Pope Francis has urged Vatican bureaucrats to avoid “rigid ideological positions” that prevent them from understanding today’s reality

Pope Francis urged Vatican bureaucrats Thursday to avoid “rigid ideological positions” that prevent them from understanding today’s reality, an appeal made days after he formally allowed priests to bless same-sex couples in a radical change of Vatican policy.

Francis used his annual Christmas greeting to the Holy See hierarchy to encourage the cardinals, bishops and laypeople who run the Vatican to listen to one another and to others so they can evolve to truly offer service to the Catholic Church.

Speaking in the Hall of Blessings, Francis told them it was important to keep advancing and growing in their understanding of the truth. Fearfully sticking to rules may give the appearance of avoiding problems but only ends up hurting the service that the Vatican Curia is called to give the church, he said.

“Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward,"the pope said. "We are called instead to set out and journey, like the Magi, following the light that always desires to lead us on, at times along unexplored paths and new roads.”

      • evranch@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        Honestly as Christianity goes the Catholics are fucking moderates these days. Which really is saying something.

        Also the Pope has like, the world’s best hat.

        We’re a non-religious, casually Christian affiliated family and we’re seriously thinking of sending our daughter to a Catholic school just for the far higher quality of education. (No concerning priests or nuns btw, these are government run schools)

        I never would have even considered it as an option 10 years ago. But they really do seem to have their shit together, terrible acts in the past notwithstanding

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I don’t pretend to know where you are time vs money. And it could be that private school is your best option. I’m also assuming that you’re in the US but that may not be the case. And what you can throw away everything I’m saying here because I know public and private schools in Europe and many other places are entirely different.

          I did private for a few years. The only substantial difference for me was that the private teachers would make sure you do your homework and punish you if you don’t.

          YMMV, but I will have to say that probably 40% of those kids in my private school were Grade-A assholes. Zero compassion, every little thing was a do or die competition. The teacher would do the best she could to control social situations but, there’s only so much she can do. She’s not going to fight the other parents for you by kicking little Jimmy out for being a jerk. They bring the two sets of parents together and that’s about the point where you find out why Little Jimmy is the way he is.

          The state schools are being pressured pretty hard for testing scores, so it’s not so much that they don’t want to teach your kids or can’t teach your kids, but they’re underfunded and overworked and are going to pick the ones that are easiest to teach to raise that number.

          But you can probably get the same outcome from using public school and pulling in a tutor after say middle school. Your school might even provide tutelage, but you’re probably going to have to realize that it needs to happen and ask them for it.

          If you have some time, even just getting marginally involved in your kids education you can pull off approximately what the private schools do. Order the common core teacher manuals that your schools use, once a week go over the same things they did in school. Tell your public teachers you want to get on the same page as them they’d probably be delighted no matter how useless the seem.

          Again if you’ve got excess cash, The private schools will absolutely get the job done. Just do some due diligence, find some families locally that take their kids there start asking them particular questions that would suit your kids well.

          Anything before around 10th grade, just make sure that they’re keeping up grades and knowledge in algebra, calculus, trig, science and english.

          All those high school grades and scores are honestly trash as long as they get into the college they want.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Pope Francis says to avoid Rigid Ideologies?

    So, pope Francis says to avoid Catholicism.

    In the name of the father, the son, and the holy Spirit. Amen.

  • prole@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    Are we gonna end up with an anti-pope?

    I really don’t know, I just know the term and it sounds cool.

    • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Honestly it’s possible. Certain diocese of the church (looking at you USA) have become far more conservative as the rest of the Church has passed them by. Vatican 2 has fully taken hold, and I really don’t believe the conservatives hold enough power in Rome to elect one of their own when Francis passes.

      They very well might just take their ball and go home like the “Old Catholics” did after the reforms of the First Vatican Council.

    • Lamedonyx@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I mean, there are already plenty, for example, Peter III, who leads a Spanish church that believes they are the rightful Church. (Also, antipope is a subjective word, like heretic. From the perspective of various sects, the Pope Francis is the antipope.)

      Nothing stops you from calling yourself Pope and claiming you’re the rightful leader of the Church, hereby making you an antipope to the eyes of the Church.

      Now is there going to be a relevant antipope, that’s a lot less likely.

      The relevancy of antipopes hinged on the political power of the pope. Having the pope at your beck and call was an extremely powerful tool in the Middle Ages. But nowadays, between the secularization of most Catholic countries, and the massive loss of influence of the Catholic Church, an antipope would only have as much influence as his followers would give him, especially since they wouldn’t have the support of the Holy See or the Church.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Still I think if you are an anti-pope you kinda know it. You aren’t in the Vatican and people aren’t drooling on your ring.

      • misophist@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        (Also, antipope is a subjective word, like heretic. From the perspective of various sects, the Pope Francis is the antipope.)

        I thought the Church claimed an unbroken line of popes going back to the apostle Peter.

        Wouldn’t any competitor only have a legitimate claim if they named their first pope during the brief downtime between popes? Otherwise they’re just another protestant sect.

