was a pope from africa who thinks that AIDS is a divine punishment for sexual deviancy.
Martin
Idea for thought based on headlines the US is ready to receive its first set of South African white refugees: the US has spent too much time and energy defending the political idea of Israel that it originally championed, that much of the US has adopted a similar vision for the US – that just as Jews needed a protective religious state, American protestants see Israel as a model for the US for protestant groups. They see the need for a state that can proudly put a Christian cross on the flag, call itself a democracy through a kind of first and second class citizenship through laws that recognize that the job of the state is to protect a specific religious class, and can excuse acts of genocide in defense of that protection. That’s not a new idea to the US, but it’s a new idea since the US backed the exact same idea in the Israel project, and when Democrats support that nation model and it’s actions, they are effectively endorsing the same idea here, because why shouldn’t Souther Baptists enjoy the same nation-state benefits that Jews do? That’s why they support Israel because they want the US to be Protestant Israel. And the US doesn’t have a good argument against that while also pointing to Israel as a project that should be uncritically supported.
And this is why some Democrats were upset with Biden over that support – because it gave tacit support to the idea that the US should also be a religious state at a time when that movement was becoming more extreme under Trump.
Shakti
@rikyrah:
Yeah, that seems to be some kind of cross-cultural thing. I think that happened with the NHS in the 1960s and 1970s as well.
(I’m basing this on British series that end up on PBS, so huge rock of salt; and also people I knew who immigrated to Britain and then to America).
I’d feel sorrier/think they had any basis for their feelings if any of these people had bothered to vote in actual investment into their own public school system and jobs in their gerrymandered to fuck [with their full consent] districts.
You cannot be such a hostile ass-wipe to anybody with a lick of education and then get mad your preferred type of person isn’t available to do these jobs and then your non-preferred types leave ASAP. “We are so superior and we are the dumbest fucking people known to man and we also voted for these people who elevate the most malign stupid people to positions with great power” These buttholes are enjoying making it so that no educated immigrants want to be part of the brain drain to their part of the country (or their country period) and now will whine they don’t have [x].
Shakti
@Suzanne: At one point, I knew more about all of the drag shows in town from the outrage machine to the local news that would filter it to me from Fox News watchers than my some of my actual coworkers.
One of whom were genderfluid. One of whom was gay and a drag queen with multiple gigs. How? Why?
Suzanne
@Shakti:
College has long been the way that smart LGBT folk and women leave their oppressive small town. Which is, of course, part of why the right wing hates it.
Miss Bianca
Da Pope!
As I told Betty C yesterday, I think “Woke Marxist Pope” is going to be my new band name. Or maybe it should be plural…”The Woke Marxist Popes, everybody!”
Suzanne
@Shakti: Dude. You know where I first read about how female-to-male gender confirmation surgery is performed?! On Rod Dreher’s old blog. These people are fucken obsessed with other people’s sex lives.
Martin
@Citizen Alan: Are there any African cardinals or bishops who expose that view? It was my understanding that the African catholic leadership was the group working hardest to destigmatize AIDS. I know that view exists in the church in Africa, but my understanding is that pragmatism has largely won out in not advancing individuals with unhelpful views up the hierarchy, because rejecting anyone with AIDS from the congregation is a pretty effective way to ensure that Catholic churches fail in the regions where AIDS is at pandemic levels.
The US Catholic Church can afford that view because in the US AIDS is still associated with homosexuality in the public mind, and also in where the disease is most present (in the US 70% are gay/bi men), but the African one cannot where AIDS is widespread in the population (55% of AIDS victims in sub-saharan Africa are women and it’s mostly spread through heterosexual sex.)
prostratedragon
@sab: Among my circle of friends, UU was where a Hindu and a Catholic could have a wedding that acknowledged both.
Captain C
@Miss Bianca: Let me know if you need a bari sax.
rikyrah
Wendell Pierce (@WendellPierce) posted at 10:53 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
The American Catholic Church that sold 272 slaves to save Georgetown University, whose descendants are in the Creole community of New Orleans and Louisiana, now has a Pope who is a descendant of that very same Creole community! Divine restitution, reconciliation,& penance ?
