Ok so I understand that this is an inflammatory statement to say the least, but hear me out.
I’ve read some Reddit posts, some other commentaries and so on that have been saying that Pope Francis was “divergent” or “dangerous” or “wrong” or “sinful” from purported catholics.
But… he was the pope right? Like he was god’s representative on earth. He may be different to other pope’s policies but for his period of service he was the Catholic Church’s teachings. Like that’s the whole point right?
And please if I could get responses from catholics and people who understand this better. I’m not particularly interested in a bunch of easy posts about how religion is wrong etc.
Comments
Disagreeing with what the Bishop of Rome(Pope) is doing is why Orthodox Christianity and Protestantism exist. It’s not exactly new. Even amongst individuals and groups that didn’t go so far as to secede, there’s different factions and opinions.
I was raised Catholic. Firstly not everything the Pope says is gospel. There is a concept of papal infallibility, essentially meaning the Pope is literally never wrong when he speaks ex cathedra a.k.a. using his full authority. But that does not mean everything the Pope says is infallible. In fact Pope Francis never once made an infallible statement, nor has any Pope since 1950. (There has only been one instance since papal infallibility became a thing, and it was something about Mary but I digress)
Secondly, Pope Francis was polarizing. I always liked him and thought of him as a breath of fresh air for a very old institution. He challenged the status quo and that made people uncomfortable. He didn’t do anything mega progressive like allow female priests but he did push a lot of people’s buttons. And these days in a world where people sometimes misrepresent their ideology as faith, lots of people got vocal about their disagreement if not dislike for him.
Because there are almost as many different religions as there are individual believers, and each religion agrees with what each believer believes it ought to be.
Criticising the Pope doesn’t mean they’re wavering in their faith, they’ve got plenty of clergy to choose from.
As long as they have “a” Pope they’re good.
Pope Francis was a fairly liberal Pope from the perspective of his predecessors and of a large part of the Catholic congregation. To the more conservative factions in the Catholic church (and it seems that the USA is amongst those) then Pope Francis was seen as dangerous and for the more liberal parts of the Catholic church he was seen as not going far enough and for lacking bravery. Basically Pope Francis was screwed no matter how he handled his Papacy.
This is literally how wars pre-colonial era had been fought, because people disagreed with the Pope
“The more scandalous charges were suppressed; the vicar of Christ was accused only of piracy, rape, sodomy, murder and incest” – Gibbon on John XXIII.
The Pope is only infallable when speaking Ex Cathedra on topics of morals or faith. Otherwise he’s a high ranking bod but as fallible as any other human. You’re allowed to criticise the boss.
Ex Cathedra doesn’t mean ‘from the cathedral’ but rather ‘from the chair’ i.e. the Papal throne.
Of course Francis was an anti-Pope (in some opinions) because Pope Hitler Youth wasn’t allowed to retire and so Francis was not permitted to be elected, so you can criticise Francis all day long as a pretender to the throne.
In my stepfather’s case, by misunderstanding the meaning of the word “antipope” and applying it to all of them since Vatican II.
When it comes to the upper reaches of the Catholic church, while everyone theoretically comes from the same church, they all have very different backgrounds, lives and opinions which will all colour their beliefs.
So in much the same way as when there is a presidential election in the US it is a choice between liberal and conservative, the same differences will play out in the selection of a new pope. All of the cardinals get together to vote for who they think the next pope should be, then if there isn’t a clear winner they take another vote, then again as many times as it takes to reach a decision.
Remember that while the Catholic religion is in theory all based on the same book and the same teaching, that can be interpreted very differently depending on how you read the bible and which parts you emphasise – does the bit that says ‘stone the gays’ override ‘love they neighbour’ or is it the other way round?
nobody expects Kamala Harris to agree or like Donald Trump’s decisions and how he goes about things, and that is no secret at all, but equally you do also respect her and the rest of the democrat party to give the president the respect afforded his position. The top tiers of the Catholic church are no different.
I think a big part of it relates to the fact that he was an illegal pope, according to the rules of the Catholic Church. According to the rules, a Jesuit is not allowed to become pope, or even aspire to any position of power in the church, yet somehow he did. That turned a lot of people off to him right from the beginning.
Ever disagreed with your boss and not been fired?
The Pope is infallible when speaking ex cathedra: i.e. they have defined that ‘is the Pope Catholic?’ is always answerable with ‘yes’. The Pope gets to say what Catholic means, and if it no longer includes you you aren’t Catholic any more.
Beyond that, you can disagree with him as much as you want. You should think really hard about doing so – he’s kind of world expert in being a Catholic, so if you disagree you should think about whether you are a Catholic – but you’re allowed to believe he’s wrong unless he declares this statement to be core to being a Catholic.
In my opinion Francis was a middle-of-the-road Catholic with no unorthodox beliefs who happened to be good at reminding everyone what Catholics were supposed to believe – and this made him a hugely polarising figure because it sometimes feels that half the Church have forgotten what the religion is actually for. But I would say that. I’m a Protestant. (I grew up Catholic.)
Sedevacantists are those who believe that a given Pope isn’t a legal Pope and so the seat of Peter (sede) is unoccupied (vacante). But that’s actually heresy.
Its impossible to have anything good to say about any cult leader.
It continues to amaze me how many blindly follow its’ doctrine in hopes of some glorious afterlife yet overlook all the atrocities of its’ past and present.
We have instilled in us a high truth. We speak it fearlessly.
Hypocrisy
Pope francis was a liberal and he took the word of jesus (i’m not religious, but he believed it) that everyone is a kid of god and should be accepted and cared for
So he cared for muslim women, accepted gay people in the church without calling them sinners, criticized Trump ect
And some catholics really just wanna hate
Obviously the doctrine about Papal infallibility only extends to pronouncements made ex cathedra, the last one of which was decades ago about Immaculate Conception of Mary.
But still, the Pope is supposedly elected through Divine inspiration to be the Apostolic successor as the Head of the Church, so it takes a lot of chutzpah for a Catholic to claim he is wrong about a lot of things.
I get what you’re saying. He’s suppose to be infallible.
But look at Henry VIII. He broke away from the whole church because the pope wouldn’t grant him a dispensation (Divorce?) to leave Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. He was actually convinced that because he was chosen by the Lord to rule his kingdom, he was… higher? than the pope and infallible himself. To this day, the official religion of England is The Church of England.
And that’s just one example. All these offshoots and sects of Christianity – a lot of them are because they didn’t agree with the Pope. Well, they didn’t agree with Catholicism, in general.
My in-laws didn’t like him. He was too progressive for him. I remember how angry they were when he washed the feet for the first time as pope. It was something about… how those people were criminals and didn’t deserve it. It’s wild, but yeah.
Because people interpret religion differently. Just because he is the pope does not mean that his version of Catholicism is everyone else’s. A lot of people cherry pick from the bible and follow different sets of rules.
The pope isn’t really above criticism, but catholics are taught that he is infallible, therefore he cannot be wrong. Until Francis, because he was a Jesuit, the previous pope didn’t die on the job, and he was more Christian than most. Even then, there is nothing stopping you from critisiing him.
I’m orthodox, and our issue with the pope is the position, not the person. The idea someone can be above the rest is viewed as wrong, and the close to cult mentality around the role is flawed, because no man is beyond reproach. So I’m probably lying bias on the matter, because people thinking he can’t be wrong does t make sense.
I am catholic I can disagree with the Pope but he is the leader of the Church and his teachings should be adhered to.