        • Lamedonyx@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Some did (the Spanish church from the example I gave named their first pope after the death of Paul VI in 1976), but nothing stops you from having your own conclave of bishops, and have them say that the current Pope has been judged inept to rule (although that has never happened before in the Holy See).

          Which would make the line unbroken, the same way that the line was still unbroken when Benedict XVI resigned and Francis was elected pope.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        I imagine it’s quite a bit different when an actual pope turns into an anti-pope, compared to just some random dude in Spain claiming to be Pope, no?

        • Lamedonyx@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          For the Pope to turn into an antipope, you’d either need to have a massive schism in the Church that leaves the current pope completely stranded politically and causes the Church to ignore him, or you’d somehow need a higher authority than the Church to show up and name a different pope, and assume the current one wouldn’t yield.

          So basically, short of Jesus showing up and naming a new pope that the current one doesn’t agree with, the current pope won’t become an antipope.

    • Pacmanlives@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s not gay if it’s a young boy duh! /s

      This is actually a huge issue though on accepting the LGBTQ+ community at large and getting them in at least here in the United States. A lot of other religions have started to and I have gay and trans friends that go to these churches because they accept them for who they are and don’t try to shame them or try to change them

    • flooppoolf@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Church always has at least one extremely obviously gay dude serving. My interpretation of that stereotype is that usually that gay dude has the fear of god and his daddies belt instilled into them. Not a cute look. This usually prevents dates from being in public and reduces the whole situation into hidden meetings and idk, I wish them the best and to eventually see out of the church.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Short answer is: You just be gay and also Catholic.

      In most Catholic churches, no one is going to care that I bang dudes any more than they care that I show up on Christmas and Easter.

      They care significantly more if you say “Thanks!” when receiving communion than they do that you’re gay.

      Catholics aren’t Evangelicals and they care about radically different things.

  • Liome@pawb.social
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    9 months ago

    “Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward"

    Never expected pope to diss christianity.

    • victron@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      (Former christian) this whole Pope business has been sooo interesting. And I mean it in a non-ironic way.

    • Azal@pawb.social
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      9 months ago

      Former Christian here… I’ll give the religion credit it allows for a lot of openness and exactly what the pope is talking about. The main icon of Christianity was all about accepting people, legit the time where Jesus got angry with whips and table flipping was because money changers and vendors were cheating the poor (long story: You had pilgrims that would come bringing currency that would not be accepted by the temple so the money changers would do exactly what was on the tin… for a fee, and then the temple was selling animals to be sacrificed, the doves being brought up specifically because they were sold to the poorest that couldn’t afford the bigger sacrifices.) This is the idealogical head of the religion who is said to have sat and dined with those considered sinners while shunning the so called “faithful”

      Honestly even as parable the stories in the bible are perfect reflections of the way most Christians would react. It’s said regularly that the Christians would kill Jesus as a heretic if he came back… ignoring the fact that it was those that had power within the church that crucified Jesus in the Bible.

      I got lucky in being raised to go to a church with a preacher that was big on critical thinking. Another fitting example of Christianity ignoring its own teachings, post 9/11 said preacher gave a sermon talking about a religious extremist with a middle eastern background that spoke out against the prevailing government at the time, explaining that was exactly who Jesus was, the sermon on not hating from statements just made by assumptions, had the magazine that on the cover that had the ‘real face of Jesus’ to show not your white long haired man but the middle eastern face as a part of the sermon… naturally said preacher was politely “let go” from the church.

    • Lileath@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 months ago

      Isn’t having gay sex still considered a sin in Catholicism? I thought those blessings didn’t count as a marriage and having sex while not being married was a thing that constituted as a sin as well?

      • flooppoolf@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        The story of lot is actually incorrectly translated. It meant to say something along the lines of “the city was so rotten that the townspeople would sell their boys into sex slavery”

        The evil is selling your kids. To gross people. That mean harm.

        People took that as, they were gay so god drowned them in molten salt.

        • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Wild when you also consider that some of the ‘incorrect translations’ may have been on purpose to satisfy the intent of the king/pope who ordered the translation be printed.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Everything is a sin in Catholicism, because the point of the religion is that nothing you can do can escape sin.

        A major difference between Catholics and Protestants is that in Catholicism you’re expected to attempt to live a life as Christ wanted you to, and not just get a “free space” from Jesus for saying you believe in him.

        Thus, gay people are unlikely to get Catholic marriages or become priests, but Catholics also don’t think gays are inherently more evil than any other sin, as a general rule.

        The Catholic Church is not immune to change, and if readings of Scripture change so that gays are seen more favorably, or that women should be allowed in the clergy (neither of which is improbable, on a long timeline), then Catholic standards will change.

    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Found the priest. Just make sure that break of celibacy isn’t with the altar boy, you lil scamp!

  • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    lol. His entire life is dogma; his position, home, city, and organization are a rigid and non critical exercise.

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Can he avoid fucking with the US Supreme Court and stopping his legions of priests from fucking small children?

  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    Seems a little too late to try and pivot and get young parishioners back. They gone, people don’t go back to their old religion.