(https://x.com/WendellPierce/status/1920869861548290547?t=z7kZQKiLd8jnkEEZrhX9JA&s=03)
prostratedragon
@Steve LaBonne: Yeah, we take the idea of congregational polity to that extent. My church growing up (pk), we did use the Nicene monthly for a while, mostly I think to provide historical context.
rikyrah
@bluefoot:
One of my favorite TikTok series…
are Black healthcare professionals who get told that they don’t want a Black ______________.
The ones that tickle me the most are when they ask for ‘ The Manager’…
AND, THE MANAGER IS BLACK TOO.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Imagine being sick enough to be in an ER or in the Hospital…and purse your phucking lips to be racist.
Msb
@rikyrah: marvelous!
NaijaGal
I had no idea Pope Leo’s maternal grandparents were black until I read this CNN article! https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/09/us/pope-leo-creole-lineage-hnk
I’m sure this has been mentioned already – haven’t yet read the thread.
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
it enrages me. I never was willing to put my life on the line for this country.
IF SOMEONE IS WILLING TO PUT THEIR LIFE ON THE LINE THEY SHOULD BE AFFORDED EVERYTHING THAT THIS COUNTRY GIVES TO VETS.
sab
@rikyrah: I love WP.
Pope:White, African, USian, North American, South American, Creole, multilinglot, all in one human sized packet. I am impressed. And relieved and hopeful.
Glidwrith
@West of the Rockies: The other thing they don’t like is science isn’t a gatekeeper for a “worthy” person.
Pray hard and if you’re worthy, the skygod may cure your disease.
Go to a doctor/scientist and get a shot/pill/knowledge, no checking on whether you are worthy to be saved.
Jay
@rikyrah:
Well, there is that guy who would not get a Covid vaccination, even though he needed a heart transplant, and was high up on the list.
Good thing somebody else got the heart.
Msb
@rikyrah: astonishing! The new pope is a follower of Jesus. That’s two in a row! (Recently – Papal history is not my strong suit.)
Shakti
@Suzanne: And it horseshoes winds its way back into the racism in the weirdest fucking ways. The Rod Dreher Wikipedia is weird as fuck; the Renaud Camus french wikipedia page has an entire section on his pedo-[ apologism]. But to these … people, people like are geniuses and all right in the head, defenders of the children and the nation and whatever.
[Not linking, because it’s fucking gross, vomit emojis so many of them.]
...now I try to be amused
@Glidwrith: Right-wingers are obsessed with the idea of “deserving” and really hate it when someone they think is undeserving gets something good, even when it costs them nothing. One reason why welfare state programs have a hard time getting traction in the US.
Jay
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/crypto-is-still-for-criming
Sasha
MAGA Catholics: “Please let elderly, sickly Francis die so that a younger man will take his place and lead the church for decades and into TRUE Catholicism.”
[monkey’s paw finger curls]
bluefoot
@Suzanne:
My sister gets that too. She’s had male interns treated better than she has as the boss. Plus she’s one of the experts in her specialty. It also pisses the both of us off when people assume we’re not American (born and bred) because we’re not white.
Citizen Alan
@Other MJS: i mentioned this yesterday, but in the left behind series, there’s a new Pope thing installed who is a servant the antichrist. He takes office after the prior hope is among the raptured. And the only thing we know about the prior pope other than his name? He pushed for policies within the church to bring up a catholic church doctrine more in line with protestantism.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
One of the videos I saw during the election, was of some MAGA folks in Ohio, I think. They were talking about how this foreigner, who lived in their neighborhood, drove a Lexus. They were obsessed about it.
Now, from my POV, I was like, maybe the dude’s an engineer, or a business owner, and he’s doing well. They were like HOW CAN HE AFFORD IT. I was also of the mind…..minding your own business is FREE. Stay the phuck outta his pockets.
frosty
@Suzanne: I can’t remember the last time I had a male doctor. My last female one just retired and I asked her if she could get me set up with another one like her. She said “Nope, after me they broke the mold.” I’ve got the female NP who worked with her as my PCP now.
JoyceH
If we’re feeling relieved because the new pope has nice eyes, can we talk about Kash Patel? We haven’t seen eyes like that since Charles Manson died.
Suzanne
@rikyrah:
OH MY GOD, RIGHT?!?!
