As it turns out, the Pope is Catholic

Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

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86 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    We haven’t yet heard from the White House whether they assert the authority to kill the new Pope with a drone attack. “We have no plans to do that”, Jay Carney might answer.

    Also: the amount of Coca-Cola in those chalices? Less than 16 ounces.Report

  2. zic says:

    anti-abortion, anti-gay, and pro-science.Report

  3. Patrick Cahalan says:

    The Blaze is worried that he might be a socialist redistributivist. Facebook condemns him for hating gay people.Report

    • He does seem to not hate poor people.

      That’s a problem, I’m guessing for many American fringey Catholics.Report

      • BlaiseP in reply to Nob Akimoto says:

        American Catholics care about the poor, they really do. Catholic Social Services actually does great work, though you may not know it. Tremendously effective organisation, flat, well-led, good finances, reaches out to people who genuinely need help.Report

      • KatherineMW in reply to Nob Akimoto says:

        I’m not an expert on it, but it seems like the Catholic Church has been very good on poverty issues since Vatican II. Downright leftist compared to most of America. It comes of worshipping God rather than the Market.Report

  4. DRS says:

    And there are accusations that he went beyond being cozy with to actually being helpful to the Argentinian junta back in the day. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jan/04/argenitina-videla-bergoglio-repentanceReport

    • Nob Akimoto in reply to DRS says:

      That’s still a step up from the Hitler Youth, no?Report

      • MikeSchilling in reply to Nob Akimoto says:

        No. The Hitler Youth stuff was when he was a kid and had no consequences. The coziness with the Argentinian junta was when he was 41 and held a leadership post with the Jesuits, and resulted (at least) in two priests being kidnapped and tortured.Report

    • BlaiseP in reply to DRS says:

      Ne respìcias peccata nostra, sed fidem ecclesiae tuae

      == Look not upon our sins but upon the faith of your Church.

      Francis 1 is more of same. Yet another conniver with dictators, not the change the Church needs but a mere changing of the guard. Another feeble old prelate, stuck in his ways, totters up to the Lateran to be crowned. Hostile to progress, we shall see no good thing from this man.Report

  5. Kazzy says:

    Argentinian, yes, but of Italian descent, for what it’s worth.Report

  6. I’m cautiously optimistic with this guy, which is a nice change from the vehemently pessimistic I was when the previous guy was elected. The question of his relationship with the junta is definitely troubling, but it seems like he may have at least partly redeemed himself with some of his subsequent actions in relation to the junta. And while he’s still severely homophobic, I’m guessing he is slightly less bad on that front than the competition.

    The much more important things about him seem to be that he’s got a healthy respect for civil institutions (he actually allowed a priest to be tried for a crime and sentenced to life in prison) and has an actual interest in the everyday lives of everyday Catholics. As a recovering Catholic, those strike me as important and welcome changes.Report

  7. Kyle Cupp says:

    I’m excited about the theological and social justice prospects of a Jesuit Argentinian who took the name of Francis; but, of course, as much as symbols and places of interpretation matter in Catholicism, his actions will define his papacy.Report

    • BlaiseP in reply to Kyle Cupp says:

      Those Social Justice chumps up Guatemala way made a great many unnecessary martyrs and started palling around with some sinister ministers of their own.

      And do not confuse this guy with the Social Justice crowd. He is a colluder and conniver, a patsy and a mouthpiece, a weak-kneed bishop who saw evil and did nothing. Francis talks a good line but when the chips are down, he’s proven all too willing to let his own priests be hauled off to jail, where they’re found months later, drugged, naked and beaten.Report

      • Glyph in reply to BlaiseP says:

        priests…drugged, naked and beaten

        Not that there’s anything wrong with that if that’s what one is into; but it sounds like a punishing regime of the same kinds of frankly-exhausting activities that inevitably made US religious figures like Ted, haggard.

        Also, the Sinister Ministers would be a great name for a band covering songs by The Fall.Report

      • Nob Akimoto in reply to BlaiseP says:

        Francis talks a good line but when the chips are down, he’s proven all too willing to let his own priests be hauled off to jail, where they’re found months later, drugged, naked and beaten.

