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First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

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Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#951

Post by LexiMax »

api wrote: post #738
zelphirkalt wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My optimism for the US is quite limited, because they have kinda knowingly dismantled their own democracy, and are in the process of dismantling it even more, while the president tries as hard as possible to become a Putin-like dictator, and important decisions are made by tech giant owning oligarchs. A while longer and the US might enter a civil war or will simply lose all good will it had directed towards it in the…

The US has a history of hitting rock bottom every so often. First constitutional crisis leading to the replacement of the articles of confederation, civil war, Great Depression and the new deal, the Vietnam era, and now the collapse of the post Cold War order. I am not sure fascism will take here. Americans might think they want it until the fascists start telling them what to do. We are kinda starting to see that. W…

> I don’t understand why that particular thing works so well, even on some people you would not expect.

When you engage these sorts of people and ask the right follow-up questions, there's some common underlying concerns that underpin the polite fictions.

I've found that for men, they are scared that the next woman they look at covetously might have been AMAB. Even if they understand that there is a difference between sex and gender, they are scared that their acquaintances aren't, and are terrified of the prospect of being "tricked" into being attracted to someone who they see as a man. For women, I've found that they see men as biologically and intrinsically dangerous, and that a tiger doesn't change its stripes just because they are alienated from masculinity.

Not that I agree with either viewpoint. Being worried about being "accidentally gay" speaks more to underlying insecurities surrounding masculinity, and "men are inherently dangerous" is just misandry. But I'm no longer surprised by TDS.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#952

Post by hnfong »

blensor wrote: post #807
hnfong wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the US presidential election is on par. Maybe the exact timing is ambiguous since candidates usually declare victory/admit defeat before all the votes have been counted officially, but still.

I think you are overestimating that. Yes the whole world is somewhat curious who the president is but especially in timezones where it's inconvenient to follow that it's more a "we'll read it in the news later" thing. The fact that a new pope has been elected is an information is information you don't need to look for because it's announced through one of the oldest public announencement systems ( the church bells )

I think you are overestimating the reach of church bells as compared to, say, social media.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#953

Post by rootsudo »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #233
bitshiftfaced wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From reading online comments, I'm starting to believe that those who reside outside the US are more strident defenders of the idea that "US citizens only" = "American" than US citizens themselves.

Not in Central America. We call US citizens "Gringos" Unfortunately, this does carry a variable negative weight. Now, Latin Americans living in the US proudly call themselves "Americans" Edit: Albeit long, the correct gentilice for the US is "Estadounidenses" as in "Estados Unidos de América"

You mean someoen that lives in the E.U.?

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#954

Post by watwut »

barbazoo wrote: post #928
watwut wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is gaining power as we speak. And USA is abdicating that power. Also, Russia seems to be a big winner currently, America will help them keep parts Ukraine and prepare for another invasion.

It’s certainly an amusing thread to read, the US has more power, no it has less, China is pulling ahead, actually it’s struggling, so is India, or not. If only there were numbers we could compare.

China is not without problems and had some problems in economy. This situation allows them to get ahead, internally plausiy blame Trump even for issues that existed even before, get new aliances and power.

America is not gaining power, that part is pure wishful thinking.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#955

Post by snickerbockers »

tmnvix wrote: post #852
snickerbockers wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months. It probably has more to do with America's predominant religion being protestantism by a very wife margin for most of the country's existence. We didn't have a Catholic president until Kennedy and even then proving to the common American that Catholics aren't insane Vatican mindslaves was considered…

> That's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months. Are you suggesting that the decline has only been apparent since Trump's re-election? For some (myself included), America has been in obvious political decline for some time - highlighted and spurred along by some significant events (Trump's first election and the nature of US involvement in Gaza…

I personally don't think it makes any sense to claim America's in a decline on a short-term basis; my point is that a decline is inherently something that would only be visible over a longer scale of time.

The reason I said "four months" is because America's media establishment has been pushing this narrative that the tariffs and the argument with zelensky have somehow ended american hegemony overnight; I personally believe it's impossible for these events to cause a noticeable decline on such a short basis because there's far more to america than merely not taxing imports and giving limitless amounts of free stuff to ukraine with no strings attached, but I have developed a pavlovian response to the phrase "America's in decline" because it really is all about Donald Trump with these people.