Like, think those judgy thoughts all you want, feel all the resentment and envy you wish. But keep your mouth shut, have some goddamn manners.
I still remember when a superintendent on a project told me that “architects make too much money”. Like, bruh, I encourage you to be quiet.
rikyrah
@JoyceH:
to quote The Chappelle Show…
I’m not saying he’s a crackhead…but, he’s crack-ISH
I just know if they had him pissing in a cup…he’d fail. HE REEKS THROUGH THE TV SCREEN
Suzanne
@rikyrah: BTW, I am convinced, based on plenty of experience and observation, that the so-called “lack of respect” that the MAGA right wing complains about is just….. making less money.
They talk tons of shit about cities as hotbeds of sin and crime, insult women with professional jobs as barren or bitchy, call anyone who even went to a state school elitist…. if there is a “lack of respect” problem, it is most assuredly the other way around. But they equate income with respect.
rikyrah
Eugene (@BreakingNews4X) posted at 0:38 PM on Thu, May 08, 2025:
A Vatican insider said: “He was not one of the obvious candidates, but he knows everybody, he spent 30 years as a missionary, he has languages.
“His time in Peru means he is one of the least ‘American’ of the American cardinals. But he understands America and he can speak to the country, which is important in the Trump era.”
(https://x.com/BreakingNews4X/status/1920533659909820865?t=QPmQAyGg9I8f0zIQRnq8vA&s=03)
Emily B.
@Jay: Well, today I got the “Pegasus” scam email. That’s the one that starts “Hello pervert”—the scammer claims to have used Pegasus surveillance software on your computer to film you…responding to various online videos. And yes, the blackmail money is supposed to be paid in crypto. (In this case, Litecoin.)
If they actually DID have Pegasus on my computer, the most explicit stuff they’d get would be photos of my cat’s butt as she walks all over my keyboard.
Some people do pay these villains, though, and it’s crypto that makes the whole online scam possible. Can you imagine if they had to ask for a credit card number?
rikyrah
Terry Lee Watkins Jr. 王瑞民![]()
![]()
(@TerryWatkinsJr1) posted at 9:26 AM on Fri, May 09, 2025:
Once I saw the Popes brothers…I’m like…yeah…that definitely ain’t 100% Europe. https://t.co/cMAza1aRlk
(https://x.com/TerryWatkinsJr1/status/1920847907491561702?t=O9PN1pxLBLCQ0gssvIUOqQ&s=03)
JaneE
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know about Disciples of Christ now, but it is the denomination I was raised in. Back in the 50’s it was officially for integration. Our minister preached a Christmas sermon that was about the Christian justification for equal treatment of all instead of baby Jesus. One of his best sermons ever, and I still remember the subject at least. I would have been 9 or 10 at the time. The church organized joint worship with a black church in the denomination – the nearest being an hour away on the freeway. It was more of a grand gesture – no one was going to drive an hour each way for very long – and we still wound up losing about a third of the congregation including one deacon. My dad was an un-funny Archie Bunker, but at least he was Christian enough to be ashamed of his racism even if he couldn’t abandon it. The DoC also saw no conflict with evolution and viewing the Genesis creation as metaphorical rather than literal so I guess those things would qualify it as a liberal denomination back then. It was also very much a “red letter” denomination. Anyone who could say they accepted Jesus as their personal savior was/could be a member in good standing. The important point was to follow Jesus’ teachings, and as quoted in the gospels in preference to Pauline letters if there was a perceived difference.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
THIS, OH SWEET LITTLE BABY JESUS, THIS!
Matt McIrvin
The “love your neighbor as yourself”, “love your brother”, “give to the poor”, “do not mistreat the stranger”, even “forgive debts” messages are EVERYWHERE in the Bible. There’s way more of that than anything to do with homosexuality or abortion.
Sometimes it seems like these people invent extraordinary contortions to neglect that.
Jay
@Suzanne:
Nope. A lot of them make really good money, (Car dealers, Contractors, etc) and are top of the food chain in their little Shittiverse.
When they step out of their safe spaces in that Shittiverse into the Real World, they demand, expect and crave that their irrational racisms, misogamy, fear and resentment get treated as normal, and with respect, and the fact that we don’t, pisses them of and leads to long burning white hot rage.
