@ossobuco,
I am going to attempt to keep this thread overall positive but I really must get this off my chest.
I think the article was wishy washy over all where contrarily the Pope seems focused. The article is filled with a wealth of info but some of the article's conclusions water-down the Pope's convictions.
The article also eludes that the Pope has no power to change doctrine.
The article also does not mention one of the greatest aspects of his papacy so far, how the Pope is on a campaign to replace these deadbeat priests and bishops with persons who can as actually function for the good of the people and the church.
One might ask how does a Pope justify the replacement of clergy within his ranks?
The answer is simple.. black-male. The Pope knows that these clergy have been persecuting homosexuals while secretly abusing children.
How did the Pope get bishop Malone of Portland Maine to leave his post?
Malone who spent millions of church (feed the poor) funds in political campaigns to deny gays the right to marry? Why would Malone just magically step down without a word of protest? Why did Ratzinger magically step down?
I think the new Pope has a vision that is completely in focus.
Add more faith-filled LGBT people to the church while ridding the church of pedophiles.
Add more poor and young people to the church while ridding the church of the two faced oligarchy.
The Pope has this black-male as a weapon. I am sure the Pope has a dossier on every pedophile in the church. They can either leave or get exposed, it doesn't take an act of God to do this, just the fear of imprisonment.
Also I would like to contrast the new Catholic church and its direction to the
teaparty fundamentalist wing of the US christian churches.
They have done the exact extreme opposite of what this Pope is doing. Opposing the Robin Hood tax, they oppose the rich even paying taxes and instead subsidize the rich.
There is a hatred within Christian fundamentalism toward Catholicism. Yes they have these "organic unions" but they are really fertilized with artificial chemicals.
Meaning, there is a schism. The fundamentalists are against hand-outs as they call them as they champion Ayn Rand to their cause, while they are sold-out as puppets to the oligarchy. Once again we have pedophiles in the fundamentalists churches including the Mormons who are persecuting gays for wanting a life-time partner. They would rather see teens commit suicide than to relent.
They dress in their designer underwear and new suits and ties and live in their million dollar mansions while attempting to take medicare from senior citizens. They preach Jesus with a beam in their eye while hating on the speck of paganism they see within the Roman Catholic church. These fundamentalists are like "whited sepulchers filled with dead men's bones".
Their version of Jesus is perverted as they compare gay sex to bestiality. They obscure the written word that Jesus and Paul the Apostle were never married and there is no indication that Jesus who was about 30 was ever even with a woman sexually, the same with Paul.
Yet they do not find this strange while Joseph (who the Gnostic gospels say was 40 years old) was married to Mary a 14 year old virgin. They do not find this one bit strange? Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin do not mind that last one either as they promote their Bible and guns. Gives new meaning to a shotgun wedding.
Yet Paul Ryan and Rich Santorum on the outside seem all religious but their actions paint a different picture. As for Rick Perry he seems more freakish than the whole lot of them even with his racist twist. Then there is Governor Walker and his union busting hate on poor people with Koch Brothers money. And the overall let's buy the politicians because if we tell them what we are really up to it the American people will never go along with it. Instead we get the lies and propaganda and Fox News media reports in red, white and blue.
The point I am making is, they dress on the outside with the trappings of the rich and pious but inside they are far from the core message of the Gospel.
As for Paul the Apostle he seems outspoken against homosexuals but is that a translation error, is he actually talking about these closeted pedophiles who are masquerading today as clergy?
Was Paul really against equality and choice? If so then the "law of liberty" that he wrote so frequently of seems moot and he also is complicit in the suicides of LGBT teens. "Suffer the little children..." The Bible would then not only be contradictory but grievously errant also.
I personally believe Jesus was invented by Jew and Gentile scribes to help the Jews and Romans integrate. The Bible was later corrupted by the roots of same oligarchy we are up against today.
It only makes sense that Christianity/Judaism and Islam would be paganized just as laws evolved towards the betterment of society. "One God" does not leave room for religious freedom. Thus loosening the phobias on LGBT people and other faiths including atheism is the way. Fundamentalists have no problem with three gods as Islam has only one God but, let's not forget the ginns of Islam... Their laws are their stumbling block too.
By the time of Jesus, Judaism was already paganized but it was the laws that separated the Jews and Romans. The new testament was the dynamic church created to evolve these societal laws.
The Romans were prepared to eradicate Judaism from the face of the earth than to go backward on their societal laws. Just as today we have east and west who are at odds over the same laws. And we can't forget to mention the homophobe Putin and his "lawmakers".
So it seems Pope Francis in all of this is focused on loosening these barbaric laws also and moving the church forward as the Jesus story was invented to do. Liberation theology does not mean cover up for the pedophiles. It means get them out of the church so LGBT people can be free and partake of the promise too and the poor are not usurped by their corrupt oligarchy.
The very tenants of Christian fundamentalism attempts to take us back into the strict old testament laws while leaving the "law of liberty" in the dust. They would rather preach a 6000 year old earth than concede to the barbarity of their murderous laws. They would rather cast a stone than forgive.