I would personally put the origin of "America's Decline" at 9/11 because that was the beginning of America's self-doubt about what their place in the world is and what it should be. Everything since then has been the five stages of grief on a nationwide scale. Currently we're somewhere between Depression (stage 4) and Acceptance (stage 5) which is why we gave up on Afghanistan, and also why so many people are opposed to funding Ukraine; there's a legitimate fear that arming the Ukrainians will in some way come back to bite us in the ass 20 years later just like arming the mujahideen did.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#956

Post by Freedom2 »

RandomBacon wrote: post #759
Freedom2 wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, most people around the world could be considered citizens of the world compared to the average American.

If you're talking about crossing country borders, then maybe. If you're talking about distance traveled, I would venture to guess that Americans on average travel further distances. The United States of America has states larger than many countries in Europe.

Citizens of the world usually refers to cultural exposure and appreciation for differences around the world. I have never seen it refer to distance travelled, however I can see how some Americans can use that definition to try and change the topic

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#957

Post by therealpygon »

snickerbockers wrote: post #676
afavour wrote: post #97

> "Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.' And his point was, if America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don't want America running the world religiously. So, I think there's some truth to that, that we're such a superpower and so dominant, they do…

That's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months. It probably has more to do with America's predominant religion being protestantism by a very wife margin for most of the country's existence. We didn't have a Catholic president until Kennedy and even then proving to the common American that Catholics aren't insane Vatican mindslaves was considered…

> they’d wait longer than four months.

Why? Is there any reason for anyone in the world to think this behavior will change suddenly? Is there a reason the church wouldn’t think the US has a crisis of faith if those in power and their followers are so willing to commit sin against their fellow man? Clearly we all know how Jesus proclaimed, “Gather ye the masses of immigrants and send them to another country, lest they not be tortured for their grave sins of migration.”

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#958

Post by snickerbockers »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #701
snickerbockers wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months. It probably has more to do with America's predominant religion being protestantism by a very wife margin for most of the country's existence. We didn't have a Catholic president until Kennedy and even then proving to the common American that Catholics aren't insane Vatican mindslaves was considered…

> That's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months. I don't think they had much control over when Francis died.

Then they appoint somebody else and wait until he dies and then appoint Pope Americus the First. The hypothesis is that they didn't want an American pope until America is in decline and that America is in decline due to the re-election of Donald Trump. I will admit the part about Donald Trump is something i assumed with no basis and it is possible that the OP did not mean to say that America is in decline solely as a result of this, but whenever i read about America losing its international influence it's always somebody complaining about the tariffs or insulting Canada or whatever.

Anyways, nothing can end America on such a short timescale. Even if Donald Trump's recent decisions will cause the downfall of America's global pseudo-empire we are not anywhere near a point of no return and he could give up on playing "5D chess" and fix this all within a month; some opportunities would be lost which leads to some unrecoverable economic damage but we'd still be largely in the same position as we were six months ago; consequentially, any fears they may have had about appointing an American pope during a period of global American hegemony are still valid.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#959

Post by snickerbockers »

w0de0 wrote: post #833
petesergeant wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘The next Pope is from Chicago’ sounds like the kind of thing 1800s American nativists would panic about

Give Twitter another 24 hours to stew over his past ministry and his Peruvian citizenship, and one will find our modern Know Nothings making similar hullabaloo.

Is it even viable to run for pope as a priest who spent his whole life in a first-world country? I can't imagine somebody who has spent a significant portion of his life doing charity work or spreading the church to some new population losing out to some guy who spends his whole career preaching to a crowd of predominantly-white bourgeois Americans in a boring midwestern suburb where the biggest problem is either too many DEI programs in local schools or not enough DEI programs in local schools.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#960

Post by archagon »

mightyham wrote: post #575
dathinab wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Catholicism has much bigger problems in the US then evangelicals gaining tracking. Like people which by the Wikipedia definition of fascist being fascist using Catholicism as a tool to push their believes which are not at all compatible with the current world view represented by the Church in Rome. A Pope which is able to say "I denounce ... as unchristian and un-american" which isn't some random person in Ro…

Who are you talking about?

Vance? Thiel? The Opus Dei folks?
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