[HN Gopher] Pope Francis has died
___________________________________________________________________
Pope Francis has died
Author : phillipharris
Score : 809 points
Date : 2025-04-21 08:00 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| hcaz wrote:
| > Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, at the age
| of 88 at his residence in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta.
|
| > Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, the Vatican has
| announced. - Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected to lead
| the Catholic Church in March 2013 after Pope Benedict XVI stood
| down.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/crknlnzlrzdt
| haunter wrote:
| RIP.
|
| His speech yesterday (he dictated it I guess) was very very
| political, not on the usual level, felt like a finally "all out"
| for me.
|
| https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/urbi/do...
| tetris11 wrote:
| > 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!
| hersko wrote:
| Tangentially related: why do so many people call for a
| ceasefire, when a ceasefire is generally temporary. It
| wouldn't resolve any of the underlying reasons for the war.
| He should be calling for surrender.
| kelnos wrote:
| Who should surrender, though? At this point in time, if
| Hamas were to surrender, the Israeli occupation of Gaza
| would just get worse. That wouldn't be peace, or justice,
| for people of Gaza. I certainly don't support what Hamas
| has done, but Israeli rule will probably be pretty brutal
| for Palestinians.
| robertoandred wrote:
| Israel hasn't occupied Gaza for 20 years.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Well yes, but that's because once Israel occupies it, it
| isn't Gaza anymore. Now it's a "Security Zone." Something
| like half of Gaza is "Security Zone" now:
| https://www.npr.org/2025/04/14/g-s1-59633/gaza-buffer-
| zone-i...
| za3faran wrote:
| They literally control the air, water, electricity, food,
| internet, everything. They are literally mass starving
| the Gazans as we speak.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| For which side?
| ksec wrote:
| Yes because some even went against was he previously said.
|
| But Love him or Hate him. Rest in peace.
| jongjong wrote:
| Thanks for posting this.
|
| >> Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and
| truth over falsehood.
|
| This is interesting since I thought he was displeased about
| recent world events (e.g. Trump's election, shift towards
| deglobalization, ...).
| gizzlon wrote:
| It's Easter :)
| jongjong wrote:
| I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but it
| sounded like he was referring to something broader,
| especially given the explicit political references he made
| later.
| jychang wrote:
| ... He's referring to "Christ is risen". That's way more
| broad (conceptually) and very in-character for the Pope,
| compared to some transient current events.
| froh wrote:
| that fragment references Easter theology. at a fundamental
| level love is stronger than everything, including the
| unsurpassable frontier, death. nothing could kill Jesus, not
| slander, not hatred, not envy, not even the cross.
|
| and btw, in that little collection of booklets we call the
| Bible, the story doesn't end all flowery and pink either.
| Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed, early disciples are
| martyred in troves and everybody is aware the story of that
| Jesus guy and Mary and Mary Magdalene and Junia and all the
| others just has begun.
|
| and it's clear it has to be written by us...
|
| so regarding the recent world events yes PP Francis was
| heavily displeased (he talks about several of them in the
| very text we respond to here) but the Jesus thing gives us
| confidence and hope and justification to actively do
| something about it and to nudge the world into being a better
| place, for all of us.
|
| that's how I think PP Francis meant what he said. and it's
| definitively how I see it.
| xeonmc wrote:
| "It is not our part to master all the tides of the world,
| but to do what is in us for the succour of those years
| wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that
| we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth
| to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."
|
| -- Gandalf
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Thank you for sharing a text that I would not have seen/read
| otherwise.
|
| The salient parts that support your view:
|
| --- There can be no peace without freedom of
| religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and respect
| for the views of others. Nor is peace possible
| without true disarmament! The requirement that every people
| provide for its own defence must not turn into a race to
| rearmament. The light of Easter impels us to break down the
| barriers that create division and are fraught with grave
| political and economic consequences. It impels us to care for
| one another, to increase our mutual solidarity, and to work for
| the integral development of each human person. I
| appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in
| our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to
| isolation from others, but rather to use the resources
| available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage
| initiatives that promote development. These are the "weapons"
| of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing
| seeds of death! May the principle of humanity
| never fail to be the hallmark of our daily actions. In the face
| of the cruelty of conflicts that involve defenceless civilians
| and attack schools, hospitals and humanitarian workers, we
| cannot allow ourselves to forget that it is not targets that
| are struck, but persons, each possessed of a soul and human
| dignity.
|
| ---
| david422 wrote:
| > Nor is peace possible without true disarmament! The
| requirement that every people provide for its own defence must
| not turn into a race to rearmament.
|
| The sentiment sounds great but I think we now see in the real
| world with Ukraine that if you rely [too much] on others (re:
| US), you have a real problem if they are no longer there for
| you. Peace through strength is real.
| geff82 wrote:
| God bless him. Religion aside, his encyclicas covering more
| earthly subjects (Fratelli Tuti, Laudato Si) are really worth to
| be read. Download and read them as PDF in the language of your
| choice, no matter what your religious views are.
| niea_11 wrote:
| Fratelli tutti :
| https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/docu...
|
| Laudato si :
| https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/docu...
| seydor wrote:
| We live in cynical times, i hope his passing reminds people that
| narratives and morals matter
| vintagedave wrote:
| From his statement yesterday:
|
| > May the principle of humanity never fail to be the hallmark
| of our daily actions. In the face of the cruelty of conflicts
| that involve defenceless civilians and attack schools,
| hospitals and humanitarian workers, we cannot allow ourselves
| to forget that it is not targets that are struck, but persons,
| each possessed of a soul and human dignity.
|
| Yes. I agree with you and hope so too.
| usrusr wrote:
| "Think of those souls!" reads to me cynically close to "don't
| think of those who ordered and executed those strikes".
| Almost like a deliberate distraction. When you turn
| forgiveness into a carte blanche for serial sin, you're doing
| Christianity wrong.
| basisword wrote:
| I interpret it very differently from you. Modern warfare is
| directing drones at 'targets' based on 'intelligence' with
| little regard for the collateral damage. We see it daily in
| the news in various conflicts: children killed in strikes
| with the excuse being that bad guys were also in the
| vicinity - zero regard for the innocents. It' a reminder
| that just because you don't have to see the destruction you
| cause (thanks to modern technology) innocents are still
| being killed by your actions and you shouldn't forget that
| (and maybe should reconsider your actions).
| ByThyGrace wrote:
| I've always interpreted the line of message you refer to as
| an intent to reach the hearts of those responsible for
| commanding the violence, including those who assign
| responsibility to them. And if it did reach, and ellicited
| the intended emotion, then such violence would simply stop.
|
| (FWIW I'm atheist, always been.)
| mcphage wrote:
| I think it's more, he's speaking _to_ those who order and
| execute such strikes.
| praptak wrote:
| I do agree that narratives and morals matter. That said is hard
| for me to reconcile this statement with the late pope's stance
| on the Ukraine war. His narrative about this was that it is a
| regrettable conflict between brother nations and that the sides
| should somehow resolve their disagreement. He didn't once admit
| that Russia is the aggressor and is one sidedly pushing for
| war, not to speak about condemning the aggressor.
|
| I understand that a leader of an organization that acts on
| historic time scale might be reluctant to take sides in
| contemporary conflicts. Nevertheless always washing your hands
| in every conflict is not morality, it is cowardice. It enables
| evil and is in direct conflict with "narratives and morals
| matter".
| mrtksn wrote:
| That was a likable pope, non-christians and even non religious
| people tend to like the guy. I also enjoyed the memes about his
| lookalike in Game of Thrones. Rest in peace.
| hliyan wrote:
| I wonder whether we will have another Jesuit Pope. Jesuits are
| supposed to be generally very education focused, more progressive
| (especially w.r.t science) and stand less on ceremony. I know
| nothing about how the College of Cardinals work, but if they're
| anything like other political voting bodies, one of two outcomes
| are possible: a swing to the Right (and toward tradition),
| recognizing the current balance of power in the world, or a swing
| even further Left of Francis, again recognizing the current trend
| but as a counterweight.
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| the film Conclave did a very good job at showing the politics
| and conflicts within the catholic church
| grandempire wrote:
| I think that is merely skin deep - Catholicism provided an
| interesting setting or scenery for a story, rather than being
| the subject.
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| i think that is intendeded; it's not a movie about
| catholicism but about politics and human nature. What I
| meant is that it shows the internal workings of the papal
| election and the conflicts within the catholic church that
| may be unknown to laypeople.
| grandempire wrote:
| On second thought I think you're right. The layperson can
| become more aware of religious politics, because there is
| so little exposure.
|
| I hope the next step is for people to understand that
| religious problems are actually people problems. And
| similar themes and tendencies appear in modern secular
| contexts.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Fully agree. It's going to get interesting - by numbers, the
| Church is shrinking in its core lands of Europe, and it's
| growing in Africa, South America and Asia, but that isn't even
| closely reflected in political realities and the amount and
| importance of cardinals.
| a_e_k wrote:
| I'll admit that I am curious about if we'll ever see a
| conservative African pope.
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| this italian (venetian) reggae band has been predicting it
| since 97, this song regains minor popularity in italy every
| time there is a new pope election
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh0O2Ah-qO4
| seanw444 wrote:
| I see a lot of people in my news circle hoping for Robert
| Sarah, who seems to be exactly that.
| tbihl wrote:
| There is almost no hope of an African pope being chosen.
| They are all too conservative. You can read that
| conspiritorially or take it as the recognized imprudence
| of fomenting European schism.
| wwilim wrote:
| Given how changes of power tend to swing nowadays, I am afraid
| I guessed it right (pun not intentional)
| riffraff wrote:
| But he was also an odd Jesuit wasn't he?
|
| Starting from his chosen name, since Franciscans and Jesuits
| have not been very close historically (although the founder of
| the latter was inspired by St. Francis).
|
| From what I read, it's exactly as you say: people expect either
| a reaction swing to conservativism or a a big swing towards
| modernity. Pope Francis was old and could not do much, but he
| tried to set a path for the latter, afaiu.
| grandempire wrote:
| > especially w.r.t science
|
| I would like to know more. My impression is that most Christian
| institutions have long ago disentangled from scientific debate
| - providing interpretative value rather than alternative
| science. This is part of a larger trend to focus their scope
| and mission in modern life. Have the last few popes made
| comments on scientific issues?
|
| (The exception is evangelical Americans.)
| froh wrote:
| the pontifical academy of science has.
|
| https://www.pas.va/en.html
| grandempire wrote:
| Thanks. That looks like a way for Catholics to support and
| endorse scientific research rather than a develop
| alternative science.
| krapp wrote:
| Ironically, Catholicism as an institution has a better
| track record of supporting science than many Protestant
| sects. Much of the "alternative science" comes from the
| Baptists and Evangelicals.
| pbh101 wrote:
| Why is this ironic?
| kergonath wrote:
| Indeed, that is exactly what it is. Mainstream catholics
| don't really have a problem with science in general, but
| with moral consequences of some application of science.
| Broadly speaking, they are not saying that science is
| fake, more that there are some things we should not do.
|
| A conversation with a Jesuit for example can be
| enlightening because they have intellectual and moral
| arguments, it's not just castles built on the shifting
| foundations of a Bible verse.
|
| This leads to different approaches compared to a lot of
| American Protestants. They don't seek to undermine
| science.
| hliyan wrote:
| Not sure if this is accurate. I was once a member of an
| astronomy club and its patron was a Catholic priest who was
| very much into the subject. And he wasn't even a Jesuit.
| vidarh wrote:
| The Jesuits do indeed have a long tradition of research on
| the basis of a belief that understanding how the universe
| works gives a greater understanding of God's creation.
