Pope Up

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Typhoon
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Pope Up

Post by Typhoon »

The RC faith has a new one.
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YMix
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Re: Pope Up

Post by YMix »

The new pope has been revealed as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, from Argentina.
Well, well. The first non-European pope.
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Azrael
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Azrael »

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is Pope Francis.

The archbishop of Buenos Aires is a Jesuit intellectual who travels by bus and has a practical approach to poverty: when he was appointed a cardinal, Bergoglio persuaded hundreds of Argentinians not to fly to Rome to celebrate with him but instead to give the money they would have spent on plane tickets to the poor.
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Azrael
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Azrael »

I think that they got it right this time.
cultivate a white rose
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

May God bless the new Pope and the Roman Catholic church.
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Alexis
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Habemus Papam

Post by Alexis »

Habemus Papam.

The last time a non-European was Pope was the VIIIth century. Gregory III, from Syria, if I'm not mistaken.

Francis Ist is the first Jesuit pope.

Regarding his described peculiar closeness to poor people and insistence on struggle against poverty, believing as I do that God the Holy Spirit guides the choice of the Cardinals, I cannot prevent myself wondering what God wanting such a pope bodes for our times.

Should we prepare to an explosion of poverty worldwide within the next years, is this part of the reason why Francis Ist has been elected, so as to help Christians and all men of goodwill prepare for those difficult times?
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Endovelico
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Endovelico »

Good. A Latin-American pope who, although not very keen on liberation theology, is highly concerned with poverty. It's the best one could expect now, and may allow the revival of some form of liberation theology. And he is a Jesuit. I think I'm happy with the choice. And I find it very meaningful that he has chosen the name Francis.
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Ibrahim »

I got home today and not only was there a new pope, but the Internet was blowing up about his ties to "death squads" in the 1970's. I don't know if there is anything to it yet - I'm not going to take some Twitter lefty's word for it - but no doubt it was the usual accommodation between the Catholic church and authoritarian/dictatorial regimes. Not anything particularly malicious on this individual's part.

Latin America is a smart move politically. Plenty of Catholics, not European but still European-ish. What little I've read about Francis (aside from the 70's "scandal") is positive. Back into their holding pattern for the Vatican.

Edit: source of the "scandal"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... repentance
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Zack Morris
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Zack Morris »

Unless he aggressively expands the role of women in the Church (it's probably a bit much to hope for allowing them to join the priesthood), all his work will be for naught and the Church will continue to circle the toilet bowl of history.
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Endovelico
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Endovelico »

Zack Morris wrote:Unless he aggressively expands the role of women in the Church (it's probably a bit much to hope for allowing them to join the priesthood), all his work will be for naught and the Church will continue to circle the toilet bowl of history.
In your opinion what role should women have in the Church?
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Endovelico
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Endovelico »

The choice of Jorge Bergoglio as pope shows a decisive shift from Europe
Andrew Brown - The Guardian, Wednesday 13 March 2013 20.51 GMT

The choice of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to take office as Pope Francis is an extraordinary leap away from the conservative and cautious nature of the last two papacies. Although Bergoglio is described as a moderate conservative, the Jesuits have a reputation in the modern church for rigorous and independent thought, and under Pope John Paul II they were in deep disfavour for their sympathy with liberation theology in Latin America.

The election of a Latin American Jesuit would also have been unthinkable 30 years ago. The choice of Bergoglio shows a decisive shift in the church's centre of gravity away from Europe and towards the continent where most Catholics live, and where the challenges to the church are rather different to those in Europe.

The overwhelming problem in Latin America is the shortage of priests and the shrinkage of believers. Although 40% of the world's Catholic population live in the continent, it can no longer be automatically assumed that a Latin American is a Catholic.

Pentecostal Protestantism has made huge inroads, and, nowadays, secularism as well. These are problems which the church under John Paul II and Benedict XVI refused to confront head on. The choice of Bergoglio shows the question can no longer be dodged. If anyone can break the logjam around clerical celibacy, he is the man.

Although the church continues to grow in Africa, and the conclave shows that it can still hold the attention of the world when it puts on a show, the trend in most developed countries is deeply unfavourable. Partly as a result of shrinking family sizes – themselves a symptom of the way in which women ignore the teaching on contraception – Catholic church attendance in the developed world has been falling steadily in the last decade.

