mongosteen posted:

discipline posted:

the pope is not an elected official reflecting the will of the people he leads. his job is to guide his flock towards accepting and submitting to the will of god

i like that democracy and anti-hierarchy cease to be important when we're talking about some feudalist charlatan who, even if there is a god, cannot be demonstrated to have any objectively greater knowledge of him

I like how you just assume that democracy and anti hierarchy are supposed to be paramount when it comes to politics/religion. Actually, I don't like it at all, you're totally wrong. I wonder why you would support them over more noble ideals; perhaps you're low class and have no social standing, and democracy and anarchy are just your selfish, amoral ways of trying to get a leg up at humanity's expense.


I guarantee you that the pope knows more about catholicism than some random commoner off the street. Hierarchy allows great coordination of efforts and helps structure relationships between individuals. Stop making bad assumptions about good practices.

mongosteen posted:

the pope knows more about catholicism but he doesn't know a whit more about god

now you've got it!

Lykourgos posted:

mongosteen posted:

the pope knows more about catholicism but he doesn't know a whit more about god

Actually he does know more about God

prove it

mongosteen posted:

the edicts of the catholic church are based on their claim that they are following the orders of god. since they are not, their claims to authority are baseless. suck it dry

the catholic church, like every organization, is made of broken, fallen humans. they have studied human spiritual life in detail, informed by revelations they believe come from god, and humbly suggest certain courses of action that are guided by love. you are free to ignore them. if you do, you may notice that's when you are most in pain.

The Italian media is reporting that Pope Benedict XVI resigned after receiving the results of an internal investigation, delivered in a 300-page, two-volume dossier, that laid bare a sordid tale of blackmail, corruption and gay sex at the Vatican.

The respected Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported Friday that the report stamped "Pontifical Secret," contained "an exact map of the mischief and the bad fish" inside the Holy See.

The newspaper said the findings of the nine-month investigation, headed by Spanish cardinal, Julian Herranz , with the assistance of Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, former archbishop of Palermo, and Slovak cardinal Jozef Tomko, was delivered to the pope on Dec. 17, 2012.

"It was on that day, with those papers on his desk, that Benedict XVI took the decision he had mulled over for so long,'' the newspaper said.

La Repubblica said the panel drew upon "dozens and dozens" of interviews with bishops, cardinals and lay people. It said the pope was kept apprised of the investigation in weekly meetings from April until December. The final, bound in red leather, is being kept in a safe in the pope's Vatican quarters, the newspaper said.

A similar story was carried by Panorama, a conservative weekly.

"What's coming out is a very detailed X-ray of the Roman Curia that does not spare even the closest collaborators of the pope," respected Vatican expert Ignazio Ingrao writes in Panorama. "The pope was no stranger to the intrigues, but he probably did not know that under his pontificate there was such a complex network and such intricate chains of personal interests and unmentionable relationships."

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, has refused to comment on the reports.

"Neither the cardinals' commission nor I will make comments to confirm or deny the things that are said about this matter. Let each one assume his or her own responsibilities. We shall not be following up on the observations that are made about this,'' Lombardi said, according to the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

In announcing his resignation Feb. 11, Benedict said that he no longer had the "strength of mind and body" to carry on. A conclave will select a new pope next month.

Lombardi has indicated that Benedict would meet with the three cardinals before stepping down Feb. 28, in one of his final private audiences.

La Repubblica reported that the pope would personally hand the confidential files to his successor, with the hope he will be ''strong, young and holy'' enough to take the necessary action.

The investigation was triggered last May when the pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and charged with having stolen and leaked papal correspondence that depicted the Vatican as a hotbed of intrigue.

The papers were published in a blockbuster book. The butler was convicted in October of aggravated theft, and later pardoned.

The three-man panel, according to La Repubblica, discovered an underground gay network whose members organized sexual meetings in several locations, including a villa outside Rome, a sauna in Rome's Cuarto Miligo distirct and even in a beauty salon inside the Vatican.

The gatherings, in turn, left them open to blackmail from people outside the Vatican, the report said, according to the newspaper.

La Repubblica quoted an unidentified man described as ''very close'' to the authors of the dossier as saying it contained information about violations of the sixth and seventh commandments, which forbid adultery and stealing.

The British newspaper, The Guardian, notes that the sixth commandment also "is linked in Catholic doctrine to the proscribing of homosexual acts."

The U.S. website, The Daily Beast, reports that investigative journalist Carmello Abbate went undercover with a hidden camera in 2010 in Rome to produce an expose called “Good Nights Out for Gay Priests.”

The scandal has erupted as the pope is clearing the decks of his pontificate, tweaking the rules of the conclave, finessing the religious rites used to launch the next papacy and making some eyebrow-raising final appointments before he retires next week.

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said in editions published late Friday that Benedict had signed a decree earlier in the week making some changes to the papal installation Mass, separating out the actual rite of installation from the liturgy itself.

He is also studying the text of a separate document governing the rules of the conclave, though it's not known if it will address the thorny issue of whether the election can begin earlier than March 15, by some interpretations the earliest the vote can start under the current rules.

And on Friday, the Vatican announced Benedict had transferred a top official in the secretariat of state, Monsignor Ettore Balestrero, to Colombia.

Some of the documents leaked in the midst of the "Vatileaks" scandal concerned differences of opinion about the level of financial transparency the Holy See should provide about the bank, the Institute for Religious Works. However, Balestrero himself wasn't named in any significant way in the leaks.

Lombardi said Balestrero's transfer had been months in the works, was a clear promotion and had nothing to do with what the Vatican considers baseless reporting.

getfiscal posted:

mongosteen posted:

the pope flew off to hide from the consequences of the international child rape conspiracy he presided over

what percent of children are abused in any family setting... like... i dunno... 2%? let's say 2%. there are 1.2 billion catholics. that means there were 24 million abused catholics. what percent of those will be abused by church members... probably a high number too. now in how many instances will this be mishandled... probably a few percentage points, right? that's still thousands of cases. let's not get carried away and think it's a central problem.

wut

wasted posted:

Good. They can sit in jail like other sexual predators and reflect on their standing with God wrt the hereafter.

i agree that the church should cooperate with legal investigations, and people should get the proper treatment for their conditions. i'm not sure prison is a good thing, though, i'm generally against prisons.