|
| As such, they've traditionally been more open, and a
| disproportionately high proportion of Jesuits have been
| scientists. At one point about 1/3 of all members of the
| Jesuit order were scientists.
|
| "The pope's astronomer"[1] is a jesuit, and the Jesuits have
| a long tradition in astronomy, with the result of numerous
| lunar craters (e.g. McNally) and several asteroids named
| after Jesuits. More than once, Jesuits have also tangled with
| the question of extraterrestial life, e.g.[2a] - a question
| fraught by the question it would raise about what it would
| mean for belief [2b].
|
| Wikipedia also has a long list of Catholic clergy
| scientists[3]. When reading it, it's worth considering that
| if anything they had more influence as teachers (e.g.
| Descartes, Mersenne were both educated at Jesuit colleges),
| _and_ that the order ranged from low thousands to a few tens
| of thousands during the centuries the list covers.
|
| With respect to the last few popes, the most notable recent
| intervention is Pope Francis making clear that he saw the
| theories of evolution and the Big Bang as real[4]. But
| already in 1950, even the deeply conservative Pope Pius XII,
| while expressing _hope_ that evolution would prove to be a
| passing fad, made clear that catholic doctrine officially did
| not conflict with evolution. John Paul II formally acquitted
| Galileo, and stated that "truth cannot contradict truth",
| when talking about evolution vs. catholic doctrine. [5]
|
| [1] https://www.deseret.com/faith/2024/07/27/vatican-
| observatory...
|
| [2a] https://aleteia.org/2020/08/28/jesuit-astronomer-calls-
| extra...
|
| [2b] https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/men-black-belief-
| aliens-no...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_sci
| ent...
|
| [4] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-
| francis...
|
| [5] http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/vati
| can...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Catholics don't generally adopt the anti-science stuff. Their
| dogma around life has some walls around some areas of
| medicine.
|
| I know several priests who are scientists or
| teachers/professors.
|
| Evangelicals have a simpler dogma where the individual
| minister or church has more sway (hence the joke about the
| man on a desert island with a hut, a church, and a church he
| doesn't go to). It's a more populist form of worship, which
| has ups and downs.
| ccppurcell wrote:
| I was always taught that relativity, evolution, an old
| universe and even a not too literal interpretation of the
| bible (some caveats to that last one) are perfectly
| compatible with Catholicism. My dad was taught by Jesuits and
| I was taught at a former convent school. The Vatican has an
| observatory and the pontifical academy of sciences is far
| from an "answers in genesis" type organisation.
| mrj wrote:
| I went to a Jesuit university. The way it was explained to me
| could be simplified to: God wouldn't lie to us, God made
| nature, so then scientific discoveries therefore teach us
| more about nature and God. When a new discovery threatens old
| teachings, the Jesuits convene and figure out how to
| incorporate this new understanding into their beliefs,
| strengthening them rather than threatening.
|
| I found it inspiring. I'm genuinely sad about the Pope's
| passing. He was a man who followed the teachings as he
| understood them.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| It always seems weird and ignorant for people to be labeling
| Catholic bishops as "left-wing" or "right-wing" or
| "liberal/progressive" or "conservative".
|
| Those are all political terms for politicians and their
| platforms or parties. They do not translate to Catholic
| doctrines or teachings. Y'all are simply parroting what the
| lamestream media wants to impose, a political veneer on non-
| politicians who are shepherds, pastors, teachers.
| andrepd wrote:
| There very much is such a thing as a "progressive" and
| "conservative" wing in Catholicism, and the Vatican is well
| known to be very much a viper's nest. It's naive to imply
| that all those clergymen are simply "shepherds, pastors,
| teachers".
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Catholic bishops and clergy like to meddle in politics.
|
| In the US, reactionaries are dumping lots on money on the
| church, and many bishops have embraced right wing politics,
| stupidly aligning with evangelicals who deeply despise
| Catholicism in the process.
|
| Some of the moves made are comically dumb. The archbishop of
| New York decided to make a big show about denying communion
| to the notoriously vindictive former governor of the state.
| That governor subsequently changed the look back period for
| civil sex abuse lawsuits, which has bankrupted or is in the
| process of bankrupting dioceses as they are forced to own up
| to their failures to protect children.
| ebiester wrote:
| https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/study-liberal-us-priests-
| fa...
|
| This is a Catholic media group. It uses the words as above.
| Think Karl Rahner or Yves Congar.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Y'all are simply parroting what the lamestream media wants
| to impose, a political veneer on non-politicians who are
| shepherds, pastors, teachers.
|
| Bishops and Cardinals are very much political animals.
| kelnos wrote:
| While "progressive", "conservative", etc. are commonly used
| as political labels, they are general terms that describe how
| a person wants to see the world work. All people, regardless
| of their job or function, can have these sorts of terms
| ascribed to them.
|
| And the Catholic Church exists on the world stage, and is
| involved in politics. Its leadership can be and is political.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Francis spent the last couple of years creating new cardinals
| to stack the College in what - he hoped - was a more
| progressive direction.
|
| But the College has a mind of its own, and there is going to be
| some _furious_ horse trading happening behind the scenes to
| steer the result in one direction or the other.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Newton never realized exactly how insightful his 3rd law of
| motion truly was.
| skissane wrote:
| > Francis spent the last couple of years creating new
| cardinals to stack the College in what - he hoped - was a
| more progressive direction.
|
| I don't think that was necessarily what he was doing.
|
| He tried to rebalance it to include a lot more cardinals from
| the developing world-who on average tend to be more
| conservative, at least on some issues. He arguably avoided
| the more outspoken conservatives, but he would have caught up
| a lot of quieter conservatives in the process.
|
| Whereas, if he just wanted to stack it with progressives, he
| would have focused on adding cardinals from the developed
| world, where Catholic progressivism is arguably the
| strongest.
| Shacklz wrote:
| RIP. He was a likable guy with the heart in the right place,
| always struck me as deeply humble.
|
| The world would be better off if many a leader these days,
| religious or otherwise, would be a bit more like him.
| lagrange77 wrote:
| I can imagine that for people of faith there is a lot to be read
| into the time of death.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Several ways.
| mjh2539 wrote:
| For the superstitious perhaps, but not for those that have the
| virtue of religion!
|
| https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14339a.htm
| antognini wrote:
| The last three popes have all died during the Octave of Easter
| or Christmas.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| May he rest in peace.
| carlos-menezes wrote:
| https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis...
|
| > According to Archbishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic
| Ceremonies, the late Pope Francis had requested that the funeral
| rites be simplified and focused on expressing the faith of the
| Church in the Risen Body of Christ.
|
| Always struck me as a simple man and that likely contributed to
| people liking him more when compared to his predecessors. RIP.
| jjude wrote:
| Pope John Paul II was also extremely popular across the world.
| carlos-menezes wrote:
| He was, but John Paul II was traditionally conservative. I
| think Francis resonated with more people-Christian or not-
| because he emphasized compassion, humility, and social
| justice.
|
| He spoke more openly about issues like poverty, climate
| change, and inclusion-his encyclical LAUDATO SI' is a great
| read-, and he often used language and gestures that the
| "common man" could relate to.
|
| Perhaps the way he dressed so simply-with the plain white
| cassock-also emphasized his overall approach: less focus on
| grandeur, more on service.
| bootsmann wrote:
| Didn't JPII rebuild the curia so that progressive popes
| like Francis could get closer to the keys of power?
| bonzini wrote:
| Yes and no. He was at the same time very open to being
| "part of the world" beyond the church, but also very
| conservative in ethics. In the end the former prevailed
| also in terms of progressiveness, but it wasn't a given.
| emmelaich wrote:
| I think it's interesting that PJII was very popular with
| Catholics and possibly less so with non-Christian. Despite
| or _because_ being more conservative? He was also a very
| good man and humble.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| JPII was a long running Pope. I would guess most people
| wouldn't know how conservative or not he was, or even
| what means in the context of the Catholic Church. He was
| the first Pope many of us knew, and the Pope who was with
| many of us the longest. He is probably most well known
| for the pope mobile.
| yusina wrote:
| Ignorance of abuse scandals. Opus Dei support. Opposition
| of contraception.
|
| A very good man indeed.
| neves wrote:
| He actively visited other countries and celebrated
| massive masses. I believe he was the first Pope to travel
| around the world bringing his faith. He also efficiently
| used the media.
| bonzini wrote:
| JP was a great communicator. He understood what it meant
| for the church to talk to the people--first by traveling
| to many countries and in opposition to communist atheism,
| later with the organization of the Journee Mondiale de la
| Jeunesse. During the late 90s there was a pretty big
| Catholic spiritual movement towards boys and girls in
| their late teens or early 20s and it's crazy how big the
| JMJ was.
|
| His trick was hiding the conservative positions behind
| the mask of the beloved communicator.
| andrepd wrote:
| He also covered up sexual abuses, game power to the Opus
| Dei, and aggressively pushed the disgusting mandate
| against condoms in the middle of the AIDS pandemic. Yeah,
| not a fan.
| column wrote:
| [flagged]
| scrollop wrote:
| "telling Ukraine to "have the courage of the white
| flag"."
|
| Perhaps he should have told Russia to have the "courage"
| to stop murdering people.
| redeeman wrote:
| do you think that would have even the slightest chance of
| changing anything?
| mgiannopoulos wrote:
| So never speak against brutal aggressors who commit war
| crimes? That seems to be antithetical to Christian
| values.
| redeeman wrote:
| where did I say that? I am merely saying, that what WAS
| said might have higher chance of helping
| raverbashing wrote:
| No but it puts the ball on their court
| pc86 wrote:
| The ball was never in the Catholic Church's court in the
| first place, so no it does not.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Neither is the Israel/Gaza conflict ball, doesn't
| preclude them from voicing their opinion on it
| redeeman wrote:
| no, it doesnt. What my point is, is that it would have
| done NOTHING, whereas the message he did send probably
| had higher chances, and is atleast something someone
| might listen to, even if they dont follow the advice.
|
| (well except ofcourse the corrupt dictator in ukraine, so
| it naturally falls on deaf ears)
| gambiting wrote:
| John Paul II is widely credited with helping Poland
| overthrow communism. While he won't change the world
| overnight, there are millions of people even in Russia
| who respect the Roman Catholic pope, even if they aren't
| Roman Catholics themselves.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Comdemning evil is an act with many purposes. Making the
| evil-doer change his mind is just one of possible
| benefit. Even if that is unlikely the other ones remain.
|
| * People naturally imitate what they see others do. A
| condemnation can prevent others from imitating the evil
| act.
|
| * A condemnation calls on others to resist and not
| facilitate the evil act.
|
| * Condemning someone makes you enemies, in a way that is
| plain for everyone to see. This positioning can open up
| for alliance offers from others with similar beliefs.
|
| Making someone an enemy comes with risks and drawbacks of
| course. You become less able to influence someone if you
| cut ties, hence why people suggest to try influencing in
| private first.
| weberer wrote:
| >Pope begs Putin to end 'spiral of violence and death'
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230326034459/https://www.re
| ute...
