Is the Pope a Catholic?
“Maybe there will be someone who will say, 'This is religious relativism and it cannot be done,” Francis said. “But how can we not pray to the father of us all? Each one prays as they know how, as they are able to. We are not praying one against the other, one tradition against another … (but) as brothers.”
Since when?
From a religious perspective, didn’t God create the Coronavirus? Why would prayer get rid of it? "Here’s this shitty virus I made to kill off a bunch of folks. I’m going to let it keep spreading unless you folks kiss my butt and ask me! "
The only people upset about this are very fringey extreme traditionalists who already hate Francis. Quoting Church Militant and Rorati Caeli–to say nothing of the SSPX, a post-Vatican II splinter group that is only sorta ligitimated thanks for Francis’ focus on mercy–doesn’t tell you anything about most of the Catholic faithful. These groups reject everything about Francis and everything with a whiff of Vatican II. That includes interfaith outreach.
I think the general gist of it is:
If it is positive, thank god.
If it is negative, blame people.
At least that’s the only way how I can explain how religious folk do not eventually end up becoming misotheists.
What kind of person thanks people if it’s positive, and blames God if it’s negative?
Mel Gibson is in that group (or his own crazy right-wing splinter sect).
Yeah, I’ve never heard him or his family directly associated with SSPX or some other specific traditionalist and/or sedevacantist (a fun word that means someone who thinks the current Pope is literally not the true pope) groups. But he is certainly a fellow-traveler with them, as I understand it.
I think there is a shortage of popes. We could use two or three more popes, IMO.
There’s a “Pope Michael” in Kansas! Six people, including his parents, voted in the conclave!
But we can do better than that. We should have a cyberpapacy, like the one from the old TORG tabletop RPG!!
Ruled by the Cyberpope Jean Malreaux I. His darkness device Ebenuscrux took the shape of a prototypical circuit cross, the symbol of the realm’s strange transhumanist version of Gallican Catholicism. This “GodNet” was realm of circuitry and mind, an artificial reality contained within the networked computers of the realm, and stylized as a jazzed up realm of churches and religious artifacts. Storm Knights unlucky enough to be defeated here could be jacked into the virtual Hell, from which no one ever returned.
TORG, Earthdawn, Shatterzone… there were so many fun ones out there around the same time. I don’t care most didn’t take off, they were just fun to read and struggle play through. I probably still have most of them in a box somewhere.
Oh yeah, I had Shatterzone! I think I remember trying to play it once! … Once.
The setting was… awesome. I am not sure I ever figured out the rules though. Due to the setting, I pulled it out now and then and sort dreamed what it would be like to actually having something you could play in that world.
Are you already including Tawadros the 2nd?
I don’t know who made it, but humans are responsible for spreading it.
He has quite the credentials!
Hey, Pope Francis was a chemical engineer and a bouncer at a bar before he became a priest!
I was hoping to find more people with the title of Pope, but Bing did not deliver and I had to search for Coptic Pope to find him.