One in 10 adult Americans is now a lapsed Catholic. In both North and South America those who leave the Catholic church tend to become either charismatic evangelical Protestants or to abandon religion altogether. In western Europe there is no other form of Christianity picking up the slack.

The church's attitude to women, its teachings on sex, and the corrosive effect of the abuse scandals are blamed by some; others claim that doctrinal drift and dull, spiritless services are responsible for the problem.

Either way, Pope Francis faces a giant uphill struggle both to remoralise his ageing clergy and to inspire the flagging faithful while making his religion appear intellectually coherent, and morally attractive to outsiders.

In this context it is important that high-level Catholics in the Vatican have shown real interest in the evangelical Alpha course pioneered at Holy Trinity Brompton. This marries conservative doctrine with great social flexibility and an emphasis on charismatic practices like talking in tongues and the expectation of miracles. It also emphasises the role of women, though mostly as part of clergy couples. And the ordination of married men to the priesthood is the single most talked about solution to the crisis of the Catholic clergy.

The presence of priests is central to a flourishing Catholic church. Only they can celebrate the Mass which is the central rite that nourishes and holds together congregations. Although the laity can, and do ignore the moral teachings and efforts of leadership of their priests, they have to have their services. And there is a huge crisis in the priesthood in many of its historic heartlands.

Battered first by a widespread rebellion against compulsory celibacy – more than 100,000 priests were dispensed from their vows to marry in the seventies and Eighties before John Paul II made it almost impossible as part of his more general crackdown on liberalism – and then by the reputational damage of the abuse scandals, the clergy had dwindled and aged at astonishing speed.

The average age of American priests has risen from 34 to 64. The whole of England and Wales produces fewer priests a year than almost any single Anglican diocese. Seminaries have closed all over the Western world. A very high proportion of the remaining clergy are thought by qualified observers to be gay, if often celibate. In the developing world, the regulations on celibacy are widely flouted.

Yet the obvious remedy, demanded by many laity as well as some brave priests, to end compulsory celibacy for the parish clergy, would bring fresh problems in its wake and is certain to be resisted until it becomes entirely unavoidable. Nonetheless, the The election of a Jesuit is significant here. Priests in religious orders, unlike the "secular" parish clergy, take deliberate vows of celibacy. It is not offered as part of a package deal with their vocation. So they are better placed to see the effects of the discipline on those who less willingly accept it.

Although it is very difficult to imagine a wholesale release of already ordained clergy from their vows, a move to ordain already married men would make a huge amount of sense and may well be inevitable.

But this cannot happen without a thorough clearout of the conservatives in the Vatican. The Curia, as the Vatican's bureaucracy is known, has been shaken by numerous scandals in the last eight years. The jailing of Pope Benedict's own butler for leaking documents to the outside world was the most notable case. But in those documents, and in the report prepared into them there were allegations of financial corruption and of the existence of gay networks of influence. The reluctance of the Vatican bank to sign up to European money-laundering protocols means that it is currently unable to offer any cash machines inside the city state.

All these are symptoms of a wider dysfunction. The Curia is essentially a court, in which promotion is by favour of powerful barons, who themselves hold office at the will of the Pope – and who are all dismissed on his death or retirement, and have to hope for reappointment.

It operates with a remarkable combination of sloth and caution. In a world of lightning international communications, it is constantly embarrassed. Although it has managed to stamp out any open dissent from the church's more controversial doctrines, both among the bishops and in Catholic universities, it has been incapable of anything positive.

The first Jesuit pope may show that independent thought was all the time flourishing in the wider church and with it an escape from stifling centralisation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... urch-shift
A thoughtful article.
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Apollonius
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Apollonius »

I like the fact that he travels by bus.


His election is also some consolation to Argentinians for only managing to get three votes in the Falkland Islands.
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NapLajoieonSteroids
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Re: Pope Up

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Image
At the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword; it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice:
“Penance, Penance, Penance!”
(In the second scene a terrible catastrophe befalls the world.)
‘And we saw in an immense light that is God… a Bishop clothed in white. We had the impression it was the Holy Father. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big cross; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins, and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks.’
(The third scene depicts the return of humanity to God.)
‘Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels, each with a crystal aspersorium in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.’
Some "traditionalist" (I use the term very very loosely) blogs were aghast that His Holiness did not wear even the minimal papal vestments and decided to stay in his white cassock. Going by the pictures today, this may be the extent of his garb outside of mass. That he also kept the pectoral cross from his days a bishop AND constantly referred to himself as merely the bishop of Rome brought about connipitions from the community blogs I previous mentioned AND reminded me of the whole FATIMA!!!! "real third secret conspiracy" people.