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| He did. Several times.
| cheema33 wrote:
| > telling Ukraine to "have the courage of the white
| flag".
|
| If an aggressor attacks your country, it takes courage to
| surrender. Churchill was a coward it seems. He could have
| surrendered to the Germans and saved so many lives on
| both sides.
|
| /s
| detourdog wrote:
| Pope Francis was the only Pope that resonated with me. I
| was really shocked that at how human his words were. The
| moment he came on the scene he seemed genuine and honest. I
| hope they find more like him.
| alistairSH wrote:
| There was an interview on NPR this morning with a high-
| level Jesuit in the Americas (former leader of the order in
| Canada and USA, IIRC).
|
| He put it well... Pope Francis was always a pastor at
| heart. And he put the needs of the person in front of him
| ahead of strict doctrine. The interviewee likened it to
| triage in a field hospital - address the soul in front of
| you, worry about doctrine later (suture the wound, worry
| about cholesterol later).
| mantas wrote:
| JPII was also elected in a very different world. And he
| played a big moral role in taking down iron curtain and
| getting Eastern Europe back Europe.
|
| Meanwhile Francis was quite the opposite. Especially as
| seen in the light of Russian aggression against Ukraine.
| For much of Eastern Europe that was like 180 turn. At least
| here both church goers and not seem to despise Francis
| while JPII has a warm place in the hearts both factions.
| Maybe it was different far away where Russia ain't a hot
| topic.
| dml2135 wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what you mean here? You seem to be
| alluding to a stance that Francis had towards Russia that
| I am not familiar with.
| mantas wrote:
| He said Ukraine should surrender. To Russia which wants
| to exterminate Ukraine as a nation, culture and language.
|
| Feel free to google for more details. There were multiple
| occurrences when he doubled-down on his words after
| backlash.
| gosub100 wrote:
| And if he rallied for war he'd be criticized just the
| same: "leader of the Christians is such a hypocrite
| advocating for killing .."
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Just war theory was first written on in the West by Saint
| Augustine.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > He said Ukraine should surrender.
|
| Which would be bad, had he done so, but he didn't
| actually say that; the white flag comment was
| specifically _and explicitly_ about being willing to
| directly negotiate with Russia, not about surrender.
|
| > There were multiple occurrences when he doubled-down on
| his words after backlash.
|
| He certainly called on multiple occasions for all parties
| to negotiate, but he was also consistent, both before
| Russia invaded, after the invasion and before the "white
| flag" comment, immediately after the "white flag"
| comment, and since that the invasion by Russia is (or
| "would be" before it occurred) unjustifiable, immoral, an
| act of aggression, and that Russia has the primary
| obligation to stop it.
| svieira wrote:
| He also spoke incredibly directly about abortion - "hiring
| a hitman" cuts right to the heart of the issue.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| [flagged]
| StefanBatory wrote:
| In Poland, he was a figure bigger than life.
| kitd wrote:
| Part of that though was that he was Polish, at a time when
| Poland and other Eastern European countries were Communist
| dictatorships. He represented in part a kind of "insurgency"
| against them.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| The first non-Italian pope since the 1500s. For comparison,
| note the 1968 movie The Shoes of the Fisherman, in which a
| priest from Russia unexpectedly becomes pope and provokes
| great political change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_S
| hoes_of_the_Fisherman_(fi...
| salviati wrote:
| His global appeal was real, but his decision to give Opus Dei
| and similar conservative Catholic networks special status
| under the Vatican had serious consequences.
|
| Elevating Escriva to sainthood and creating a personal
| prelature for Opus Dei handed them unmatched moral authority
| --authority they used to push back on women's autonomy,
| justify discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and quietly
| influence politics from Spain to Latin America.
|
| Popularity doesn't erase the impact of empowering hard-right
| movements that have harmed lives across the globe.
| andrepd wrote:
| Even in Europe Opus Dei has immense influence in certain
| circles. I've seen first-hand the nefarious effects of
| that.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| The church is never going to be pro feminism or pro LGBTQ.
| I don't think many, many people find that to be a
| dealbreaker especially in many developing nations where the
| entirety of the medical and schooling framework is solely
| provided by the church and cultural mores already line up
| with those perspectives.
| andrepd wrote:
| JP2 was liked by catholics (the reasons are interesting and
| complicated enough that would warrant a long discussion). But
| Francis was generally well-liked even by the irreligious.
| xeromal wrote:
| I know a few muslims that liked him. I believe he just
| seemed like a "good guy" who wanted to unify the world
| numbers_guy wrote:
| Since I see a lot of people commenting on this topic, I would
| like to offer a different perspective.
|
| Pope JPII was for my southern European social democratic
| Catholic family much more polarizing than Pope Francis. Pope
| Francis had politics that are mainstream and not at all
| controversial in my part of the world. Whereas JPII was
| perceived as the guy who was buddies with Reagan and Bush and
| a general supporter of American foreign policy. To what
| extent that was a fair assessment, I do not want to comment,
| since he did try to speak against the invasion of Iraq.
|
| None the less, it is not true that Pope Francis is more
| popular with non-Catholics (Reagan, Bush and most of the US
| were not Catholic and big supporters of JPII). It was also
| JPII that started the interfaith dialogue. It is also not
| true that Pope Francis is unpopular with Catholics.
|
| There are Catholics all across the globe with vastly
| different opinions on all kinds of issues.
| dmix wrote:
| As an outsider it sounds like both were in the current
| overton window of the power systems at the time.
| alistairSH wrote:
| That's a fair assessment.
|
| Notably, while Francis is sometimes considered liberal,
| there weren't (m)any notable changes to Church doctrine
| during his papacy.
|
| He did have a habit (a good one, IMO) of speaking more
| off-the-cuff in interviews. Whether that was contrived,
| or just a natural part of his personality, I do not know.
| But, it was those comments that usually led to the "he's
| a liberal!" comments. And both sides of the political
| spectrum said similar things... "He's a liberal (like
| us)!" or "He's a liberal (unlike us)!" - so he was
| probably doing something right.
| keepamovin wrote:
| I thought the film the Two Popes gave a good overview of his
| life and perspective.
| gortok wrote:
| It's important to note that The Two Popes was a drama, and
| not a true factual story.
|
| It fictionalizes and sensationalizes some details; and that's
| ok because its purpose is to make you feel exactly the way
| you feel about it.
|
| Pope Francis was a wonderful steward of Christianity and
| espoused the virtues that anyone would want to see in their
| religious leaders: humility, grace, an openness to listen and
| a strong voice against even prelates in his own church that
| are xenophobic or nationalistic. He wanted us to welcome all
| and to live as the bible said Jesus did.
|
| The fear I have is that each swing of the pendulum goes in
| two directions. He was far more "liberal" than the
| conservative Catholic prelates of the USCCB, and I fear his
| actions -- including rightfully limiting the Latin mass, will
| force the church to swing in the other direction and give in
| to the illiberal forces that divide us.
| keepamovin wrote:
| _Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give
| to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
| troubled and do not be afraid._
|
| - John 14:27
| ralfd wrote:
| > including rightfully limiting the Latin mass
|
| Why is that a political thing though? The mass of the roman
| church was for centuries (almost all it's history?) in
| latin.
| gortok wrote:
| Indeed; and when the Second Vatican Council decided Mass
| should be said in the vernacular, the obligation of the
| Church was to follow. Instead, the conservatives of the
| church ('conservative' here means those that emphasize
| adhering to tradition and are adverse to change) created
| a rift by eschewing this change and even heightening the
| importance of the Latin Mass, creating the impression
| that a mass spoken in the local language was somehow less
| of a mass.
|
| If you're Catholic, suggesting that a mass spoken in one
| language over another is somehow "less" takes away from
| the most important idea of the Mass: reenacting Christ's
| Last supper commandment and the institution of the Holy
| Eucharist for what amounts to word games.
|
| This divisive description of the mass increased over the
| decades, to the point that it threatened to cause a
| schism. As such it was the Holy Father's duty to resolve
| the issue.
| gambiting wrote:
| There are still groups(at least I'm aware of them in
| Poland, I've met people who are part of them) who believe
| exactly this, that the second Vatican Sobor was a mistake
| and the "real" mass is only the one conducted in Latin.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| It seems unlikely that Jesus spoke Latin at the last
| supper.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Also unlikely that Jesus intended for the ceremony to be
| conducted at times other than the evening of his death
| (replacing Passover). Up for interpretation, I suppose.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| As in just the one time? Or as a once per year
| replacement?
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Once per year. He commanded his disciples to "do this in
| remembrance of me."
|
| There is no mention of how often, but given Jesus allergy
| to ritual as opposed to genuine acts of worship, it seems
| reasonable that this would not be a commonplace thing.
|
| Again... interpretation.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| We can get context for how the early Christians
| understood it by looking to additional sources from that
| period, e.g. the Didache and the early Church Fathers.
|
| https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/holy-eucharist-
| in-t...
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| You're under the impression that's relevant? How so?
| Asking out of genuine curiosity.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| My understanding is that the mass is intended to be a
| recreation or commemoration of that event. So why is
| speaking it in Latin important?
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| In the early centuries of Christianity, as it spread
| geographically, there developed distinct rites of worship
| that solidified and then were handed down to the present,
| retaining strong links to the spoken-written languages
| used to express them originally.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_particular_churche
| s_a...
|
| Oversimplifying greatly, but in and from Western Europe
| we have the Latin Rite, and in/from the East we have the
| Byzantine (Greek) Rite. There are others, not of less
| importance, see the link above.
|
| There's quite a lot of history involved in all this. But
| in Western Christianity it was Latin that became
| predominant for public worship and knowledge
| transmission.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| > the Second Vatican Council decided Mass should be said
| in the vernacular
|
| It didn't actually.
|
| See _Sacrosanctum Concilium_ : https://www.vatican.va/arc
| hive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_coun...
|
| Vatican II opened the way for use of vernacular in the
| Mass while also directing "use of the Latin language is
| to be preserved in the Latin rites".
|
| In practice, after the overhaul of the Latin rites was
| completed and promulgated (published) in 1969, four years
| after the council ended in '65, the Latin language itself
| was dropped almost everywhere all at once and only
| translations were used. Many people rejoiced at that,
| some did not, but the vast majority of bishops, priests
| and laity alike, conservatives and liberals across the
| full spectrum, probably 99.999%, went ahead full throttle
| with Mass and all the sacraments in the vernacular.
|
| There were hold-out contingents like the SSPX, led by
| Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who stuck with the all Latin
| rites per the last round of small reforms in 1962, the
| same as used for the celebration of Mass, etc. during the
| whole time of the council from 1962-65.
|
| It was over the next 40 years that discontent with the
| reforms of 1969, and their fallout, began to grow. There
| was increasing awareness that it wasn't just a switch
| from Latin to vernacular -- the '69 reforms were "cut
| from whole cloth", outright replacing the traditional
| rites with syntheses of a commission of scholars. Long
| story short, many Catholics, some born before '69 and
| many born after (myself included), desire a return, and
| have implemented a return, to the traditional form of the
| Latin rites. Pope Benedict XVI gave it his blessing. But
| then Pope Francis was not a fan, believing it to be a
| retrograde movement that causes more harm than good and a
| kind of "saying no" to the Holy Spirit. It's hard to find
| middle ground on this matter, to be quite honest.
| keepamovin wrote:
| Illa fuit captatio nerdorum maxime satisfaciens.
| throaway1989 wrote:
| The issue ive heard with non-Latin mass is that it has
| lessened the feeling of global community among Catholics
| as they now do not all speak the same language (Latin).
| philsnow wrote:
| Anecdatum, but I still feel like part of a community when
| I go to Mass in a language I'm not familiar with, because
| its rhythm and flow are the same more or less everywhere.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm definitely not old enough to predate
| vatican 2, so I'm not from a time when Latin Mass was
| widespread.
| tptacek wrote:
| It's complicated. Few people in the church, including the
| priests themselves, are fluent in Latin (there's a story
| told, I think by Francis himself, about an diocese in
| England that required priests to pass an exam to give a
| Traditional Latin Mass, and almost none of the requesting
| priests could pass). The TLM obscures what the mass is
| about, which creates space for practitioners to
| substitute in their own things, which, as it happens,
| tends to be idiosyncratically ultra-conservative stuff.
| The church is a top-down institution, and the TLM gets in
| the way of that and divides it.
