So, Pope Francis....is....ironically a decent pope, for papal standards. I mean, the dude ain't perfect. You cant really govern a 2000 year old religious organization like the catholic church without falling into some moral pitfalls in my opinion (and I'm not catholic so I don't buy the whole infallibility thing), but he's done some good things. I know he's pro basic income. Hell, he's even somewhat anti work. So he obviously ain't all bad. We don't always see eye to eye on social issues though, although Pope Francis has been remarkably progressive on homosexuality.
So progressive, in fact, that a lot of old school catholics, especially in the first world, where being christian is often a recipe for being politically conservative, seem to be revolting against him. A lot of catholics don't seem to like pope francis much. I see it in comments online, and now some of his bishops here in America are speaking out against his ideas on homosexuality in the church. And what happened? Boom, one of them got fired. I don't think that these catholics understand the papal infallibility thing. You cant be in the catholic church and go against the pope. You're automatically wrong if that the case. it's almost as if, the homophobes are now basically heretics.
Now, I'm not saying the pope IS infallible. He isn't. But if you don't think that, why be catholic at all? Lots of protestant denominations that will die on that hill of bigotry and authoritarianism. And of course, given how this actually was one of the things that caused me to leave christianity entirely back in the day, I have to ask, if you disagree with the Bible, or the pope, or your religion, why be Christian at all?
I mean, I actually grappled with this back in 2011 and 2012, as I recognized that my conscience was diverging from Christian orthodoxy at the time. And it made me think about the nature of morality more, and whether I was really still a Christian. In my worldview I didn't give final authority to the pope. I wasn't catholic, I gave final authority to the Bible. And the Bible was clear on the issue, and I recognized I was going against the Bible, and you know what? I kinda ended up leaving in part over that. Because deep down I kind of realized that my moral code was no longer being dictated externally by the Bible or my religion, but my own conscience. Much like Adam and Eve, I basically took from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and decided to figure out morality for myself. And...ironically, it was probably part of "god's plan" at the time. You see, I don't believe God wants a bunch of moral autonomatons. Fundamentalist Christianity does, but no, I think that whatever actual god is out there wants us to actually THINK about this stuff for ourselves. Religions are human made, the Bible isn't infallible, the Pope isnt infallible. Figure this stuff out yourself like I did.
Either way, I kinda think pope francis is low key based as far as popes go. He's actually very progressive all things considered. And it is hilarious to see american bishops go against him because they share the same views as the fundamentalist protestants and then get smacked down by the pope. I just felt like commenting on that.
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