1d ago

the pope was an asshole.

After just seeing so many articles of people being sad I really just have to say the pope was an asshole. You don't even have to do good research to see that this guy and his administration was still hiding pedophiles, hating gay people, and generally being a jerk all while pretending he was better than everyone else. The only thing he did was say he loved everyone and be a nice guy on camera which literally anyone could pretend to do. Meanwhile his administration was just more of the same shit. Just creating some counterpoint to the nonsense narrative I keep seeing.

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He was probably the best pope in a while. Definitely more open and tolerant than normal.
It's not much to beat the normal here, but it was a step in the right direction if nothing else. Not enough of course, but what could we really expect?
- Which recent Pope was better?

The catholic church... any organized religion really is a force for conservatism, tradition, dogmatism and superstition.
You will NEVER see a pope who aligns with modern, secular, humanist morals and ethics, because such a person would never rise to power in a monarchical, absolutist structure build on hierarchy, dogmatism and obedience.
In my opinion, no pope will ever be not an asshole.
But you can absolutely be a HUGE asshole like Joseph Alois Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) (Fuck the Motherfucker), or you can be a somewhat less bad asshole like Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Francis). But even if this one produces less shit than the other, it's still a huge asshole producing lots of shit.
So please don't underestimate the amount of shit this asshole produced!
Francis scored points in the Evangelical camp not only by dispensing with traditional Catholic pomp (such as the red velvet shoes), but also by implementing the Evangelicals' political agenda. Hardly any other pope has supported the worldwide campaigns against abortion as massively as he has, and hardly any pope has done so little against the massive attacks on gays, lesbians and trans people from within his own ranks. When, for example, the Nigerian Bishops' Conference called for even harsher punishments for homosexuals, no substantial criticism was heard from Rome. All in all, Francis was not an “advocate of humanity”, but rather a sympathetic, smiling face that concealed a deeply inhuman ideology. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing.
source
Instead of clearly naming the aggressor, Francis called on Ukraine to “show the white flag” as an expression of willingness to negotiate - a call that was understood in Kiev as an invitation to surrender. The fact that he repeatedly avoided directly naming Vladimir Putin as the person responsible for the suffering, but instead spoke of a “drama on both sides”, called his moral judgment into question and damaged his credibility as an advocate for peace and justice.
source
His response to the islamic attacks on Charlie Hebdo:
“If a dear friend speaks badly of my mother, he can expect a punch, and that's normal. [...] You shouldn't provoke the faith of others.”
His position towards abortion:
“like hiring a contract killer to solve a problem”
- You seem to follow him very closely, for someone you don't like.
  
  As a militant anti-theist I have informed myself about the most influential theist on earth. He was heading the most influential, superstitious, conservative, dogmatic organisation in the world and his views and speeches still shape policy in my country and the union of countries it exists in. Where I have to suffer under or combat every policy idea the people influenced by him impose on me, as I hold views diametrically opposed to his. Keeping myself and those around me informed about the hollowness of the public image of these enemies of modernity is one of the few ways to fight back against theist feel-good propaganda.
  How you think I could have done otherwise is beyond me.
  It seems to me like saying people should ignore bad actors instead of actively opposing them.
  
  Know your enemy?
  I know a lot about Musk, Trump, Thiel, Sacks, RFK, etc.

The thing with popes who disagree with the administration is, they die quite easily.
The pope was not against the principles of the church. He was quite revolutionary, though. He challenged the „priests cannot marry“ principle. He revoked church protection in case of sexual accusations. For church this is like rocking the system.
The admin still hid felons, the pope weakened the protection significantly, though.
I think he did the best he could. He was a kind man who actually tried to solve a lot of the injustice of the church. Far away from being an asshole.
- He said atheists go to heaven, provided they are "good people". Something his handlers tried to immediately walk back.
  Within the shithole that is religion, that is pretty damn revolutionary for the leader of a religion to say.
- Yea he's not all powerful, he's like the US president before Trump, limited power and their EOs are not laws. But yea wrong old white man died.
  
  Yea he's not all powerful
  I know what you mean, but making this statement about the alleged voice of God on earth is hilarious to me.
- maybe grow a set of morals and be like "I refuse to participate in this horrible organization, there is no fixing it I am out screw you"
  
  Me? Oh gosh, i am atheist by heart ans follow my own set of morals. For me the concept of a religious leader alone is wrong.
  I did have the pleasure to talk to him one time and he seemed more progressive than others before him. Some of his beliefes and actions I would consider wrong, but he stood for his beliefes, for friendship and for the poor and i respect that.
- Everything you said can be true, but you can still disagree with the idea that the catholic church can be “fixed from the inside”. I doubt he personally was a knob, and I’m sure if not him, it’d have been someone worse. None of those make him a good person - I think the position of “unquestionable mouthpiece of god” is a fundamentally incompatible concept with being a good person.