|
| (I like Latin! Took it in high school, reading Lingua
| Latina for fun; I think the TLM is neat. But
| problematic.)
| pcwalton wrote:
| For fun, try searching YouTube for "speaking latin at the
| vatican". It's hard to find people who can speak it even
| there!
| ithkuil wrote:
| sed invenire potes ibi scorpionem martianum
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| > The TLM obscures what the mass is about...
|
| Well, opinions and all that...
|
| My experience, and that of many of my fellow TLM goers
| that I've heard or read, is that we treasure solemn
| reverent worship that helps us focus on the Eucharistic
| sacrifice. If we were being distracted from "what the
| mass is about", we'd take ourselves and our children
| elsewhere.
|
| Here's a video of yesterday's Easter Sunday Mass offered
| by priests of the same religious order that operates the
| oratory where I attend Mass:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/live/XshPZzdI0zk
|
| If you get an opportunity, maybe attend Mass one Sunday
| at a location of the ICKSP or the FSSP. I believe you'll
| experience a welcoming community of Catholics passionate
| about Jesus.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'd rather not get snark for putting my Christmas tree up
| the first week of December. My nearest TLM is at an SSPX
| chapel.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Well, SSPX is a thing. I've never been to one of their
| chapels myself, though there is one here in St. Louis and
| some folks who now attend the local oratory run by the
| ICKSP used to be regulars there. As a group, they seem to
| have a bit of a chip on their shoulder (irregular
| communion and all that), which has not been my experience
| with the ICKSP and FSSP, who are in full communion with
| the local bishops and Rome, even if the most recent pope
| was not exactly gracious toward "trads".
| tptacek wrote:
| Regarding obscurantism, I don't know how one gets around
| that observation. It's striking to me that even many TLM
| celebrants aren't fluent in the language. You know why
| you're going and you seem to have a good reason for it,
| and I respect that. I think the rap on the TLM is that,
| in addition to reasonable people like yourself, it also
| attracts a lot of whackjobs, some of whom have
| unfortunately included priests.
|
| I'd actually love to attend a TLM! But I'm not setting
| foot into a chapel run by an order whose officiants
| accused the Jews of orchestrating 9/11. (That's SSPX, of
| course, _not_ FSSP.)
|
| I hope my "it's complicated" gives me some cover from the
| idea that I'm a folk-group C&E Catholic just looking to
| dunk on some tradcaths. I mean, I may be that too; it's
| complicated.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Imagine going to church every Saturday or Sunday and
| sitting through a 1 hour service that you don't
| understand. The conservative side of the church has
| decided that it hates change, and since the Latin
| services were mostly cast aside, that's a bad thing to
| them.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Understanding the Mass and uniting in prayer with the
| Eucharistic sacrifice are one thing, being fluent in
| Latin is another thing.
|
| One does not necessarily imply or require or constrain
| the other.
| philsnow wrote:
| The dozen or so TLMs I've ever been to have had their
| readings in the vernacular. All the other parts are
| either the same every time (or have only a few
| variations) or are propers (specific to each day).
|
| I never studied Latin, but I don't find it difficult at
| all to keep up. A lot of churches that have TLM have the
| missal booklet with Latin on one page and vernacular on
| the facing page.
|
| While I do appreciate the richness of the daily propers
| and miss understanding them, it doesn't bother me enough
| to avoid the TLM.
| tiahura wrote:
| My first impression when he arrived was of the Bishop of Digne.
| May the world be that lucky again.
| JoshTko wrote:
| His persona as being simple focus is just PR, no different than
| puff pieces about bill gates driving a Prius, or Warren buffet
| living in the first house that be bought.
| Daishiman wrote:
| This is really not true for those who knew him throughout his
| life.
| dctoedt wrote:
| >> According to Archbishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic
| Ceremonies, the late Pope Francis had requested that the
| funeral rites be simplified and focused on expressing the faith
| of the Church in the Risen Body of Christ.
|
| As a kinda-sorta Christian (raised Catholic), I've long admired
| the Jewish approach to the Mourner's Kaddish prayer said when a
| loved one dies: It's not about the deceased, nor even about
| death -- it's about G-d. It starts out (in English
| translation): "Glorified and sanctified be God's great name
| throughout the world which He has created according to His
| will."
|
| https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/text-of-the-mourner...
| andrepd wrote:
| More than concrete actions, his posture and presentation as a
| simple man is probably his most recognisable legacy for
| believers and nonbelievers.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| :(
|
| And for political side - in Poland, he was seen as way too
| leftist/liberal for the conservatives in Church, and too pro-
| Russian for the liberals in it - he had not condemned Russian
| invasion of Ukraine.
| consumer451 wrote:
| This was a very interesting thing to witness. It seemed to
| indicate that politics is more powerful than religion, even in
| a country as religious as Poland.
|
| I found this surprising and genuinely thought-provoking.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| I had been talking with my conservative colleagues - they
| were deeply unhappy with him on stance of migration, LGBT
| issues, or even very recent - his talk with Vance, whom they
| support (American politics are just so big that it has effect
| on us even across the ocean).
|
| Then, from religious point of view - they didn't really like
| his ecumenism approach, to them it was borderline of heresy.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I was born in, and currently live in Poland. It truly blows
| my mind that any Polish person could side with a foreign
| political party that openly sides with moscow over Ukraine
| and even Poland. Political alignment is truly the strongest
| drug for many people.
| ptero wrote:
| While I support Ukraine and would like to see a stronger,
| more unified front from the collective West, making this
| the only question that matters in Polish politics seems
| wrong. My 2c.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Also, while I think that barring a fringe part of
| society, everyone would agree, the fun part is, how do
| you get to people to agree who's pro-Russian or not ;) Of
| course, this is for local parties, but go to /r/Poland
| and /r/Polska and ask them, what parties are pro-Russian.
| Then to Wykop, both Mikroblog and frontpage, and see the
| reactions.
|
| Same thing will apply here.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Anecdotally, my uncle just dropped by to thank me for the
| Easter flowers I had left at their place. He is pretty
| conservative, had always railed against this pope, and
| just called him a really good man. So at least today,
| religion and forgiveness won his heart.
| cladopa wrote:
| The concept of Liberal in the US is different from liberal in
| Europe. In Europe "liberal" means supporter of low taxes, small
| govertment. The concept in the US has to do with sexual
| liberation and sexual freedom more than economic marxism.
|
| Francis was not sexually liberal. He was marxist. He believed
| in liberation theology.
|
| As someone who knew personally the man from a spiritual
| exercises' house in Spain(obviously when he was not yet Pope),
| I never liked the guy.
|
| He was the friend of dictators. Loved so much Raul Castro, and
| Maduro, never criticised them, but criticised the affluence of
| western democracies. His business was the poor and he loved
| poor makers.
|
| His support for Putin and not denouncing the takeover of
| absolute power was jarring for someone in his position.
|
| You can be a leftist religious leader, but you have to report
| abuses when you see them, specially if the abuses are made by
| your friends. Of course you will lose them if you do.
|
| Francis was too weak in character to oppose them. But as a
| Pope, that is your job.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| He was a man of hypocrisy:
|
| Immigrants must be welcome as a moral imperative, but not in
| the Vatican!
|
| Bigotry is wrong, except for the modern Marxist form!
|
| Embrace the Progressive world view, but don't talk about how
| we forcibly sterilized people!
|
| Etc.
| femto wrote:
| At one point Francis said "The Patriarch cannot become Putin's
| altar boy", in reference to Kirill, the leader of the Russian
| Orthodox Church [1]. Maybe Francis recognised that working to
| get Kirill to temper his support for Putin would be more
| effective than his own public condemnation, which might allow
| propagandists to whip up a Western vs. Orthodox religious
| frenzy to unify Russians behind Putin?
|
| [1] https://www.wn.catholic.org.nz/adw_welcom/pope-says-
| kirill-m...
| nektro wrote:
| RIP, i hope it was peaceful. he was such a good leader and force
| within the church.
| tomhow wrote:
| All: The topic of this thread is the passing of a significant
| public figure. Discussion should be primarily focused on
| thoughtful reflections on the life of that person, and his
| influence on the institution he represented and the broader
| world. Generic commentary about the institution, religion in
| general, or other public figures or issues, is likely off topic.*
|
| Before commenting, please take a moment to consider whether your
| comment is within the HN guidelines [1], particularly the first
| two:
|
| _Be kind. Don 't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-
| examine. Edit out swipes._
|
| _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less,
| as a topic gets more divisive._
|
| (*Edited in response to community feedback.)
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| BargirPezza wrote:
| RIP, I have given Francis my prayers for his soul and his close
| ones and everyone who saw him as a leader and a holy figure. God
| can use anything for the good <3
| d3ckard wrote:
| I think he will be mostly remembered as a terrible politician,
| first alienating conservatives with progressive policy and then
| alienating liberals with very questionable opinions on war in
| Ukraine.
|
| In the end, nobody was really happy with him. On the other hand,
| he definitely had a will and a spine to stick to his own opinions
| - I guess that counts for something.
| empiko wrote:
| I don't think that US conservatives and liberals are were the
| center of gravity of papal policy is.
| d3ckard wrote:
| US doesn't have a monopoly on those words and I am not even
| American.
| pyfon wrote:
| A good politician is a people pleaser?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| A comment I'd heard some time back concerned a politician.
| The speaker (not a politician themselves, but recalling an
| interaction with one) had said to the politician something
| like "I suppose you want to win with the biggest majority
| possible". The politician responded along the lines of, "No,
| that would mean I wasn't doing my job; if I'm really pushing
| the limits of the possible I'll have just the barest
| majority."
|
| People pleasing in politics means never pushing out of the
| public's comfort zone.
|
| (And no, this isn't an endorsement of any current orange head
| of state, far from it.)
| d3ckard wrote:
| A good politician is able to garner support to enact change.
| deletedie wrote:
| How very Christ-like
| d3ckard wrote:
| Yeah, nothing says Jesus like siding with the aggressor due
| to your own prejudices.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| Jesus famously said turn the other cheek
| d3ckard wrote:
| You can't turn your other cheek when you're dead, so I am
| pretty sure he didn't mean it as allow yourself to get
| killed.
|
| Besides, Ukraine did turn other cheek after 2014 war,
| they just run out of cheeks to turn.
|
| Back to main subject, I believe nothing weakened Pope
| Francis's policies as much as his widely misunderstood
| position on this subject.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > he didn't mean it as allow yourself to get killed.
|
| You know, what happened on Easter right?
| d3ckard wrote:
| I do, according to christian doctrine Jesus sacrificed
| himself for humanity's sins. That sacrifice wouldn't be
| particularly meaningful if it came with expectation for
| everybody to follow through. As much as I am not a fan of
| this (or any other) religion, I'm pretty sure it's not a
| suicide pact.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| I think getting killed for your belief is exactly what
| Jesus was arguing for. It was also what all apostles did
| and the only cause for the next 300 years to be declared
| a saint.
|
| Jesus' death was special, because he was without sins, he
| was the son of God (YMMV) and, because was walking around
| afterwards physically (i.e. capable of touching and
| eating, etc.) on earth. I am not sure, why you name it
| suicide, because he didn't killed himself, he got himself
| killed.
|
| I do not think, that Jesus would defend "the agressor".
| But fighting in return is also not good, which is where
| "turning the other cheek" comes into play.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| Jesus pretty famously did allow himself to be killed
| d3ckard wrote:
| Yep, as a sacrifice. Using this as a justification for
| aggressive war against a christian nation is not only
| extremely intellectually dishonest, but against the
| doctrine as well.
| moralestapia wrote:
| [flagged]
| d3ckard wrote:
| Thanks for that comment, as it encouraged me to read a
| wikipedia article on the subject, which was very
| interesting.