There were two America’s Hat MAGgot’s at the last place I worked. We had a Pakistani Canadian Engineering student as a repair tech. He did all the sewer camera diagnosis and repairs, all the soft start tools, all the hydraulic pipe crimping tools.
They called him Crab.
From Day 1 I called him by his name. Phrabinder. I could see them stiffen up and get pissed every time I called him by his name, every time I gave him his holiday’s greetings, every time I treated him like just another human that was a colleague. And boy, were they pissed that I would help him at times and they went white hot and complained to MGMT when he started cross training me.
Shakti
@Suzanne:
Possibly. But then they’d be just as riled by Trump, Musk, car dealership owners, half the NHL, megachurch pastors..but that’s assuredly not the case. They are uninterested in examining their pockets.
They are riled by public school teachers who do not make much money at all.
I think whatever sympathy or understanding I had for this mentality got burnt out.
WTFGhost
@RevRick: Not per the Catholic teachings I saw. Gluttony was one of the “seven deadly sins” but none of those are actual sins. They’re temptations, and lead one to sin. One who is challenged by gluttony is called upon to find, and live, by temperance (one of the seven great virtues, matching one of the seven deadly sins). The Seven Deadly Sins were more of a teaching tool, akin to how the Catholic Church tries to tie all sins to the 10 commandments – get a traffic ticket, it’s a minor sin for breaking the law, which meant it was a violation of the 4th commandment, Honor your Father and Mother (and all other authority figures God puts over you).
@Baud: God does the saving – Unitarians believe that Jesus wasn’t God, there is only one god, God/Yahweh/Jehovah; universalists believe that no good entity could torture people for all eternity, so God would pull them out, sooner or later.
Whether there was an afterlife was a question for Jews, and Jewish law doesn’t have an answer. Although you’d think from “God’s chosen” that Jewish people were supposed to get goodies, no, they were chosen as the people who would obey the full law, not just the Noahchide Law (have courts; don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t rip a limb from a living critter and chow down; don’t commit sexual perversions). This is one of the reasons why, if you want to convert to Judaism, you’ll be refused. “Why not just live a good life? You don’t have to live by all these rules!”
WTFGhost
@Matt McIrvin: Well, very few people are homosexuals, so they’re a good, safe, group to attack; and, if you’re not preaching abortion is murder, people are waiting for you to do so.
It really gets hard to condemn homosexuality when most of The Law was upended; with abortion, it’s harder. Jewish law was clear: if two men are fighting and they injure a pregnant woman,
If SHE dies, the killer dies;
If she miscarries, no penalty.
To overcome this, the Evangelicals had to figure that they knew Jewish law better than those *JEWS* who’ve been studying it and arguing it for centuries before Jesus was born. So they performed “exegesis” which is where you study the bible, to create your preferred answer, with biblical “support.”
Oh: it’s also a process where someone gathers up all the scripture they can, and try to figure out the most Godly answer, but, that’s not what they did with abortion.
Matt McIrvin
@…now I try to be amused: Again, this is something Jesus’s parables in the Bible keep bringing up: “the kingdom of heaven” giving benefits to people even when they seem like they don’t deserve it as much as other people, and how you shouldn’t let this upset you.
Honestly, some of these can be hard to take, but that’s the point, it’s hard to take but it’s OK, people shouldn’t be so focused on “deserving”.
Gloria DryGarden
@Old Man Shadow: um, he’s part Louisiana creole, and Haitian, on his mom’s side. There are articles laying this out on bsky. Pretty cool, really.
A polyglot mathematician. As a former Chicagoan, and math lover, and speaker of only a few languages, I am so pleased.
A chance for some intersectionality in the Vatican.
One commenter yesterday pointed out that Leo is not only a former pope in whose tradition he might follow, it’s also St Francis best friend’s name, guy buried next to Francis, in Assisi.
the intertwined layers are almost like synchronicity, or harmony.