        Is it wrong my first reaction was “oh good, he’ll allow the bad priests to be arrested, then.”Report

        • BlaiseP in reply to Nob Akimoto says:

          Per evangelica dicta / deleantur nostra delicta. == through the gospels / may our sins be erased.

          Hope does spring eternal when things are New and All That. Your sentiments are understandable. If ever there was a need for someone to clean out that speluncam latronum, that den (literally cave) of thieves described so well in Mark 11, it’s now.

          Don’t look for Francis to do it. He’s part of it. The Church has other problems beyond this kiddie-buggering business, bad as it is. The Vatican is up to its nates in a a huge cesspool of corruption and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is at the heart of it. The Vatican is a banana republic with the usual cast of characters we’ve come to expect in such situations. It’s just got better art on the walls.

          Et aperti sunt oculi amborum; cumque cognovissent se esse nudos, consuerunt folia ficus, et fecerunt sibi perizomata. == and their eyes were opened: they realised they were naked, and they gathered fig leaves and made for themselves aprons.Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Kyle Cupp says:

      As an alumni of a Jesuit college, I like that aspect of his resume as much as I can like anything on the resume of a Pope.Report

  8. George Turner says:

    I’ll take a wait and see approach. He said same sex marriage is a “machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God,” but he didn’t directly say that a lie should have a father and a mother, so I don’t see why he wouldn’t be at least open to the possibility of lies with two fathers or two mothers.Report

  9. Shazbot5 says:

    Always two there are with the Popes, A master and an apprentice. No more, no less.

    But which has retired, the master or the apprentice.

    Hmmmm…Report

    • George Turner in reply to Shazbot5 says:

      Well, his selection shows that there’s a large faction in Rome that’s still seething over Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I, otherwise they wouldn’t have picked a pope from one of the few countries that’s in a bitter dispute with England. Fortunately the schism assures that England won’t respect a papal bull that declares the Falklands to be part of Argentina, so this move was just a slap in the face.Report

      • Burt Likko in reply to George Turner says:

        I’m SURE that was the foremost issue on the Cardinals’ minds. Yep, you nailed it, man.Report

      • Shazbot5 in reply to George Turner says:

        I also don’t get how this relates to my dumb Star Wars allusion.Report

      • George Turner in reply to George Turner says:

        It’s a tenuous connection, but both the Henry VIII/Falklands idea and Star Wars implied that there were ancient hatreds, very long-term plots, old grievances, and secret cabals seething away in the background, rotting the institution to the core. Was Pope Francis the hidden hand behind the failed Falklands War, like Senator Palpatine setting up the failed invasion of Naboo only so he could take power later?

        Yeah, it needs some fleshing out, but there are probably enough threads to work with for at least a page-length conspiracy, more if you include side-by-side photos of Popes and Star Wars characters.Report

  10. Shazbot5 says:

    He gets his red prada lightsaber tomorrow.Report

  11. NewDealer says:

    I’m not Catholic but I went to law school at a Jesuit university and always had a soft-spot for the social justice aspects of Jesuitism with the Berrigan brothers and all. The only prayer I remember hearing was at graduation and began with “God of Inclusion”.

    I’ve heard everything else that is already listed: Strongly anti-gay, possibly Junta loving, but also like many Jesuits, he is minded towards social justice in a liberal way and a possible “reformer”.Report

    • BlaiseP in reply to NewDealer says:

      That Social Justice Movement lasted right up until John Paul II sicced Bishop López Trujillo on them. There’s nobody left in the higher ranks of the Vatican who stood for social justice. When the name of Oscar Romero was bruited as a saint, (the Salvadorans already call him a saint) it was López Trujillo who shot that down.Report

      • NewDealer in reply to BlaiseP says:

        True but lowly priest Jesuits seem rather wonderful. At least the ones I have met and known and Daniel Berrigan*

        *I am pretty sure he is still a priestReport

        • BlaiseP in reply to NewDealer says:

          The Jesuits I’ve known were great scholars and intellectuals. Learned my Latin from a Jesuit.