|
| Link for others:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek
| tomhow wrote:
| You could educate the audience, rather than commenting
| like this. People are here to have curious conversations.
|
| _Please don 't sneer, including at the rest of the
| community._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| basisword wrote:
| >> In the end, nobody was really happy with him.
|
| This is true if you live in a bubble. Most Catholics don't hold
| strong opinions on the Pope. The people who do are, as usual,
| the extremes on either side - not the majority.
| d3ckard wrote:
| Not holding a strong opinion counts as not being happy with
| him, otherwise you would have a strong positive opinion of
| him.
| CKMo wrote:
| I genuinely liked him, even as an atheist. He seemed to be trying
| his best to make the world a better place and I can't fault him
| for that.
| jamesblonde wrote:
| Same here. Although I grew up a Catholic and am now an atheist,
| my father counselled me that there were few institutions in the
| world that look after the downtrodden. The Catholic church has
| often not done that, but under Francis moved more towards that
| goal than any other time in recent history.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > look after the downtrodden. The Catholic church
|
| gifted all women indissoluble marriage, which was practiced
| by the Roman aristocracy as "confarreatio".
|
| This was trashed as soon as possible, and the trashing was
| billed as great progress.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > .. even as an atheist
|
| lots of christians didn't like him, considering he was too
| progressive
| conductr wrote:
| I think these are two sides of the same coin
| kome wrote:
| i saw this only on the internet tho, and mainly the english
| speaking internet, never in real life.
| numbers_guy wrote:
| Only American Protesting Catholics had issues with him. The
| same ones that post Deus Vult memes on Facebook.
| gambiting wrote:
| Plenty(well, some) Catholics in Poland had an issue with
| him for the exact same reason - just way too progressive
| for them. Although I do think that American Catholics are
| particularly.....fervent in their beliefs.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Look up some numbers, his approval ratings outside of
| America were rapidly declining (at least in Latin America).
| [1] Interestingly the US is the one place where his
| approval ratings didn't decline over time, probably owing
| to the perfectly divided nature of contemporary politics.
| As he lost support from one side he gained it in equal
| proportions from the other. But in places like Argentina,
| his birth place no less, his approval rating dropped 27
| points as he got increasingly involved in Progressive
| stuff.
|
| [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2024/09/26/how-peopl...
| yodsanklai wrote:
| One data point, but I live in a progressive country in
| western Europe, and I have close family members who are in
| the "right wing / trumpist / christians" movement (which
| does exist in Europe too), and obviously they really
| disliked this pope.
| kergonath wrote:
| On the other hand, lots of christians liked him because he
| was progressive (more than his predecessor, anyway).
| Catholics are not all fundamentalists and in general don't
| have much in common with the catholics bishops in the US, who
| are for the most part downright medieval.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| A prevalent sentiment.
|
| I'd researched popes' policies and statements toward the poor
| some years back, and he really had no peer going back
| centuries.
|
| Partial exception in the late 1900s, under Leo XIII (1878--
| 1903), in the encyclical _Rerum novarum_.
| andrepd wrote:
| Rerum Novarum was the basis of catholic social teaching
| since, so...
|
| But yes, one thing is statements another is actions,
| regarding the latter the Latin Church's actions have often
| not been in keeping with their lofty writings.
| glimshe wrote:
| I'm not religious either, but was educated in a Jesuit school.
| He brought a well needed breath of fresh air to the church. He
| was a pope for our times. Let's see if the church will be able
| to make another strong selection to replace him.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| He riled many of his flock and hierarchy when he said that
| "even atheists can be redeemed". [0]
|
| I will always applaud a person who retreats -- even just a
| little -- from dogma and fanaticism.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/29/187009384/...
| kergonath wrote:
| > He riled many of his flock and hierarchy when he said that
| "even atheists can be redeemed".
|
| Which is "interesting", considering how much of the New
| Testament is about redemption and reaching out to outsiders.
| Aren't we all supposed to be God's creation, and wasn't Jesus
| supposed to teach us about salvation, redemption and
| forgiveness?
|
| (And by "interesting", I mean that it is yet another of
| example cognitive dissonance amongst fundamentalists. If
| anyone can be redeemed, it implies that atheists can, as
| well.)
|
| > I will always applaud a person who retreats -- even just a
| little -- from dogma and fanaticism.
|
| Indeed. He was not perfect but he was better than most. I
| hope the next one won't be a catholic version of patriarch
| Kirill.
| codr7 wrote:
| Mind explaining your issues with Kirill?
|
| Haven't really been paying attention. Wasn't he the one who
| got Russia into defending persecuted Christians wherever
| (Syria etc)?
| hylaride wrote:
| Read up on him more. He's essentially former KGB that was
| originally assigned to keep an eye on the token remnants
| of the church in Soviet Russia. He's now saying the war
| against Ukraine is "holy and justified", signing up to
| fight is "guaranteed to wipe away your sins", etc. He's
| designed to manipulate a segment of the population. He's
| Putin's method to "religiously justify" whatever Putin
| wants.
| thimkerbell wrote:
| ("He" here is Kirill not the Pope)
| senderista wrote:
| The Russian Orthodox Church has been a Chekist front
| since Stalin revived it for nationalistic reasons during
| WW2. Kirill is just continuing the tradition.
| lolinder wrote:
| The man declared Putin's war to be a literal crusade
| against the West:
|
| > From a spiritual and moral point of view, the special
| military operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its
| people, defending the single spiritual space of Holy
| Rus', fulfill the mission of the "Restrainer", protecting
| the world from the onslaught of globalism and the victory
| of the West that has fallen into Satanism.
|
| > After the end of the SVO, the entire territory of
| modern Ukraine must enter the zone of exclusive influence
| of Russia. The possibility of the existence on this
| territory of a Russophobic political regime hostile to
| Russia and its people, as well as a political regime
| controlled from an external center hostile to Russia,
| must be completely excluded.
|
| https://www-patriarchia-
| ru.translate.goog/db/text/6116189.ht...
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| He also said that russian men who die fighting in ukraine
| are guaranteed salvation. In orthodox theology this sort
| of thing has historically been recognized as a
| straightforward heresy. We do not claim to know in
| advance who will be saved, or by what specific acts. Not
| even bishops or metropolitans. So even from a strictly
| orthodox perspective he is dangerously divisive and has
| broken from one of our most important traditions.
|
| (The recognition of saints is a little different,
| happening always after their death and depending on some
| degree of regional consensus. It's sloppy but whatever,
| it is actually not as similar as it might look.)
| hylaride wrote:
| > Which is "interesting", considering how much of the New
| Testament is about redemption and reaching out to
| outsiders. Aren't we all supposed to be God's creation, and
| wasn't Jesus supposed to teach us about salvation,
| redemption and forgiveness?
|
| As religion has shrunk in participation in most of the
| west, it has become hugely susceptible to manipulation. My
| wife (now atheist, but grew up evangelical) often has to
| correct me when I make snide remarks about Christianity.
| Recently I made some comment about hypocrisy amongst
| Christians for supporting a multiply-divorced man who
| bragged about groping women for president (who has probably
| never read the bible), to say nothing of the people around
| him. She quickly snapped back at me that "they actually see
| themselves in him, have you not noticed all the sex
| scandals that happen in so many churches?" and then went on
| to list the "questionable" relationships in her own youth
| group. (I am NOT saying all Christians are like this, but
| religion is often used to cover up or excuse misdeeds).
|
| It is not unique to Christianity or even Islam, though.
| You're seeing a lot of religion being used to justify many
| terrible things, including many smaller ones in Africa and
| Asia that have been used to justify atrocities and
| genocide.
| kelnos wrote:
| I guess it's good to correct an incorrect accusation of
| hypocrisy. But it's not great when doing so takes the
| form, "People aren't being hypocrites in not condemning
| someone in power for the bad things he does, because they
| do those bad things too".
| kergonath wrote:
| > She quickly snapped back at me that "they actually see
| themselves in him, have you not noticed all the sex
| scandals that happen in so many churches?"
|
| I think she is right for some of these people. It is a
| human reaction, but it is still a moral failing. The
| proper Christian (well, Catholic, anyway) thing to do
| would be what is expected in a confession: recognise
| one's failings, express regret, and accept consequences,
| including punishment. Then comes redemption.
|
| Something that irks me fundamentally with most Christian
| religions is how they believe that they are Good People
| because they accepted God and rejected Evil. It's all
| good as long as you play the part. Once you start looking
| for excuses, you failed twice: first, because of your
| behaviour, and then for failing to repent. If you support
| someone because he made the same error you did, then you
| fail yet again. This behaviour is understandable, but
| trippy incorrect from a religious perspective and very
| hypocritical.
|
| In the grand scheme of things, it is very easy to get
| forgiveness, you just have to be sincere in your regrets
| (again, for Catholics, which is what I know).
| hylaride wrote:
| My (and my wife's) background is protestant. In this
| realm, there's no forgiveness unless you totally repent
| and accept the whole christian shebang. In extreme cases,
| it's not the the sin itself, but the rejection of
| god/jesus that's the worst you can do. Taken to the
| extreme, you see this manifested very strangely, like
| Chick tracts where the secular lifetime do-gooder burns
| in hell, but the terrible multiple murdering rapist gets
| into heaven because they repent "in time".
|
| I know there are wonderful ministers, christians, and
| people of all religions. But I've come to the conclusion
| that if said minister/church/religion gets involved in
| politics, there's a greater chance than not that it's
| being run by manipulative power-hungry people. And those
| people want strict control, making mistakes (often the
| way people learn best) is not tolerated by them. It's in
| some ways gotten worse, because they're now treating
| other people's refusals to follow (gay marriage, no
| prayer in schools, etc) as direct attacks on them.
| kergonath wrote:
| > My (and my wife's) background is protestant.
|
| Sorry I misinterpreted. Protestant denominations are
| convenient for politics, because there are so many of
| them and hey have so different positions.
|
| > In this realm, there's no forgiveness unless you
| totally repent and accept the whole christian shebang. In
| extreme cases, it's not the the sin itself, but the
| rejection of god/jesus that's the worst you can do.
|
| That's fertile ground for extremism and reinforces the
| group dynamics, for sure.
|
| > Taken to the extreme, you see this manifested very
| strangely, like Chick tracts where the secular lifetime
| do-gooder burns in hell, but the terrible multiple
| murdering rapist gets into heaven because they repent "in
| time".
|
| I think Pascal wrote something about this behaviour. I
| won't chase the source but IIRC the conclusion was that
| these people were hypocrites using religion to be
| terrible people and I tend to agree. Personally I find
| also weird to believe that God is so easily fooled, but
| that's just me.
|
| > But I've come to the conclusion that if said
| minister/church/religion gets involved in politics,
| there's a greater chance than not that it's being run by
| manipulative power-hungry people.
|
| Definitely. It is too effective as a tool for control and
| coercion. At least the Catholic Church mostly retreated
| from this. They do some lobbying but nobody is asking for
| a Catholic theocracy anywhere that I know of.
|
| > It's in some ways gotten worse, because they're now
| treating other people's refusals to follow (gay marriage,
| no prayer in schools, etc) as direct attacks on them.
|
| Yes. It is the end of enlightenment and the end of
| liberal democracies if enough people behave that way.
| These people are functionally similar to the imams who
| keep babbling about the shariah, it's time we see them
| that way.
| sramsay wrote:
| It's funny you mention Kiril. I keep thinking about Pope
| Francis's (apparently deep and genuine) friendship with
| Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church.
|
| It is traditional for the EP to visit Rome on the patronal
| Feast of Saints Peter and Paul and for the Pope to visit
| Istanbul on the Feast of Saint Andrew, which is apparently
| when the friendship first formed. My absolute favorite
| story about Francis is his deciding to send some of the
| most precious relics in the Vatican to Bartholomew as a
| gift: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-09/pope-
| francis... (That sent some people into a fury).
|
| Actually, it's my second favorite story. My favorite story
| is his insistence that he live in the Vatican guesthouse
| (and not the Papal apartments). Or perhaps the fact that as
| archbishop of Buenos Ares he insisted on taking the subway.
| lukan wrote:
| "Actually, it's my second favorite story. My favorite
| story is his insistence that he live in the Vatican
| guesthouse"
|
| I believe that had mainly power reasons, because pope
| Paul II was pretty out of the loop, what the cardinals
| were doing.
|
| And Francis likely expected to face opposition in what he
| was doing, so being closer to the "people" was likely
| helpful on having an eye on them.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _He riled many of his flock and hierarchy when he said that
| "even atheists can be redeemed"._
|
| It's quite a bit above our pay grade to proclaim
| categorically who supposedly _cannot_ be redeemed; it verges
| on blasphemy.
|
| Cf. Job. 38:
|
| 1. Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
|
| 2 "Who is this that obscures my plans with words without
| knowledge?
|
| 3 "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you
| shall answer me.
|
| 4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell
| me, if you understand.
|
| 5 "Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who
| stretched a measuring line across it?
|
| 6 "On what were its footings set, or who laid its
| cornerstone--
|
| 7 "while the morning stars sang together and all the
| angels[a] shouted for joy?"
|
| (etc.)
|
| https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2038&versio.
| ..
