After a right-wing coup crushed the reforms of Vatican II, one scholar says the last two popes are illegitimate. It comes near the end of a thousand-year history of the Vatican’s global rise to power, ambiguous flourishing and rapid decline. It also comes after 40 years of internal counterrevolution under the previous two popes, during which a group of hardcore right-wing cardinals have consolidated power in the Curia and stamped out nearly all traces of the 1960s liberal reform agenda of Pope John XXIII and Vatican II. A handful of intellectuals, both inside and outside the church, quietly believe that means Pope Francis isn’t a legitimate pope at all.
posted by Glibpaxman
on Mar 17, 2013 -
118 comments
"So I admire those artists that are actually spiritually concerned. And have the balls to be concerned about that, and not concerned with fuckin’ George Bush’s dick. It’s very hard to sing when you’ve got someone’s dick in your mouth.”
She shoots a mischievous grin before adding, 'I’ve tried.'"
Sinéad O’Connor on the pope, her music, dating, buying condoms, and everything in between.
posted by the young rope-rider
on Dec 12, 2011 -
28 comments
Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of
The Society of Saint Pius X, has been making news since
his excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in January. On January 21, 2009, in a nearly six minute interview Williamson told a television news program in Sweden that "
I believe that history is strongly against, is hugely against, six million Jews having been gassed in gas chamber as a deliberate policy" during the Holocaust. In 2001, the bishop wrote "
That girls should not be in universities flows from the nature of universities and from the nature of girls: true universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true girls."
The Vatican is now repudiating the Holocaust denials. And Bishop Williamson has claimed
he will reconsider the issue of Nazi gas chambers by reading the book of a former Holocaust doubter.
posted by McGuillicuddy
on Feb 12, 2009 -
89 comments
After breaking the ice with his
video message to all Americans, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Washington, D.C. this afternoon for the initial part of his first Papal visit to the United States of America. Watch it all
live.
[more inside]
posted by resurrexit
on Apr 15, 2008 -
36 comments
The Catholic Church is traditionally not seen as a progressive institution, but when it comes to global warming, Vatican City is aiming to become the
worlds first fully carbon-neutral state, and the Pope is expected to use his first address to the United Nations next April to
deliver a powerful warning over climate change in a move to adopt protection of the environment as a "moral" cause for the Catholic Church and its billion-strong following.
posted by stbalbach
on Sep 22, 2007 -
81 comments
Articles of Faith "By inviting articles that covered different sides of disputed issues,
Father Reese helped make
America Magazine a forum for intelligent discussion of questions facing the Catholic Church and the country today."
Thomas J.
Reese's policy -- to present both sides of the discussion -- apparentlly "did not sit well with Vatican authorities".
Reese, a Jesuit and a political scientist, had made a point of publishing both sides of the debate on a range of subjects, some of them quite delicate for a Catholic magazine -- gay priests, stem-cell research, the responsibility of Catholic politicians confronting laws on abortion and same-sex unions and a Vatican document (the
Dominus Iesus declaration) which outlined the idea that divine truth is most fully revealed in Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular.
Reese, who had described last month the Vatican as behaving like the cranky owner of a good restaurant, resigned yesterday as editor of the magazine. More inside.
posted by matteo
on May 9, 2005 -
17 comments
Did the new Pope swing the Presidential election last year? After brown-nosing the Vatican on the grounds of being pro-life President Bush convinced then-Cardinal Ratzinger to work on the American Catholic Church on his behalf. Ratzinger's response?
This memo where Ratzi claimed that anyone (especially a Catholic politician - like Kerry) who campaigned and voted pro-choice was not only on the side of
evil but was unworthy of receiving Communion and Americans probably shouldn't vote for him. According to Salon, this was perhaps what was behind Bush's 6 point increase in Catholic support from 2000, and the difference in the 2004 election.
posted by tsarfan
on Apr 21, 2005 -
48 comments
BenedictXVI.com registered a few weeks ago by our very own
rcade. He hedged his bets by registering six domains in all, and now is being called out for popesquatting.
posted by riffola
on Apr 19, 2005 -
64 comments
Hey, It's Not Enough We Die Of Obesity without having to go to Hell too? Some enlightened Frenchmen are bending the Pope's ear, trying to spring Gluttony from the
Deadly Sins blacklist. Well, even clever old
Thomas Aquinas did his damnedest to narrow the seven buggers down. So: which sins would
you excuse today's poor sufferers from and which ones would you
insist on keeping, if any? [
Something tells me MetaFilter is ideally suited to put in a good word for Sloth. I wonder why? Speaking of which, NYT reg. is required but you can read about it here instead. Via Arts and Letters Daily.]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Mar 12, 2003 -
19 comments
Hail Mary, full of.... um.... what was that, again? The only Pope many of us have known, John Paul II, has decided that a millenium is long enough to change a prayer. Odd that two millenia are not enough to revisit female and married priests.
posted by dwivian
on Oct 14, 2002 -
39 comments
Our religion is better then yours, Naa, Naa! “The truth of faith does not lessen the sincere respect which the Church has for the religions of the world, but at the same time, it rules out...a religious relativism which leads to the belief that ‘one religion is as good as another’,” it said.
posted by john
on Sep 5, 2000 -
14 comments
I went to Catholic high school for two years, and being the incredibly geeky type, I wondered, given the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, how he ran the whole church and his provincial diocese. This
site is a good snippet that answers the question, for those people like me who have academic interests in theology.
posted by tdecius
on Oct 18, 1999 -
0 comments