Gloria DryGarden
@Matt McIrvin: my understanding is abortion
becamegot pushed as an issue, to turn out voters. Those creepy cheating republicans. They didn’t care about it. There’s nothing in the Bible about it.re homosexuality, and the Bible, I need the scholars and seminary trained to expand the alternative translations: I understand one interpretation of
the word folks say refers to homosexuality is a word for the practice of supplying a young boy to service male guests,
a night-time sex slave child trafficking situation, normalized in those times as a part of hospitality. So I figure that verse in the Bible means don’t use kids for sex. At least, not boys. Or, don’t be pedophiles.
so, leave gay people out of it, it’s about abusing children.
btw, is some cultures, you’re only gay if you receive, or are penetrated. If you are the one penetrating, like in all male situations, you’re not considered gay, you’re just doing normal things. this was explained to me in the era we were all watching “the kiss of spider woman” a great movie starring william hurt, and was it, Raúl Julia?
MinuteMan
How long before the Magatsphere starts screaming about a rigged conclave? Or maybe the smoke wasn’t white enough?
dnfree
@Baud: UCC is a Christian church formed by the merger of denominations (including Congregational and some Reform) in the 1950s, hence United Church of Christ.
UU is a merger of two somewhat heretical church groups (Unitarians didn’t believe in the Trinity and Universalists believed everyone goes to heaven) that is now not specifically Christian. (That’s a great oversimplification.)
Kayla Rudbek
@Old Man Shadow: they are a bunch of damned heretics, quite literally.
Kayla Rudbek
@cain: it’s “faith, not works” taken to a satanic extreme (rahaeli on Bluesky was describing it as the American Heresy and had a great thread over there about how Leo’s first homily as Pope was reading JD Vance and his ilk for filth)
Kayla Rudbek
@Sister Golden Bear: at this rate, we’ll find extraterrestrial life by its voting against Trump
Kayla Rudbek
@Bunter: I’ve known that since I was a kid reading Robert Heinlein’s Revolt in 2100 where the religious dictatorship that took over the USA was distinctly Protestant and suppressing the Catholics and the Mormons (and stoning pariahs who I read as Jews)
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: it’s all misogyny and authoritarianism regardless of whatever labels they put onto the package
Kayla Rudbek
@Fair Economist: personally, I think that the soul attaches at quickening and that there are a certain amount of live bodies walking around where ensoulment failed. It definitely can’t be at conception because identical twins would then be sharing one soul instead of being two separate people.
Kayla Rudbek
@Baud: yeah, I think that most of the Lutherans in Minnesota are ELCA. They still may not exactly like the Catholics, but at least they can get along without too much fuss
Kayla Rudbek
@TONYG: yeah, it’s annoying, although my grandfather (first generation Italian American) was very right wing.
Kayla Rudbek
@Lacuna Synecdoche: most definitely, and against Hispanic people in general as being not white. It’s the British attitude that dirty foreigners begin at Calais (or Wales, or Hadrian’s Wall, to round the borders out)
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: and they are too stupid to figure out that a repressive society can remain repressive much longer if it allows honorable escapes (I.e. joining a religious order and/or moving out of town)
pluky
@Old Man Shadow: Well, this one almost qualifies. Evidently his maternal grandparents moved North from New Orleans, and passed across the color line once they got to Chicago.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/white-smoke-black-pope-genealogist-says-leo-xiv-has-louisiana-african-roots
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Shakti: it’s going to even more interesting in the near future as potential new students, from other countries are Not going to want to come to the US for their education, internships/residency/fellowships anymore. Nor are they going to want to stay in the United States if they are already here once they finish their education. Why would they want to build a life here anymore? I worked in a large pathology lab before I retired, many of our doctors were foreign born, some were naturalized citizens. Many are rethinking raising their kids in the US or retiring in the US. Many doctors at university research facilities or hospitals are looking into working at Canadian universities or labs.
dnfree
@Kayla Rudbek: The Bible is quite clear that life as a human being begins with breath. When the newly-emerged child takes its breath, it’s a human being. The breath of life, the breath of God, however—it’s throughout the Bible. And when you stop breathing, you’re dead.
The Old Testament does not have the concept of “soul”. That comes from the New Testament, probably influenced by the Greeks? When you read “soul” in the Old Testament, that’s a Christian interpretation being imposed on the Jewish version. Read the English translations of the Old Testament by Robert Alter to get closer to the meaning when those books were written. Christianity works references to Jesus back into the Old Testament.