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > It's quite a bit above our pay grade [...] it verges on
| blasphemy.
|
| Cheers! As I understand the term _blasphemy_ , our
| presumptuous species has a great deal to assert about the
| unknowable. ^_^
| schmookeeg wrote:
| As an agnostic who spends a lot of time reading scriptures
| of several religions, trying to grasp the themes and
| motivations of others I share a world with -- those
| passages are particularly inscrutable.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _As an agnostic who spends a lot of time reading
| scriptures of several religions, trying to grasp the
| themes and motivations of others I share a world with --
| those passages are particularly inscrutable._
|
| I think the author's intent is to remind us that some
| things are simply beyond our ken (to which I'd add: For
| now).
| tbihl wrote:
| It's repeating, over and over, the extreme ignorance, and
| thus presumption, of Job in running from what God told
| him to do.
|
| Edited to add: this is a single passage with verse
| markings.
| bigyabai wrote:
| It's pretty easy to parse if you understand that God
| isn't _actually_ asking anyone for the dimensions of the
| Earth. It 's more about proffering humility to Job by
| comparing his understanding of things to God's.
| SonOfLilit wrote:
| You might enjoy unsongbook.com, a main theme of which is
| contemplating the meaning of that passage (and, related
| to that, making whale puns).
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Absolutely, but Pope Francis said a lot of things that were
| absolutely core, canon, Catholic beliefs but still made a
| bunch of Catholics unreasonably angry.
| skissane wrote:
| > It's quite a bit above our pay grade to proclaim
| categorically who supposedly cannot be redeemed; it verges
| on blasphemy.
|
| And the idea that atheists can be saved isn't novel in
| Catholic teaching - it is implicit in the Holy Office's
| 1949 condemnation of Feeneyism, [0] in which it declared
| that a person who doesn't believe in Catholicism due to
| "invincible ignorance" can be saved by an "implicit desire"
| for God. Although it didn't include the case of atheists,
| it didn't exclude them either - suggesting that an atheist
| who doesn't believe in God in their head (due to some
| intellectual issue) but nonetheless believes in God in
| their heart can be saved.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeneyism
| bmicraft wrote:
| > ... who doesn't believe in God in their head [..] but
| nonetheless believes in God in their heart ...
|
| I'm racking my brain right now dissecting what that even
| means. Believing there is no one but wishing it wasn't
| so?
| skissane wrote:
| In Catholic theology, God is believed to be Goodness
| itself - in a sense, identical to Plato's Form of the
| Good (but going far beyond Plato's idea at the same
| time).
|
| Hence, anyone who loves Good loves God... so a person who
| truly loves Good, but who due to some intellectual
| obstacle, isn't able to call that Good "God" - from a
| Catholic viewpoint, it can be said that they love God
| without knowing that it is God whom they love - and by
| that love they can be saved
| linsomniac wrote:
| "An athiest doesn't believe in 2,000 gods, a Christian doesn't
| believe in 1,999 gods." -- Ricky Gervais
| mrangle wrote:
| Ricky is smart, but not smart enough.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| Maybe not, but dismissing this quote outright is to dismiss
| something fundamental to our psychology, and our history.
| dkarl wrote:
| He felt like a throwback to me, in a good way. He reminded me
| of a time when Christians weren't so afraid of being subsumed
| by the secular progressive mainstream, when they could still
| see love and forgiveness as the core of their faith.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| He is one of the few religious leaders who actually gave me a
| positive view of religion. He seemed like a really great human.
| speedylight wrote:
| May he rest in peace
| zerobrainwash wrote:
| [flagged]
| Ygg2 wrote:
| > The line between good and evil is very clear in this case.
|
| Edit parent meant Ukraine war, not the Israel conflict quote
| Pope had.
| zerobrainwash wrote:
| Apologies, I meant Ukraine war, should have been more clear,
| it is that simple there.
| stdclass wrote:
| your username is peak irony, considering your statement
| niemandhier wrote:
| That is a great and underused method of evaluating moral
| judgments and I believe that it's very suitable in this
| particular case.
|
| I do not have much hope that Palestinians would behave
| "better" according to any sensible measure of the word.
|
| I would conjecture that many governments would position
| themselves differently and that criticism would face less
| obstacles.
|
| In the end it would be as much of a catastrophe.
| jtrip wrote:
| >That is a great and underused method of evaluating moral
| judgments and I believe that it's very suitable in this
| particular case.
|
| It also dilutes the current and very real responsibilities
| of the 'effectors'. In saying 'they would have done the
| same' it becomes very easy to justify the unjustifiable.
| jtrip wrote:
| It would be different materially. The rallying cry would be
| different for one.
|
| No matter who did it, it would still be 'evil'. There would
| be 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. Specially when the labels
| would be applied to dead children and innocents under rubble.
| Everyone keeps forgetting them.
|
| Just because you think they would do the same to you, does
| not justify your actions.
| keybored wrote:
| To your pre-edit:
|
| > [basically] What if in a different world Hamas had all the
| weapons plus the backing of the US while Israel only had
| shoddy weapons?
|
| In a hypothetical world where Usain Bolt was raised on
| Greenland and became interested in competitive gaming: would
| he have become the fastest human? Probably not. Different
| timelines.
|
| This Sam Harris exercise is meaningless. The goal is not to
| measure the level of evil in the hearts of <hamas> or
| <isreali government>. That's impossible. Hypotheticals that
| have nothing to do with reality are also fruitless. The goal
| is to figure out what evil actions are being committed and
| stop them.
|
| _But the abuser only did those things because he was abused
| as a child for eight yea--_ What's that got to do with the
| problem at hand?
| Ygg2 wrote:
| > The goal is not to measure the level of evil in the
| hearts of <hamas> or <isreali government>. That's
| impossible.
|
| The goal of thought experiment wasn't to measure evil or
| good. It's to determine if the lines between good and evil
| are that far apart.
|
| If Ukraine was way stronger than Russia, would it try to
| annex Kursk and other non-Ukraine regions? Would it commit
| as many atrocities? No. It would be constrained by its
| desire to join EU. Could it do it if it had 30 more people,
| more nationalistic populace, and near infinite ammo supply?
| Probably.
|
| But a litmus test, just tells you rough acidity, not exact
| pH either.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Small edit. 30 million not 30.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| > The line between good and evil is very clear in this case.
|
| > Edit: I mean Ukraine war.
|
| Yes but it's not clear yet who will win, and the church cannot
| afford siding with the losing side, especially that now it's
| weakest it's been since medieval times.
| tomhow wrote:
| We detached this comment from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749471 and marked it
| offtopic. Please adhere to the guidelines, particularly these
| ones:
|
| _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not
| less, as a topic gets more divisive._
|
| _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet
| tropes._
| agnishom wrote:
| Interestingly, [X has died] seems to be among some of the topmost
| upvoted posts of HN. (Based on https://hn.algolia.com/)
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that comments count as upvotes; if that's the
| case, I find it a lot less surprising.
| justin66 wrote:
| [X has been born] posts would be a lot more difficult. Hard to
| know if the babies are going to do anything noteworthy ahead of
| time.
| mentalgear wrote:
| Francis stood for values over positions and ranks, which was a
| real revolution.
|
| I sincerely hope the new pope will be as human, humble and
| pushing for renewal as Francis.
|
| I think that after such a pope, people won't be satisfied with
| just another symbolic figure with empty gestures, hard
| conservative views and no real substance.
| aubanel wrote:
| Are you pointing to another pope with "another symbolic figure
| with empty gestures"? Would be clearer to name him then! Having
| read a bit of the previous pope Benedict XVI I liked a lot what
| he did/wrote
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| what about Benedict did you like?
| aubanel wrote:
| If only one thing it's his series of books Jesus of
| Nazareth: the only theology book I've ever read, it
| clarified so much about the Scriptures, and was written
| from the point of view of a world-class scholar, much more
| scientific than I would have thought, taking into account
| the views of other scholars, Jew, Protestant or atheists
| alike, as long as they had interesting ideas.
| ckdot wrote:
| Why is this posted on HN, even twice? It's not like other news
| sources won't announce this. The pope had its good and bad sides,
| but in the end we should remind ourselves he's just a human
| being. It's OK for HN to inform about people here, but shouldn't
| they be somehow related to any topics HN touches? The popes was
| just a guy who somehow got popular because of some quite
| successful religion - but I'd personally prefer keep religion out
| of HN.
| erikig wrote:
| He was the head of one of the largest and oldest institutions
| that was working to handle its successes and failures as it
| worked to modernize.
| cebert wrote:
| I concur. I believe that political and religious discussions
| are better suited for other platforms rather than HN. I am not
| particularly interested in the Pope, if I were, I could find
| coverage of the topic on mainstream news sources. There's
| nothing interesting here from a technical or startup
| perspective.
| tomhow wrote:
| It's conventional for there to be a thread on HN when a major
| pubic figure dies. If you look at the list of obituary posts on
| HN [1], several of the biggest were for politicians, royals,
| and others unrelated to computer science and technology.
|
| It's in keeping with the convention that stories that have
| "significant new information" are on topic for HN, and that
| includes major mainstream news stories when they first break.
|
| [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=%22has+died%22
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Cheers! Good idea to provide the search example with Algolia!
| raphman wrote:
| Two thoughts:
|
| - The pope was not only a very important religious and
| political leader but also wrote and spoke about the
| relationship between humans and technology [1, 2]
|
| - I joined Hacker News due to its links but stayed for the
| community of smart and thoughtful people (and the great
| moderation). Oftentimes, a HN submission acts as a seed crystal
| for "off-topic" discussions that people want to talk about. As
| the people that make up this community get older, and as the
| times change, the topics we discuss change, too. At some level,
| technology always has political, moral, ideological
| implications. For me, HN is one of the best places to discuss
| these.
|
| [1]
| https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pu...
|
| [2] Tim Cook on how Pope Francis influenced his thinking:
| https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1541230109287507
| basisword wrote:
| Why have you posted the same general comment twice after the
| first was flagged? As the rules suggest, if you disagree with
| the post - flag it.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Someone's running bot farm to manipulate this website. There's
| been tons of dupes and suspicious flagging lately.
| whycome wrote:
| > Why is this posted on HN
|
| This isn't a headline service or newswire. It's a place for
| discussion too. He was the head of a large institution that has
| a lot of influence. And the views of the institution on
| emergent technologies is very much relevant. Those views are
| greatly shaped by the one at the top for their stint. This post
| isn't about religion.
| tanepiper wrote:
| https://newsthump.com/2025/04/21/pope-loses-will-to-live-aft...
| fleabitdev wrote:
| Last year, an interviewer asked Francis how he envisages hell.
| His response stayed with me: "It's difficult to imagine it. What
| I would say is not a dogma of faith, but my personal thought: I
| like to think hell is empty; I hope it is."
| eqmvii wrote:
| A much more hopeful version than "Hell is empty, and all the
| devils are here"!