That I haven't been able to find many of the good conspiracy websites making this connection (and google results are pretty cruddy on the Malachy prophecy people too) is very strange. I remember when Benedict XVI was elected, there were pages upon pages of "Is Benedict the next to last Pope?" or "How does Benedict conform to the glory of the olives motto?"...which provided very entertaining and inventive answers.

Why are the conspiracy nuts not having fun with this? Very strange. :D
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YMix
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Re: Pope Up

Post by YMix »

Inflation. John Paul II had reigned for a long time and so his death and the appointment of Benedict were major events. Now we're having too many new popes, too fast.
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planctom
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Re: Pope Up

Post by planctom »

I've read that the Pope was a vicious critic of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner.
One more reason to celebrate! :D
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

planctom wrote:I've read that the Pope was a vicious critic of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner.
One more reason to celebrate! :D
HP will be disappointed there will not be a Nestorian Pope :lol:
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monster_gardener
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Nestorian Pope Hilarity.

Post by monster_gardener »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:
planctom wrote:I've read that the Pope was a vicious critic of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner.
One more reason to celebrate! :D
HP will be disappointed there will not be a Nestorian Pope :lol:
Thank you Very Much for your post, Nonc.

;) :) :D :lol:

Good One!

Hilarious ;) in fact! :lol:
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

Hoosiernorm
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Hoosiernorm »

Not a lot written by this Pope to date. Wondering what to expect from his papacy.
Been busy doing stuff
Ibrahim
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Ibrahim »

People are loving this whole "man of the people" angle. The man is a hit.
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Ibrahim »

http://www.loonwatch.com/2013/03/pope-f ... -mohammed/
Pope Francis’ run-in with Benedict XVI over the Prophet Mohammed
By Alasdair Baverstock

In 2005, then Pope Benedict quoted from an obscure medieval text which declared that the Prophet Mohammed, founder of the Islamic faith, was “evil and inhuman”, enraging the Muslim population and causing attacks on churches throughout the world before an apology was issued.

Reacting within days to the statements, speaking through a spokesman to Newsweek Argentina, then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio declared his “unhappiness” with the statements, made at the University of Regensburg in Germany, and encouraged many of his subordinates with the Church to do the same.

“Pope Benedict’s statement don’t reflect my own opinions”, the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires declared. “These statements will serve to destroy in 20 seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam that Pope John Paul II built over the last twenty years”.

The Vatican reacted quickly, removing one subordinate, Joaquín Piña the Archbishop of Puerto Iguazú from his post within four days of his making similar statements to the Argentine national media, sending a clear statement to Cardinal Bergoglio that he would be next should he choose to persist.

Reacting to the threats from Rome, Cardinal Bergoglio cancelled his plans to fly to Rome, choosing to boycott the second synod that Pope Benedict had called during his tenure as pontiff.

“The only thing that didn’t happen to Bergoglio was being removed from his post”, wrote investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky in his column in left-wing daily newspaper Página/24. “The Vatican was very quick to react.”
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Endovelico
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Endovelico »

Ibrahim wrote:http://www.loonwatch.com/2013/03/pope-f ... -mohammed/
Pope Francis’ run-in with Benedict XVI over the Prophet Mohammed
By Alasdair Baverstock

In 2005, then Pope Benedict quoted from an obscure medieval text which declared that the Prophet Mohammed, founder of the Islamic faith, was “evil and inhuman”, enraging the Muslim population and causing attacks on churches throughout the world before an apology was issued.

Reacting within days to the statements, speaking through a spokesman to Newsweek Argentina, then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio declared his “unhappiness” with the statements, made at the University of Regensburg in Germany, and encouraged many of his subordinates with the Church to do the same.

“Pope Benedict’s statement don’t reflect my own opinions”, the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires declared. “These statements will serve to destroy in 20 seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam that Pope John Paul II built over the last twenty years”.

The Vatican reacted quickly, removing one subordinate, Joaquín Piña the Archbishop of Puerto Iguazú from his post within four days of his making similar statements to the Argentine national media, sending a clear statement to Cardinal Bergoglio that he would be next should he choose to persist.

