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Pope resigns

Where the faith is steeped in tradition, it grows tremendously. Where it has been abandoned, a crisis has ensued.

Precisely. Humans need reference points other than themselves. This seeming freedom apart from God will bear foul fruits in the years to come.
 
Beatification (no "u") is a designation for someone who the church believes has acheived heaven and can intercede with God on behalf of living people. It is an interim step on the path to sainthood.

Beatification changes nothing about a person.
No, only their personal history, which must be altered in order to appear more saintly.
 
the pope's whistleblowing butler exposed the corruption of cardinal tarcisio bertone
bertone appears to have been making the papal decisions while the pope was performing the figurehead functions
papal contracts were padded
the vatican banker, selected in 2009 to clean up the banks operations after decades of allegations of money-laundering and infiltration by the mafia and italian freemasons was fired the day after the butler was arrested
the pope's right-hand-man was more interested in silencing the leaks than addressing the corruption
the convicted butler, who admitted his guilt but explained that his intent was to expose the corruption of which the pope was unaware, was personally visited by the pope prior to Christmas, when his sentence was commuted
declining health - possibly parkinsons disease - likely played a large role in the resignation decision. but i believe the bigger motivation was to find an unobvious way to rid the vatican leadership of the likes of bertone - a crony of the disgraced berlusconi
 
The current pope never had a "raping kids is okay" position. The incidents were terribly mishandled, no doubt, but the church and Ratzinger specifically never said that pedophilia was acceptable.

See, I used some hyperbole to make it at least a little bit funny, because in reality, the systematic rape of children is really tragic. But since you want to defend Pope Palpatine, let's get into it.

What he did was choose to protect his priests over the children they were raping. His edict back in the 70's (while he was still a cardinal, but was specifically in charge of this sort of thing, appointed by papal authority) excommunicated any victim who spoke out and revealed rape by a priest. Got that? Anyone who tells that a priest raped them goes to hell. I would have to assume that cardinals actually believe in the supernatural tenets of their church. Ratzinger made the decision to send rape victims to hell rather than hold rapist priests accountable.

Yeah, he didn't say the exact phrase "raping little kids is totally okay", but no one would. He's corrupt, not stupid. And if you actually think that the bar to determine someone's intentions and opinions comes only from explicit endorsement, I urge you to read any thread on this very forum including the phrase "I'm not racist, but..."
 
Precisely. Humans need reference points other than themselves. This seeming freedom apart from God will bear foul fruits in the years to come.



Yeah, people will start getting weird ideas like the earth revolves around the sun.

We can't have that, eh?
 
Yes, that awful organization that gave us the university system, hospitals, and tremendous works of charity. This world would be so much better without those things.

What? :/ Pretty sure they all existed in one form or another before the cc. Greeks had academies, hospitals and the Romans had homes for the poor long before the christians showed up. What 'great' works of charity are you talking about? It's not like the catholic church invented charity either. For most of recorded history, they've actually walked hand in hand with the ruling elite to rob the poor of monies and land while also telling them that if they pray hard enough - things will get better.
 
Check out Habemus Papam (We Have A Pope), a delightful movie that sets up just this situation.
 
You think somebody had some dirty pics of him with an alter boy? You never know these days.
 
What? :/ Pretty sure they all existed in one form or another before the cc. Greeks had academies, hospitals and the Romans had homes for the poor long before the christians showed up. What 'great' works of charity are you talking about? It's not like the catholic church invented charity either. For most of recorded history, they've actually walked hand in hand with the ruling elite to rob the poor of monies and land while also telling them that if they pray hard enough - things will get better.

Now you're unnecessarily minimizing the intellectual impact of the Church. It has certainly dramatically influenced the university institution and many disciplines, including history.
 
Ever read the prophecy of St. Malachi? He gave a short list, in Latin, of every Pope to ascend to the Papacy, beginning with Celestine II, in 1143. He described the present Pope as an Olivetian, which he is. The next Pope he describes as Peter the Roman, who would betray the Catholic Church, and join with the Antichrist. Benedict has just stepped down, and the next Pope will take office sometime in March.