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| LOL Ill say! Far more positive
| fastball wrote:
| Nothing from the Bible indicates that hell is empty, so that is
| indeed an interesting response from the Pope.
| fleabitdev wrote:
| Yes - I think it caught my attention because it was such a
| mystery. It was a welcome thing to hear from one of the most
| powerful people in the world, but it came like a bolt from
| the blue. As far as I know, he never revisited the topic.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| its not biblical but its very catholic, its optimistic. I've
| heard it from other catholics, its just a hope that at the
| end of everyones life they accepted jesus and made it into
| heaven.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| The Bible has very little to say about hell in general.
| fastball wrote:
| Gonna disagree with you there.
|
| https://www.openbible.info/topics/hell
| Trasmatta wrote:
| It's not that simple, because there are multiple concepts
| and Hebrew and Greek words that were translated as
| "hell". And many of those passages don't mention hell at
| all, but are just interpreted as such by readers.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_in_Christianity
| andybak wrote:
| Modern academic scholarship paints a very complex
| picture: https://www.bartehrman.com/hell-in-the-bible/
|
| I would argue that reading random quotes without context
| can be misleading. Unless of course you believe in a
| univocal, consistent and divinely inspired bible - which
| is a fairly extreme position to take.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| > I would argue that reading random quotes without
| context can be misleading. Unless of course you believe
| in a univocal, consistent and divinely inspired bible -
| which is a fairly extreme position to take.
|
| Those two statements don't follow. You can believe in a
| univocal, consistent and divinely inspired Bible and
| still think taking random quotes out of context is bad
| exegesis.
| andybak wrote:
| I see what you mean but I wasn't making a formal logical
| argument. Rather I meant something like "These particular
| quotes are more likely to be regarded as inherently
| meaningful on their own by someone who believes in a
| univocal, consistent and divinely inspired Bible"
|
| Not my best-crafted piece of self-expression I will
| admit.
| aeturnum wrote:
| Did you read these? I think they actually go against what
| you argue. One of the passages about "hell" is John 3:16,
| which could not be less about hell if it tried (IMO).
| Also the passages that actually mention hell/hades are
| extremely sparse on details: it's separate from god,
| there will be fire and it will be unpleasant. Considering
| the length of the bible, I think this list shows that the
| bible has "very little" to say about hell in general.
| BearOso wrote:
| Most of what we know as hell comes from depictions by
| Dante and Milton. Things like fallen angel Lucifer,
| battles between heaven and hell, the apocalypse and
| rapture, etc. are noncanonical.
| mkehrt wrote:
| Catholicism isn't Protestantism. The idea that the Bible is
| the only source of truth is a Protestant idea and thus is
| very visible in the US. Catholicism, however, teaches that
| tradition and church teachings are sources of truth on par
| with the Bible. As such, for many teachings, especially
| those like Hell where the Bible is unclear, what it says
| isn't very relevant to Catholic doctine.
| kergonath wrote:
| Why would that be? There is a rich tradition of theology
| outside the Bible. Most popes are able to have a thought on a
| subject without quoting it.
| andybak wrote:
| The bible only has sparse and often contradictory references
| to hell - so it's very difficult to state "what the Bible
| says about hell" as if there's a unified picture laid out.
| hylaride wrote:
| I've heard descriptions of hell of everything from the
| classic "fire and torture" we all know, to it being a total
| and complete detachment from god (in a disappointed and
| kicked out of the house by your parents kind of way). It's
| similar to descriptions of Satin. Everything from the horns
| and pitchfork all the way down to a "beautiful fallen
| angel" that he technically was explained to be in the
| bible.
|
| I've always just assumed the descriptions that work to keep
| people fearful of leaving the religion as whatever is used
| at the time (saying this as somebody who is agnostic).
| packetlost wrote:
| The modern concept of hell came from Dante's The Devine
| Comedy which was, ironically, a criticism of the
| contemporary church.
| Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe wrote:
| I highly recommend the youtube channel hochelaga. He's
| the one behind "biblically accurate" stuff
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Nothing from the Bible indicates that hell exists in the way
| that Westerners perceive it.
| baxtr wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| Is this a way of saying I don't believe there is a place like
| hell?
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| The "threat" is there, but the hope is that everybody finds
| the "right" path at the very end.
| russfink wrote:
| "I like to think Hell is empty" might be a hopeful statement,
| as in he hopes nobody ever actually goes to Hell but that
| everyone, no matter how evil, repents in their dying moments
| and accepts the path of truth.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Or that it is empty for eternity for each and all who are
| there. Endless solitude would be a hellish punishment.
| boroboro4 wrote:
| That's how I've read it firstly. Hard to imagine worse hell
| than this to me.
|
| And then I realized the real meaning of the quote. Made me
| cry a little.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Same here, probably says a lot about us. Made me happy to
| finally understand what he actually mean.
| boroboro4 wrote:
| It also made me realize what I _truly_ value (community
| and people around) and made me a bit more hopeful about
| the future.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I like to think hell is empty because the people who would
| have been sent there for being foul and wicked are actually
| people with no souls: they are just p-zombies wandering the
| world inflicting harm. Thus, when they die, there is no
| actual soul being released, their matter just ceases to
| function.
|
| This could also explain why some simple creatures, with no
| real conscious experience, don't overpopulate heaven or Hell:
| they have no souls with which to populate it with. They are
| just matter, temporarily constructed into some form
| resembling a living thing.
|
| So hell is empty, and evil is the result of soulless
| automatons created by accident in our world. So if you die
| and nothing else happens for you after, then you were a
| p-zombie, with no soul.
| sneak wrote:
| It is impossible to reconcile the idea of an omnipotent god
| that is simultaneously good and permits people to be tortured
| for eternity.
|
| Perhaps he chose the "god is good" over the "god, despite being
| able, will not prevent billions of reasonable and decent people
| from suffering eternally" fork in the road. You can't logically
| choose both, and if you're the pope, you probably had better
| have a belief in the goodness of god.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I've mentioned this before on HN but I find it interesting
| and valuable.
|
| There is an older stream of christian thought on heaven and
| hell, still somewhat present in eastern christianity, that
| they are not separate places people are sent to.
|
| In this view they are the same _thing_ , simply the direct
| experience of the unattenuated light of god. A repentant
| person will experience this as mercy and all encompassing
| love, an unrepentant one will experience it as excruciating
| shame and terror. But they are both getting the same
| "treatment" so to speak.
| arkey wrote:
| People often think of hell as an active punishment form God,
| but for us humans it's not.
|
| Hell, whatever it is, is where people end up when they'd
| rather be there than be with Christ.
|
| God will never force you to love Him and accept Him. He gives
| you the choice, the rest is up to you.
| charonn0 wrote:
| Unless you live(d) in a time and place where Christian
| teachings were unavailable to you. Which accounts for a
| large majority of the humans who have ever lived.
| skissane wrote:
| Which is a problem for some Protestants who insist that
| only Christians can be saved... but not necessarily for
| Catholics. The belief that only Christians can be saved
| has actually been condemned by the Catholic Church as a
| heresy (Feeneyism, after the 20th century American
| priest, Leonard Feeney, who most famously espoused it)
|
| According to Catholic teaching, non-Christians can be
| saved if (1) they are "invincibly ignorant" (i.e. their
| ignorance of the truth of Christianity is not their own
| fault), and (2) they have an "implicit desire" for the
| Christian God
| bmicraft wrote:
| Ah yes, "He/Him" - the original neo-pronoun if you will
| uncomplexity_ wrote:
| RIP to the coolest pope.
|
| May we live his consistent reminder of refraining from hurting
| and hating each other regardless of country, race, religion,
| politics, etc.
| KnuthIsGod wrote:
| This atheist admired him and read his Encylicals.
| phtrivier wrote:
| Condoleances.
|
| I wonder if a Pope's funeral can serve as an occasion for
| backdoor diplomacy - the world needs a lot of that.
|
| If the next Pope is young and energetic, he may want to use his
| first few days making a mark in history by putting people from
| different side of different conflicts.
|
| Paraxodically, he may have more chance putting the Israelis and
| Palestinian around a table (or at least provide the optics for a
| deal that would be discussed in the usual boring transactional
| way.)
|
| On the other hand, one has to wonder what a populist pope would
| do (interfere in elections ? Make a u turn on climate, migrants,
| etc... ? Go back to hardcore conservatism ? Or fall into
| irrelevance ?)
| basisword wrote:
| With most figureheads there will be words or actions with which
| you disagree. But his rejection of the 'riches' that came with
| the job, especially in the early days will hopefully outlast him.
| yoavm wrote:
| In my early 20s I was part of secular and socialist Jewish
| research centre. Franciskus was just voted as the new pope, and
| my first assignment was to write an opinion paper about him, and
| forecast his future actions. I don't think anyone, including
| myself, expected that I'll end up with a positive report --
| religion was almost always a negative thing, and Catholic
| Christianity even more so. However, I concluded that his action
| seem to show that he cares more for people rather than for
| specific rules or biblical quotes. That he is flexible and open
| to changing things. In retrospect, I think the whole world
| benefited from his openness. I wish we could say that about other
| influential religious leaders.
| fforflo wrote:
| In 2021, during a visit to the Greek island of Mytilene, Pope
| Francis delivered one of the finest speeches I've ever read:
|
| > This great basin of water, the cradle of so many civilizations,
| now looks like a mirror of death. Let us not let our sea (mare
| nostrum) be transformed into a desolate sea of death (mare
| mortuum). Let us not allow this place of encounter to become a
| theatre of conflict. Let us not permit this "sea of memories" to
| be transformed into a "sea of forgetfulness". Please brothers and
| sisters, let us stop this shipwreck of civilization!
|
| > We are in the age of walls and barbed wire. To be sure, we can
| appreciate people's fears and insecurities, the difficulties and
| dangers involved, and the general sense of fatigue and
| frustration, exacerbated by the economic and pandemic crises. Yet
| problems are not resolved and coexistence improved by building
| walls higher, but by joining forces to care for others according
| to the concrete possibilities of each and in respect for the law,
| always giving primacy to the inalienable value of the life of
| every human being
|
| Worth reading in full
| https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/de...
| contrarian1234 wrote:
| With no opinion one way or another on the pope.. In the modern
| world this is a weird criteria to judge people on. I assume
| like every modern politician, he doesn't write his own
| speeches. A quite google search seems to confirm it
|
| https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/02/does-the-pope-write-his-o...
| ralfd wrote:
| The link says:
|
| > My suspicion is that Pope Francis may have more to do with
| crafting his own speeches than did previous pontiffs, because
| Pope Francis' talks strike me as more spontaneous,
| conversational, and unfiltered.
|
| Anyway, a public figure is still giving the direction and
| "plot points" to their speech writer.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Who cares? He said it. The words are his responsibility. If
| his speech had advocated for grinding orphans into a
| nutritious paste, we wouldn't be defending him on the basis
| that he didn't write those words. He chose to read them and
| give them his official backing.
