In an extraordinary pushback against Pope Francis, some Catholic bishops in Africa, Poland and elsewhere say they will not implement the new Vatican policy allowing blessings for same-sex couples.
Others downplayed the policy approved this week by Francis as merely reaffirming the Vatican’s long-standing teaching about marriage being only a union between a man and a woman.
The reactions show how polarizing the issue remains and how Francis’ decade-long effort to make the church a more welcoming place for the LGBTQ+ community continues to spark resistance among traditionalist and conservative Catholic leaders.
Some of the strongest responses came from bishops in Africa, home to 265 million Catholics, or nearly a quarter of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics. Many of those Catholics live and their churches operate in societies where homosexuality is condemned and outlawed.
Isn’t, according to Catholics beliefs, the pope infallible? Is that not a core part of the religion that separates it from Protestants?
Are we about to witness a splitting of the Catholic church?
I mean, that’s kind of why we have all the offshoots…
It kind of makes sense when you realize all the Abrahamic religions are just spun off some dude named Abraham’s story about how an imaginary man in the sky commanded him to kill his brother, so he did. And then the voice said to kill his son, and he was gonna do it. But at the last second the voice said it was test. So clearly the voice is kind and should be worshipped.
Sometimes a new leader makes them less crazy, sometimes more crazy
But at a fundamental level the vast majority of western religion (like Middle East to West Coast North America) is based on some dude who listened to the voices inside his head to kill his family members 50% of the time.
It’s all built on a flawed premise. So anything else can be rationalized.
Which is why most followers were either born into it, or joined in incredibly stressful/difficult times in their lives.
I found this comment quite insightful.
Abraham doesn’t kill his brother in the Bible, just fyi. Googling it brings up zero relevant results so idk where that comes from. He did send his concubine and their mutual child into the wilderness after he knocked up someone else though, so still pretty shitty.
Only via ex cathedra i.e “from the chair.” The catholic church has had an… interesting history when it comes to papal authority.
So papal infallibility only applies when they’re speaking ex cathedra (from the throne). The only time that’s happened was in 1950. It’s more that daughter churches need to maintain a “catholic” (universal) church within established rites.
“Rules for thee and rules for me.” They hate gays more now than they love gods representative they decided. This is the steadfast “truth” we should all rally around and tell women what they can do with their bodies, when they can’t even follow their own rules.
Isn’t there like twenty different sects of Catholicism already?
Catholicism is itself a sect of the larger religion of Christianity. But yes, apparently there is a new Christian derived sect every second bigger town.
Let the ex-Communications begin.
Yeah. I was pretty sure the dude in the big hat that was they only direct link to God was infallible.
Yes and no.
They believe that the pope can be infallible, but only sometimes. And sometimes means twice. As in, it has only been used two times.
There is no set list of ex cathedra teachings, but that’s because there are only two, and both are about Mary: her Immaculate Conception (declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854 and grandfathered in after the First Vatican Council’s declaration of papal infallibility in 1870) and her bodily Assumption into heaven (declared by Pope Pius XII in 1950).
Based on precedent, your pope name seems like it needs to be “pius” to be eligible for infallibleness.
An electric hybrid would be a great for a pope. Fuel efficiency in religion is important - even Jesus left with his disciples in one Accord.
Last I heard. But hey, I am no Theologian. (IANT). LoL
Oh I am looking forward to a new era of anti-Popes.
If you get a Pope and an Anti-Pope to have sex, …
They annihilate each other in an incredible burst of energy.
Yeah, if the church wants to survive it’ll have to adapt, but there are too many people who think the church never changes and that their angry childhood nun was the voice of god.
Aren’t all Catholic bishops confused? Like, inherently? It’s a prerequisite for the job.
They are playing to their people
I’m waiting for all the Trump-supporting Catholic Bishops in the U.S. to start their own American Catholic Church at this point.
I think is going to be hard nowadays when property rights are pretty stabilized. In ancient times a bishop deciding to go for his own would could have a chance to keep the real state and accounts of the church they administer, nowdays the Vatican could easily send their lawyers to whatever place is trying to independence and kick them off their land.
I’d absolutely love to see that.
With blackjack and hookers.
And lynchings
Instead of a normal cross they can just adopt the swastika
Can we make the Swastika a Buddhist symbol again?
Just say the Vatican won’t sweep their next homesexual pedo episode under the table, that’ll bring them in line.
Ah the Kevin Spacey tactic
So… further proof of the cherry-picking of Christianity.
Why don’t they go and fuck themselves?.. Oh wait.
If any of you bothered to read the actual document, it says no blessing homosexual unions or anything that resembles them. The media is reporting everything way out of context and you are along for the ride.
Schism and Split! Let’s have multiple factions of Catholicism! Even multiple popes!
If we’re going to be a Nation governed by the Bible doesn’t that mean we have to listen to the Pope? Or do we pick and choose which parts of our religion we follow and kill the people who follow the Pope who sings the Word of God?
No.
Fuck Africa. Fuck Large chunks of Eastern Europe. Unimportant and the Pope should call em out.
Not sure why anyone should be surprised by this. No organised religion will bless same-sex couples ( not officially anyway ) because they sre unable to breed new worshippers and consequently the business will not grow. We will probably only see acceptance from them when they have shrunk into insignificance, and that’s still a while away.
The episcopal church among other Christian denominations and most branches of Judaism allow gay marriage.
You’re literally saying the exact opposite of what is happening. The pope literally did bless same sex couples. And numerous other denominations do the same, like Methodism.
Not yet for Methodists. Got to wait until March 2024’s general conference.
I thought they had already split and there’s a bunch of non-conformers leaving and forming the racist, sexist, and every other -ist denomination “Global Methodist Church”?
The UMC had a vote to make same sex marriage legal in the church. SSM lost. The antigay side then voted on a provision to “let those with differing options leave the church”. When the progay marriage side didn’t leave, and actually just ignored the rules and started to marry people anyway, the antigay side started to use the escape hatch they built for their opponents to form the GMC.
Fun fact: any UMC member can accuse any pastor of being gay or marrying gays, but the jury pool for the church trial is always the other local pastors in that area. Local pastors just got together and formed pacts to never convict. Pre-jury nullification!
@absquatulate @MicroWave Ahem, would this “LGBT people can’t have children” thing please go away? Source: I know a gay man who’s a father, a lesbian who’s a mother, and a bisexual woman who’s a mother. All three had kids the old-fashioned way–no IVF, surrogacies, or adoption involved.
What religious groups are you experienced with that have a high enough occurrence of homosexual members that it completely negates growth by childbirth? Is this just a complete fantasy in your head? I’m not familiar with any groups where that would even remotely be a problem.
Wow. 👏👏👏👏👏. Bravo.