Definitely an unpopular opinion!
I just ran into a mini discussion about this very subject.
My conclusion was, and is, that he was decent for a pope. Not the best human, not a great human, just a pope that was an improvement over previous popes. And I stand by that based on the improvements he did make. I suspect he maybe would have gone further if he thought he could do so and make it stick in practice.
But he never would have gone far enough to satisfy me into abandoning the ACAB theory of monotheism. You know, where individuals within the cop/Christian/Catholic group may be decent people, but they're part of a broken, corrupt, hateful system and aren't actively working to change that at full force, so they're still bad anyway.
Which is a long winded way of saying that I disagree with your title, but agree with the contents of your text body, at least with the broad strokes.
But you gotta realize, if you or me are giving lip service on camera, it don't mean shit. But if the pope pretends to be a nice guy, he can actually change minds in doing so. So I ain't mad at a pope that's willing to be on camera and encourage better behavior, even if he's s dipshit behind the scenes. And he did speak for better treatment of people, and there are actual Catholics that took it to heart and started acting better, so again, I ain't mad that he was a bit of a dick behind the scenes
- he was decent for a pope. Not the best human, not a great human, just a pope that was an improvement over previous popes.
  This. People seem to forget previous popes.
- My conclusion was, and is, that he was decentfor a pope.
  My thoughts exactly but it’s a pretty low bar

Jeopardy answer: the biggest grift in history.
Question: What is The Catholic Church?
- Home of the Spanish Inquisition of course.
- It's also the 1st round top left question

Dude, the best Pope will still be a horrible person, I feel sorry for whoever they are, but the Catholicism is based on horrible principles; they put them behind helping the poor and all that, but the hatred of anything that isn't 100% standard is total. That is something that is not going to change because it is a basic part of the issue, read the Bible, it is there and no member of the church is going to deny that.
If you're a normal person, the best you can hope for is that they elect someone who doesn't fan the flames of hatred any more than necessary and hope that their social support continues to dwindle.Anything else is impossible

The pope's right hand man, for a long time, was a paedophile who for a time fled to the Vatican to stall facing justice. Eventually he went to face trial, and the pope was one of the first to publicly condemn his conviction, after the High Court decided it could ignore a jury's verdict and declare that he was not guilty.
People make jokes all the time about paedophile priests, but it's not something that comes out of nowhere or because of "a few bad apples". It comes from the former pope's former right hand man who, at the very least, systemically protected priests under his charge, moving them around rather than leave them to potentially face justice when they fiddle with the same child too many times. And who most likely was himself a paedophile. And the pope himself was complicit.
So yeah, he might have been progressive as popes go. But he was still an absolutely horrible man who helped further absolutely heinous actions happening directly under his leadership.

Pardon me, he massively reformed the church. Brought it all the way to 17th century morals. /s
- Definite improvement then

Reading? In Turmp' America? No thanks.

You're forgetting that moment where he equated abortion doctors to hired assassins.
- They're not forgetting. There's a whole bunch of people that buy into the catholic church's public relations department. There's also a ton of manipulated social media, by the public relations department of the catholic church.
  The pope was just another rich piece of shit. If someone doesn't think so, there is something wrong with that person.

Until the Vatican is melted down and it's resources put back into the economy, then every pope, Cardinal, and priest is inherently absolutely evil and bear no right to compliments or favorable comparison.

I didn't hate the guy or anything, but I have to say, I don't understand all the tears over the Pope. It's a lifetime appointment generally held by really old men. Of course they're going to die... just wait, there will be another one shortly.
Heck, Francis is the 3rd to die this century alone.
- I can't begin to understand the religious-minded, but I do know from there being a lot of Catholics in my area that he was well-regarded by many, and people mourn his passing the same people mourn influential figures in other aspects of life they care about. Regardless of the ups and downs of the church, I am under the impression that he was pushing it further in the right direction, at least, and people are sympathetic to that, so I feel that is still worth acknowledging despite whatever ongoing negatives come with any religion.
- Yeah, I say that every time someone tells me that they had a grandparent die. I'm like, "yeah man, that's what grandparents do. They're all old and stuff. Of course they die. Grow up."
  No idea why I don't get invited to parties any more.
  
  Nobody personally knows the Pope well enough to be openly weeping in Church. They may THINK they do, they don't.

Even if he didn't really believe any of those better opinions, saying them publicly probably did way more good for social progress than any other pope in history. So it can be more complicated than you're trying to make it, op

Yes, he was. And his attitude to Ukraine was rather questionable. I suppose Russia had some leverage on him.
- I'm not saying there was a pee tape, but we don't know there wasn't a pee tape.

I would argue that, within the scope of the Vatican, he, by himself was maybe as good a person as can exist within an organization at that level.
The trick is that the rest of the machinations and people in the Vatican are absolutely not good people and they clearly worked to "reign him in" (to their views) as his health worsened.

I agree the role of Pope is very performative, but that's not necessarily equivalent to "this guy was an asshole". And the examples you raised strike me as more tied to his job, than things he did outside of his role as the Pope.
Or are you saying that anyone who rises to become a Pope must be corrupt enough to be an asshole?

Is perfection stealing joy from improvement?
I can't say whether he was an asshole himself. I never knew the guy.
Even Hamas mourned the guy. He must have been doing something right.

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