          But I have a special place in my heart for the Congregation of the Holy Cross, the ones I met at Notre Dame’s Moreau Seminary.Report

  12. NewDealer says:

    Sully noted that he is known for taking public transportation around Beunos AiresReport

  13. dexter says:

    Yaaaaaawn. Or as my wife said, “With as much press that church is getting you would think everyone is Catholic and all this matters.”
    I would take a vow of poverty if I could live in a billion dollar house and wear necklaces worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unlike those psuedo christians with the big hats my problem would be that all the hungry people would bother me.Report

    • Patrick Cahalan in reply to dexter says:

      It will be interesting to see how many trappings of the Papacy he takes on. The guy is practically an ascetic.Report

    • Kolohe in reply to dexter says:

      Well, considering 1 out of 4 people in the US are self-identified as Catholic (whether lapsed or not), and the faster growing section of the US population are (overwhelmingly culturally Catholic) Hispanics, yes, it matters.Report

      • dexter in reply to Kolohe says:

        Kolohe, Most of the catholics I know pay absolutely no attention to the pope. The women take birth control and none of them throw rocks at my lesbian daughter. I was dragged to church everytime they opened the doors when I was living with my parents. Now, the only time I go near a church is for weddings and funerals. So does it matter to which baptist is the big chief?Report

        • Kolohe in reply to dexter says:

          Because it doesn’t matter to you means it doesn’t matter at all is just another variation on the FYIGM game. But whatever.Report

          • dexter in reply to Kolohe says:

            It does matter to me. I believe the pope’s policies are doing a great deal of damage to women and children. I believe birth control for all women is a right, and considering the amount of people on this planet, an obligation. I believe that gays and lesbians should be free to love. I just wish that church would get somewhere near the twentieth century and give rights to all. I wish they would come clean about the true numbers of pedophiles they moved from parish to parish. I have a negative amount of respect for the catholic leaders.
            I did not mean to offend anybody, I just don’t believe they deserve all the press they get and until they start to live a moral life have no right to tell me how to live mine.Report

  14. gregiank says:

    Is the fact that he was en-poped on Palindrome Day ( 31313) a sign he is the anti-something or other?Report

  15. Tod Kelly says:

    Congrats to Francis and the rest of the nominees.

    Does this mean that I can now return to my regular scheduled not really being aware of pope-y stuff till we do this again?Report

  16. Pinky says:

    Every cardinal has a Wikipedia page with a quote about abortion and a quote about the poor. There was no doubt that whoever was elected would be seen as a “social conservative” with a strong concern for the poor. The press understands these things not at all.

    There are telling details about his character, I’m sure, but I don’t know what they are. I’m not going to guess based on his ethnicity or the political problems that have taken place in his country.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Pinky says:

      I mentioned to Maribou yesterday that I was surprised that so many of the responses to the new Pope were so… and I searched for a word.

      “Parochial?”, she suggested.Report

      • Pinky in reply to Jaybird says:

        We all come at things from our own perspectives. Me, I’m a Catholic because of beliefs. Not personalities, not sense of belonging, not tradition. So for me, the particular pope doesn’t have much meaning. And race and cultural pride doesn’t do anything for me, so I’m projecting my indifference onto the cardinals. So I’m sure I’m distorting things myself. But when we try to create a whole personality for a character based on a few facts, that’s the attitude I associate with my least favorite part of politics, and also with pro wrestling. Bush wasn’t a conservative cowboy with daddy issues; The Undertaker isn’t an undead biker; Francis isn’t whatever Blaise was accusing him of.Report

  17. James K says:

    The big question for me is, will this guy actually start turning over child abusing priests to the police? Because if not, Tim Minchin’s song still applies (warning: Not Safe for Work!).Report

  18. Wardsmith says:

    This just in:

    Black smoke has been coming out of the White House, which means we still don’t have a budget.Report