Reacting to the threats from Rome, Cardinal Bergoglio cancelled his plans to fly to Rome, choosing to boycott the second synod that Pope Benedict had called during his tenure as pontiff.

“The only thing that didn’t happen to Bergoglio was being removed from his post”, wrote investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky in his column in left-wing daily newspaper Página/24. “The Vatican was very quick to react.”
This incident shows clearly some of the things which make the difference between being German or being "Latino"...
noddy
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Re: Pope Up

Post by noddy »

Endovelico wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:http://www.loonwatch.com/2013/03/pope-f ... -mohammed/
Pope Francis’ run-in with Benedict XVI over the Prophet Mohammed
By Alasdair Baverstock

In 2005, then Pope Benedict quoted from an obscure medieval text which declared that the Prophet Mohammed, founder of the Islamic faith, was “evil and inhuman”, enraging the Muslim population and causing attacks on churches throughout the world before an apology was issued.

Reacting within days to the statements, speaking through a spokesman to Newsweek Argentina, then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio declared his “unhappiness” with the statements, made at the University of Regensburg in Germany, and encouraged many of his subordinates with the Church to do the same.

“Pope Benedict’s statement don’t reflect my own opinions”, the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires declared. “These statements will serve to destroy in 20 seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam that Pope John Paul II built over the last twenty years”.

The Vatican reacted quickly, removing one subordinate, Joaquín Piña the Archbishop of Puerto Iguazú from his post within four days of his making similar statements to the Argentine national media, sending a clear statement to Cardinal Bergoglio that he would be next should he choose to persist.

Reacting to the threats from Rome, Cardinal Bergoglio cancelled his plans to fly to Rome, choosing to boycott the second synod that Pope Benedict had called during his tenure as pontiff.

“The only thing that didn’t happen to Bergoglio was being removed from his post”, wrote investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky in his column in left-wing daily newspaper Página/24. “The Vatican was very quick to react.”
This incident shows clearly some of the things which make the difference between being German or being "Latino"...
yeh the polish are much more latino than germanic.
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Typhoon
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Re: Pope Up

Post by Typhoon »

Endovelico wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:http://www.loonwatch.com/2013/03/pope-f ... -mohammed/
Pope Francis’ run-in with Benedict XVI over the Prophet Mohammed
By Alasdair Baverstock

In 2005, then Pope Benedict quoted from an obscure medieval text which declared that the Prophet Mohammed, founder of the Islamic faith, was “evil and inhuman”, enraging the Muslim population and causing attacks on churches throughout the world before an apology was issued.

Reacting within days to the statements, speaking through a spokesman to Newsweek Argentina, then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio declared his “unhappiness” with the statements, made at the University of Regensburg in Germany, and encouraged many of his subordinates with the Church to do the same.

“Pope Benedict’s statement don’t reflect my own opinions”, the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires declared. “These statements will serve to destroy in 20 seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam that Pope John Paul II built over the last twenty years”.

The Vatican reacted quickly, removing one subordinate, Joaquín Piña the Archbishop of Puerto Iguazú from his post within four days of his making similar statements to the Argentine national media, sending a clear statement to Cardinal Bergoglio that he would be next should he choose to persist.

Reacting to the threats from Rome, Cardinal Bergoglio cancelled his plans to fly to Rome, choosing to boycott the second synod that Pope Benedict had called during his tenure as pontiff.

“The only thing that didn’t happen to Bergoglio was being removed from his post”, wrote investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky in his column in left-wing daily newspaper Página/24. “The Vatican was very quick to react.”
This incident shows clearly some of the things which make the difference between being German or being "Latino"...
Stereotype much?
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monster_gardener
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Love and Respect..........

Post by monster_gardener »

Ibrahim wrote:People are loving this whole "man of the people" angle. The man is a hit.
Thank You Very Much for your post, Ibrahim.

Perhaps.....
The man is a hit.
Wondering for how long.........
People are loving this whole "man of the people" angle.
It's good to be loved.....

But will they respect him as time goes by.........*

Especially if/when he says something with which they disagree.......

Let alone how easy it may be to assassinate him if he keeps taking the bus..........

*Not that there isn't a respect problem for the Catholic Church already......
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