Bulletins and News Discussion from April 21st to April 27th, 2025 - JD Vance vs Pope Francis, No Items, Final Destination

Image is sourced from this Guardian article.

The Pope's fucking dead.

He gave JD Vance three chocolate easter eggs, exchanged pleasantries for 17 minutes, and then keeled over and died.

What a way to go.

Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

236 comments

Maybe its a bit western-centric, but a local random good person I follow on xitter pointed out that the late pope was the most influential leftist of the last decade. Flawed, like any human, but yeah, that hit.
- Anyone who thought he was a leftist should look into his time as archbishop in Argentina. He had good leftist-adjacent takes, but he was not a leftist by any measure.
- Pope Francis was not a leftist, he was a liberal Pope. The thing is, when he says stuff like "Theres a genocide happening in Palestine" and "Don't be rude or attack gay people" it actually influences a lot of catholic, and specially older people to begin to see these things in another light. I see that as a good thing. Still, the Catholic Church fucking sucks and they did everything possible to stop any real reform from happening.
- pretty sure that would be Xi, KJU or Traore
- anybody who thinks the ceo of the pedophilia corporation is in any way a leftist is thoroughly delusional
  
  Hexbear has been making me feel insane with how many people are lining up to praise the fucking pope
- I think Pope Francis's actions were more intended to influence "The Left" to becoming Catholics, rather than to make Catholics go to "The Left". He's a Catholic first and foremost, his sympathies to socialists are secondary. There were many sensationalized articles over the past years which claimed that the Pope said Jesus would have been communist or that Christians should act like communists, but my interpretation of what he said is that he meant "good communists are christians". He wanted Communists to have sympathies for Christians.
  The goal of the Pope is to grow Catholicism. He said that LGBT are welcome in Catholicism, not because he's progressive, but because it grows Catholicism to be accepting of more people.
  Even the things he said about Gaza were rather milquetoast. The following is Pope Francis Easter statement on Gaza.
  "I express my closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel, and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. The growing climate of anti-Semitism throughout the world is worrisome. Yet at the same time, I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation. I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!"
  Firstly he says that he has closeness to both Israeli and Palestinian people, placing emphasis equally, doing both sides. Then he says that he's worried about anti-semitism, but doesn't mention islamophobia, potentially a dog whistle. Then he describes the genocide in Gaza with passive language. He calls it a "conflict" rather than a genocide. He says that "conflict" causes the death and destruction and not Zionism. He doesn't say who is causing the death and destruction, which is Israel. He calls for a ceasefire but in the next breath says "release the hostages" as if Hamas hasn't already promised to release the hostages on the condition of a permanent ceasefire.
  If any person said the same quote as the Pope on Easter, they would be called a Liberal Zionist, which the Pope may have been.
  I can understand wanting to bend the truth. If you tell Catholics a white-lie to say that the Pope was more radical than he actually was to influence Catholics into being against Zionism, I can see utility in this. I don't see Pope Francis as an actual radical figure, but more of an opportunist who uses left populism for the intention of growing Catholicism.
  
  GOOD post
- Edit- Might not be real. But francis wasn't a leftist and was a massive bigot/transphobe.
  
  This photo is fake btw, this is Pope Francis. The accusations against Francis is not that he worked with the Dictatorship, is that he could have done more to help other priests. Now if you want a leftist priest that used to be part of fascist party, seach for Helder Camera, one of the fathers of Liberation Theology in Brazil. The photos of him as a member of the Integralism movement were used by the Far-Right and USA to discourage and discredit the Liberation Theology movement.
  The Pope, the dictator, the fake photo: it pays to fact-check social media - BBC
- The fuck? Xi and the CPC, Diaz-Canel and the PCC, even Traore and the AES (maybe? idk enough to say whether they're just hammering on Sankara nostalgia but they seem cool) have all done more than a compradore archbishop who said some cool antiwar stuff at the end of his life. If 'leftist' includes the leader of one of the most reactionary institutions on the planet it's even more meaningless than I thought.
  
  I understood it and was going with influential as inspirational and motivational to the largest and most diverse group of people, not the most radical. Maybe chinese and neighbors alone beat the numbers for Xi, which whom I don't think vibes much populism or direct impact. It's not "some cool antiwar stuff", which is kind of the official line of the church, it's the words about capitalism, inequality, climate change, billionaires, financial sector, calling Gaza every single day, and the limited but huge shifts about communism, feminism, and LGB (missed something there, I know), all while at the top of the reactionary central of the west for centuries.
  Actual existing communism is great, but, I don't know, doesn't feel it moved the techtonic plates as much.
  
  Actual existing communism is great, but, I don't know, doesn't feel it moved the techtonic plates as much.
  Again, the fuck?
  Members of the Catholic church: 1.4b
  Population of China: 1.4b (then add Cuba, Laos, Venezuela, Bolivia, Vietnam, etc., etc. shit even Mexico and Brazil are AES compared to the Catholic church).
  Lip service is worth more than eradicating extreme poverty, something the Church hasn't done despite that being its doctrinal mission for two millenia and being the largest single landowner on the planet. Francis's words as Pope barely offset his transphobia, much less making up for his role covering up abuse and ratting out actual liberation theologians.
  Also he doesn't get LG credit lol. No changes to the priesthood, no marriage (that's one of their seven sacraments, so effectively continuing to treat queer Catholics as unworthy).
  What no materialism does to a mfer. I never want to be called a 'leftist' again if this is all it takes to be the most influential one in a decade.
  
  Eradicating poverty is the work of millions of people in China over the last half century, not just Xi.
  I think it's fair to say Xi has far more power in the material real world, and his decisions carry quite a bit more weight, but the pope exists pretty much to spew doctrine, and I wouldn't be very surprised if his actual words reach a much wider audience than Xi's.
  The pope may be more "influential", but only in the sense that he's basically an influencer and Xi is an actual governor.
  
  why I said Xi and the CPC in the first reply.
  but if we're gonna split hairs on influential, this discussion is meaningless liberalism.
- If you say "most influential western leftist" then maybe we can talk. But that is only because that is hardly a crowded field to begin with.
- Bar is in hell.
- I mean, if we're basing "most influential" purely by number of people under their governance, Xi Jinping takes the cake here. And Xi is actually a socialist, the Pope is just a theocrat who said some cool things.
- Edit: I also think AMLO and Sheinbaum have him beat, but I bet Il Papa does land in the top ten in this imaginary ranking.

236 comments