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Pope Francis has died

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Re: Pope Francis has died

#231
post #34

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis... > According to Archbishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic Ceremonies, the late Pope Francis had requested that the funeral rites be simplified and focused on expressing the faith of the Church in the Risen Body of Christ. Always struck me as a simple man and that likely contributed to people liking him more when compared to his predecessors. RIP.

Pope John Paul II was also extremely popular across the world.

Since I see a lot of people commenting on this topic, I would like to offer a different perspective.

Pope JPII was for my southern European social democratic Catholic family much more polarizing than Pope Francis. Pope Francis had politics that are mainstream and not at all controversial in my part of the world. Whereas JPII was perceived as the guy who was buddies with Reagan and Bush and a general supporter of American foreign policy. To what extent that was a fair assessment, I do not want to comment, since he did try to speak against the invasion of Iraq.

None the less, it is not true that Pope Francis is more popular with non-Catholics (Reagan, Bush and most of the US were not Catholic and big supporters of JPII). It was also JPII that started the interfaith dialogue. It is also not true that Pope Francis is unpopular with Catholics.

There are Catholics all across the globe with vastly different opinions on all kinds of issues.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#232
post #13

I wonder whether we will have another Jesuit Pope. Jesuits are supposed to be generally very education focused, more progressive (especially w.r.t science) and stand less on ceremony. I know nothing about how the College of Cardinals work, but if they're anything like other political voting bodies, one of two outcomes are possible: a swing to the Right (and toward tradition), recognizing the current balance of power…

It always seems weird and ignorant for people to be labeling Catholic bishops as “left-wing” or “right-wing” or “liberal/progressive” or “conservative”. Those are all political terms for politicians and their platforms or parties. They do not translate to Catholic doctrines or teachings. Y’all are simply parroting what the lamestream media wants to impose, a political veneer on non-politicians who are shepherds, past…

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Re: Pope Francis has died

#233

In 2021, during a visit to the Greek island of Mytilene, Pope Francis delivered one of the finest speeches I've ever read: > This great basin of water, the cradle of so many civilizations, now looks like a mirror of death. Let us not let our sea (mare nostrum) be transformed into a desolate sea of death (mare mortuum). Let us not allow this place of encounter to become a theatre of conflict. Let us not permit this “s…

With no opinion one way or another on the pope.. In the modern world this is a weird criteria to judge people on. I assume like every modern politician, he doesn't write his own speeches. A quite google search seems to confirm it

https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/02/does-the-pope-write-his-o...

Re: Pope Francis has died

#234
post #45

I genuinely liked him, even as an atheist. He seemed to be trying his best to make the world a better place and I can't fault him for that.

> .. even as an atheist lots of christians didn't like him, considering he was too progressive

Only American Protesting Catholics had issues with him. The same ones that post Deus Vult memes on Facebook.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#235
post #13

I wonder whether we will have another Jesuit Pope. Jesuits are supposed to be generally very education focused, more progressive (especially w.r.t science) and stand less on ceremony. I know nothing about how the College of Cardinals work, but if they're anything like other political voting bodies, one of two outcomes are possible: a swing to the Right (and toward tradition), recognizing the current balance of power…

> especially w.r.t science I would like to know more. My impression is that most Christian institutions have long ago disentangled from scientific debate - providing interpretative value rather than alternative science. This is part of a larger trend to focus their scope and mission in modern life. Have the last few popes made comments on scientific issues? (The exception is evangelical Americans.)

Catholics don’t generally adopt the anti-science stuff. Their dogma around life has some walls around some areas of medicine.

I know several priests who are scientists or teachers/professors.

Evangelicals have a simpler dogma where the individual minister or church has more sway (hence the joke about the man on a desert island with a hut, a church, and a church he doesn’t go to). It’s a more populist form of worship, which has ups and downs.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#236
Does anyone have any theories why his predecessor, Benedict, so shockingly resigned? (And then, according to this article, continued to live there, which was news to me).

The conventional wisdom is that Benedict was a hardline, conservative nut who had to resign for unknown reasons and was replaced by this well-loved, progressive guy. As seen in this thread, lots of people liked him and his philosophy, and his progressive take on things which always made the news, as he focused on the poor and traveled the world.

However, I've heard the conspiracy that Benedict was forced out, possibly related to his investigations into the child sex abuse scandal, maybe because he was finding important people involved. He was always very focused on the Church itself. And Francis was chosen, almost as a patsy, to end those investigations and instead be the friendly Pope out away from the Vatican.

I just always thought Benedict's resignation was surprising and there was something more to the story.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#237
The Vatican published an interesting document on AI [1], which attributes a number of quotes to Pope Francis:

* As Pope Francis noted, the machine “makes a technical choice among several possibilities based either on well-defined criteria or on statistical inferences. Human beings, however, not only choose, but in their hearts are capable of deciding."

* In light of this, the use of AI, as Pope Francis said, must be “accompanied by an ethic inspired by a vision of the common good, an ethic of freedom, responsibility, and fraternity, capable of fostering the full development of people in relation to others and to the whole of creation.”

* As Pope Francis observes, “in this age of artificial intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary to save our humanity.”

* As Pope Francis observes, “the very use of the word ‘intelligence’” in connection with AI “can prove misleading”

[1] https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu...

Re: Pope Francis has died

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a point of comparison, after Nazi Germany collapsed the Western allies had German civil servants fill questionnaires to assess their level of involvement; of 3.6 millions surveyed, just 1% were charged as "main culprits" (Hauptschuldige), whereas a third were designated as "followers" (Mitläufer), who basically contributed to the regime's crimes but nontheless got to keep their jobs after the war. I'd argue the…

I'm comparing the stated goal of Israel (dehamasification) with denazification. The allies' strategic bombing campaign was intended to destroy industry and infrastructure and was not aimed at any political group in particular, whereas Israel can and does target precise buildings associated with Hamas (see the "Lavender" program that provides bombing targets). > That's not even what Israel is doing now There's no real…

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Re: Pope Francis has died

#240
A man has died, that is sad.

Under his watch he did not move the church to fully acknowledge or deal with the historical and widespread abuses the organization he led was involved with. He had opportunity to be the leader to bring the organization around and he did not. Let's all hope his replacement will.

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