What is your opinion about the Vatican and the current Pope?

[Ruggery]

What is the opinion of the users?

[sean]

The current Pope was a member of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA) which organised right-wing death squads, when he was still known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The Catholic Church in Latin America has had ties with socialism and the left, but today, Latin America is becoming less and less catholic each year and it's predicted even Brazil will have more evangelicals than catholics by the 2040's (around 40% of each).

One of the reasons they elected an Argentinian Pope was to try to stop the quick bleeding of the Catholic Church in Latin America, primarily to evangelicalism but also to irreligion (especially in Uruguay), and that's in a continent where most catholics are only nominally so and there's a bunch of liberation theology aka commie bishops. They don't want to lose their rape product demographic.

They aren't considered the bulk of Christianity even in the USA. It's mostly brown people that are catholic in America. The retention rate on people who grow up catholic is low. Most people leave. Being ex-catholic is extremely common in America.

The Church essentially has no real say in world affairs or governments anymore outside of the Vatican and some shitholes in Eastern Europe. Of course, some of them dream they'd go back to the system between 1000 A.D.-1500 A.D., when Monarchy was the dominant form of government under the guidance of a Catholic Theocracy.

Now the Church is getting more liberal with current political trends, they just conform to whatever opinions are dominant.





We have some lunatics on this forum who believe that the freemasons took over the Church with the election of John XXIII, that he was an Antipope, and that Vatican II was basically the Judeo-masonic coup of the Church lel.

But Vatican II is a missionary statement, that has been interpreted as more liberal than it really is. Clergy are finally understanding what it was trying to do. It's not about letting the world change the Church, it's a call for the Church to influence the world again, instead of hiding behind its own walls. That's what is meant by "engagement".

But this pope isn't even that bad, he isn't completely fucking insane like some of the historical popes have been. At least this pope isn't exhuming graves to have the decaying corpses of previous popes stand trial for crimes in the Vatican.

However, he believes in exorcisms. It's embarrassing to European and American bishops and cardinals. The divide between the European/US bishops and the Latin American/African/Asian bishops is strong. On one side you have intellectuals and on the other you have spiritualists.

[Linebacker]

No, more like people who are desperate to keep the control of population that has been going on for centuries alive. Recently the Pope expressed endorsement for homosexual marriage if I remember. I don't disagree with that, but I just see it as the Church's way of tailoring itself to fit modern trends so they remain relevant. No doubt in the future they will be carrying out homosexual marriages. They cannot let something like that be out of their control, or let themselves be condemned by the new order for not being progressive enough.

The greatest snake oil salesemen in the history of mankind.

[Östsvensk]