If the next Pope is named Peter, then get ready for a wild ride....... Maybe, or maybe St. Malachi's prediction is a bunch of hogwash. LOL.
 
See, I used some hyperbole to make it at least a little bit funny, because in reality, the systematic rape of children is really tragic. But since you want to defend Pope Palpatine, let's get into it.

What he did was choose to protect his priests over the children they were raping. His edict back in the 70's (while he was still a cardinal, but was specifically in charge of this sort of thing, appointed by papal authority) excommunicated any victim who spoke out and revealed rape by a priest. Got that? Anyone who tells that a priest raped them goes to hell. I would have to assume that cardinals actually believe in the supernatural tenets of their church. Ratzinger made the decision to send rape victims to hell rather than hold rapist priests accountable.

Yeah, he didn't say the exact phrase "raping little kids is totally okay", but no one would. He's corrupt, not stupid. And if you actually think that the bar to determine someone's intentions and opinions comes only from explicit endorsement, I urge you to read any thread on this very forum including the phrase "I'm not racist, but..."

I admitted that the incidents were terribly mishandled. I'm not sure what you're arguing here.
 
Now you're unnecessarily minimizing the intellectual impact of the Church. It has certainly dramatically influenced the university institution and many disciplines, including history.

Sure, they just didn't 'give us' universities or hospitals. To claim they did is to "minimize" the role of 3 civilizations and multiple religions which existed in the area long before the christians came around to plagiarizing. I'm still wondering what the 'great works of charity' are. So I won't even comment on that.
 
And I can say that since most people believe in a deity, this is because atheism is "frickin stupid."

Still sounds silly, doesn't it?

Argumentum ad populum. Doesn't matter what most people believe, only what's actually so.
 
I admitted that the incidents were terribly mishandled. I'm not sure what you're arguing here.

I'm arguing because you're using a weak, euphemistic phrase like "mishandle", as opposed to the reality of "knowingly protecting men who rape children". I'm arguing because you're diminishing the severity of what happened. This was not an "oops", this was serious evil.
 
Argumentum ad populum. Doesn't matter what most people believe, only what's actually so.

You said religion in general and Catholicism in particular are "frickin stupid" and the results are demonstrated from a chunk of the younger population not subscribing to the faith.

I was using a fallacy to explain why you were being careless.
 
Now you're unnecessarily minimizing the intellectual impact of the Church. It has certainly dramatically influenced the university institution and many disciplines, including history.

And you're unnecessarily inflating the impact of the Church. The things you mentioned would have existed had the RCC never existed, and things like the Inquisition never would have.
 
You said religion in general and Catholicism in particular are "frickin stupid" and the results are demonstrated from a chunk of the younger population not subscribing to the faith.

I was using a fallacy to explain why you were being careless.

I never said that the results were demonstrated by young people rejecting religion, they were two separate facts. There just isn't any rational reason to think that religion is factually true these days, that's why more and more people are rejecting it.
 
I never said that the results were demonstrated by young people rejecting religion, they were two separate facts. There just isn't any rational reason to think that religion is factually true these days, that's why more and more people are rejecting it.

There's a rational acceptance for religion, and has been for centuries. It is just that we have reached the point where it can be comfortable for someone to reject its reality.
 
And you're unnecessarily inflating the impact of the Church. The things you mentioned would have existed had the RCC never existed, and things like the Inquisition never would have.

Counterfactual history is immensely difficult to produce. I wouldn't pretend to be able to do it so swiftly, and neither should you.
 
There's a rational acceptance for religion, and has been for centuries. It is just that we have reached the point where it can be comfortable for someone to reject its reality.

Or being murdered by that religion for not believing in that "reality", which was the modus operandi for montheism since it's inception..............
 
well, I think it is wise for him to see the limits of his body and the needs of his job, but personally I am totally not sad to see this pope leave office.
 
Or being murdered by that religion for not believing in that "reality", which was the modus operandi for montheism since it's inception..............

Not polytheism? I recall a certain old man from Athens that received one such charge, in addition to disseminating that opinion.
 
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