| stavros wrote:
| That's because we mean "credit for how well-written the
| thing is", whereas you mean "credit for agreeing with the
| meaning".
| amfarrell617 wrote:
| He still is responsible for the team that wrote it.
| serf wrote:
| a publisher is responsible for a book, but the credit of
| the thing is poured onto the author.
|
| why?
| navigate8310 wrote:
| Because the book is plastered with the author's as well
| as the publisher's name. Their separation is easily
| comprehensible. Whereas when an orator delivers, the
| separation of the writer is not so apparent. It is
| automatically assumed the orator is the writer.
| j_timberlake wrote:
| This is a perfect example of a motte and bailey. The
| "motte" is that people should be judged badly for parroting
| horrible ideas they heard (which makes sense) and the
| "bailey" is that people should be praised just for
| parroting nice things they heard (which doesn't make
| sense).
| mym1990 wrote:
| JFK didn't write his own speeches either for the most part,
| he was still a heck of an orator.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| A friend of mine was one of his speech writers. JFK would
| change words and construction depending on how he liked it.
| The speech writers learned and he made less and less
| changes.
|
| What you don't know is he would try things out on the golf
| course with his friend Buddy Hackett.
| Aidevah wrote:
| Isn't Mytilene a city while the island itself is called Lesvos?
| fforflo wrote:
| Technically yes, but they're used interchangeably nowdays.
| Plus, the official transcript mentions "Mytilene" so I wanted
| to follow that. Although I use Lesvos myself.
| stavros wrote:
| Can confirm, I never realized until now that Mytilene is
| just the city, I've always wondered why we have two names
| for the island.
| ryao wrote:
| I had no idea anyone still used the term "mare nostrum". I
| believe it began to be used during the Roman Empire when the
| Romans had conquered all lands surrounding the Mediterranean.
| Back then, the term meant the sea belonged to them and no one
| else. That meaning no longer applies in the modern day, so
| using it today would mean "we all share this" rather than the
| original meaning. His use of the term was a clever way to
| invoke shared history.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| You are correct that most people do not use the term any
| more. But the Pope isn't like most people. It's an informal
| requirement that the Pope be able to speak Latin and Italian
| is commonly used in the Vatican (being surrounded by Italy
| probably has something to do with that). Even though Francis
| was not as fluent as his predecessors in Latin and Italian,
| he certainly understood it better than most and his
| speechwriters probably were probably proficient in Latin.
| dhosek wrote:
| As the child of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis
| was quite fluent in Italian. He's old enough that his
| formation would have included significant Latin instruction
| as well. I would guess that Benedict's Latin skills were
| superior, but Francis was reasonably conversant in the
| language from what I understand.
|
| The thing that I found interesting was during trump's visit
| to the Vatican, he asked trump's Slovenian wife if she was
| feeding him potica which indicated a surprising level of
| knowledge of the cuisine of a country which is largely
| insignificant on the world stage (as someone who's half
| Slovene and has a loaf of potica on his kitchen counter, I
| think I can safely make that declaration).
| senderista wrote:
| Well of course Slovenia is Italy's neighbor, but I guess
| that's more surprising from a non-Italian.
| ithkuil wrote:
| I come from Croatia and have lived in Italy for a long
| time and it's very rare to find anybody who can barely
| place our countries on a map until fairly recently and
| let alone heard about foods or drinks. Not zero people of
| course, but very few
| senderista wrote:
| I doubt many Americans can name a single Canadian
| province or Mexican state.
| mariuolo wrote:
| > As the child of Italian immigrants to Argentina,
| Francis was quite fluent in Italian.
|
| Actually he was more fluent in the Piedmontese dialect.
| His Italian was somewhat wobbly at the time of his
| election.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| He certainly spoke Italian and Latin, but he did not
| prefer it. It was kind of a sticking point early on when
| he would slip into Spanish when talking. It irritated
| some of the old guard who thought that he should stop
| speaking Spanish because he became Pope.
| hibikir wrote:
| It's not that weird a term: I was taught this as the Roman
| name for the Mediterranean in middle school history class in
| Spain, without having to take Latin. There's a boardgame and
| a video game with Mare Nostrum as the title. I's expect
| relatively well educated people in countries bordering the
| Mediterranean to understand what he meant with little
| trouble, especially if they are also speak a latin-derived
| language. For instance in Spanish, mare is just mar, nostrum
| would be nuestro, and mortuum is muerto. It'd all be trivial
| first guesses.
| flobosg wrote:
| Don't forget supercomputers!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MareNostrum
| mrzool wrote:
| It was also the name of a major Italian naval operation to
| rescue migrants crossing the Mediterranean in 2013-2014,
| launched after a particularly tragic shipwreck near
| Lampedusa. The operation was shut down after just one year
| due to high costs and limited support from the EU, which left
| Italy largely on its own.
|
| Definitely not surprising hearing a pope using it in a
| speech.
| Pamar wrote:
| For "older generations" in Italy it is absolutely fine as a
| reference.
|
| Not sure about Gen Z and younger people though.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| I am really sorry for pope francis's death. I truly am. But to
| me, this was the first time that I ever saw that vatican has
| its .va and vatican.va ....
|
| Out of curiosity, Who hosts the holy servers?
|
| Again I don't want to demean anyone's death.
| philsnow wrote:
| > Out of curiosity, Who hosts the holy servers?
|
| The Dicastery for Communcation [0]. They're ASN 8978, and
| geolocation for all their IP addresses says that they're
| actually in the Vatican city state.
|
| [0] https://www.comunicazione.va/en.html
| 7bit wrote:
| @tomhow
|
| I understand the intention behind keeping the thread respectful,
| especially in the context of someone's death. That said, I find
| it difficult to fully separate reflections on Pope Francis from
| reflections on the institution he led. The papacy is not just a
| personal role--it is deeply representative of the Catholic Church
| as an institution, with all the historical and present-day weight
| that carries.
|
| It also stands out to me that similar moderation reminders don't
| usually appear in threads about other public figures. That gives
| the impression that this topic is being treated as more sensitive
| or "untouchable" than others, and I think it's fair to question
| why that is.
|
| I'm all for thoughtful conversation, but part of that includes
| being able to engage critically with the institutions and roles
| that public figures embody--even in moments like this.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > similar moderation reminders don't usually appear in threads
| about other public figures.
|
| Friend, this is not true. "dang" himself has often exhorted
| posters in this same manner and language when a notable death
| may attract inconsiderate commentary.
|
| See the search link provided by tomhow in this branch of the
| same discussion:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749405#43750046
| tomhow wrote:
| It may be unusual for this kind of reminder to be posted on an
| obituary thread, but it's not so unusual for it to be posted on
| a thread about a religious topic. There's nothing to read into
| this other than we all know that religion is a topic that
| elicits strong reactions in people and is one of the most
| frequent topics of bitter argument, and that's just the thing
| we're trying to avoid on HN.
|
| It's fine to talk about the larger institution he led; please
| just keep to the HN guidelines, which apply equally to all
| threads on HN, and which, in particular, ask us to be
| thoughtful and substantive, and to avoid generic tangents.
|
| (I've edited my top comment, to clarify what I think should be
| deemed on/off topic.)
| Alifatisk wrote:
| It feels kinda wrong to like this post
| goku12 wrote:
| Some of the highest voted stories on HN are related to
| someone's passing. Think of the upvotes less as a 'like' and
| more as 'paying respects'.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| It's called "upvote", not "like".
| Alifatisk wrote:
| Okey
| caseyy wrote:
| Pope Francis has done much to transform the Catholic church into
| a more progressive and inclusive institution. If not for his
| papacy, it was somewhat likely that the church would drift too
| far from Millennial values to keep its former relevance.
|
| Hopefully, the next pope will also champion unity, inclusivity,
| and peace, and oppose religious dogmatism. This will define the
| future of Christianity. Many challenges remain for the
| institution.
| decimalenough wrote:
| There's been much talk of the Church finally electing a black
| Pope from sub-Saharan Africa. The irony is that, if they are
| inclusive enough to do so, the selected Pope will almost
| certainly be more hard-line and doctrinaire than any of his
| recent predecessors on issues like homosexuality. Here's one of
| the contenders:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sarah
| caseyy wrote:
| Of the current widely accepted papabili, Peter Turkson is
| from Sub-Saharan Africa. He is softly pro-LGBT, and he seeks
| to harmonize the progressive homosexuality views with
| traditional African culture[0]. I don't think Robert Sarah is
| considered papabile, possibly owing to his message of hate
| for homosexuality. Overall, it's inconsistent with the recent
| message of the church, and it is hard to imagine that
| progressive Catholics would accept it.
|
| Here's a Reuters list for possible Francis successors:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/who-might-succeed-pope-
| francis.... Usually, Reuters does thorough due diligence
| before releasing something. So I'd expect their predictions
| are accurate.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Turkson
| lores wrote:
| Interesting that they identify mostly progressives as
| papabile. If they're right, Francis did an excellent job
| behind the scenes to set up the Church to do in the future
| what he could not in the present.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| Rest in peace.
|
| When I think about it being the Pope is quite a position,
| probably the most unique in our world?
|
| You have to be:
|
| - A head of state, meaning taking positions though UN votes, etc.
|
| - A "CEO", there is a lot of "business" decision to be taken to
| run the Vatican and the Church. I mean the Vatican can be seen as
| a giant museum (no offense) with a lot of people flowing in
| everyday so that need to be managed.
|
| - But first he is a religious, spiritual leader and has to steer
| its evolution.
|
| - Many also still see him steering an entire civilisation.
| Whether you are a Catholic or not, he is at the center of
| something.
|
| Tough job...
| decimalenough wrote:
| Minor correction: the Vatican is a UN observer member, meaning
| it does not have voting rights.
| felipeerias wrote:
| He wasn't an intellectual giant like his predecessor and I
| disagreed with some of his positions, but at the end of the day I
| do think that he was a good man. May he rest in peace.
| codr7 wrote:
| I guess we're just waiting for Peter the Roman now?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes
| lordleft wrote:
| I am a (non-catholic) Christian and I loved Pope Francis, for all
| the hate he won from traditionalists. He really seemed Christ-
| like, in his deep concern for the marginalized and poor. He never
| ceased to emphasize Jesus' saving power and good news. May he
| rest in peace and may he be with our Lord.
| wyclif wrote:
| Also not a Roman Catholic, but there were some good things
| about Pope Francis that I could appreciate, particularly his
| very Augustinian take on reason and the restlessness of the
| heart found in his lecture from the launch of the Spanish
| edition of Msgr. Luigi Giussani's book "The Religious Sense."
| fsiefken wrote:
| A written version of Bergoglio's talk is published in chapter
| 7 of "Generative Thought: An Introduction to the Works of
| Luigi Giussani" by Elisa Buzzi, 2003
|
| https://isidore.co/misc/Res%20pro%20Deo/Giussani's%20errors/.
| ..
| losvedir wrote:
| Does anyone have any theories why his predecessor, Benedict, so
| shockingly resigned? (And then, according to this article,
| continued to live there, which was news to me).
|
| The conventional wisdom is that Benedict was a hardline,
| conservative nut who had to resign for unknown reasons and was
| replaced by this well-loved, progressive guy. As seen in this
| thread, lots of people liked him and his philosophy, and his
| progressive take on things which always made the news, as he
| focused on the poor and traveled the world.
|
| However, I've heard the conspiracy that Benedict was forced out,
| possibly related to his investigations into the child sex abuse
| scandal, maybe because he was finding important people involved.
| He was always very focused on the Church itself. And Francis was
| chosen, almost as a patsy, to end those investigations and
| instead be the friendly Pope out away from the Vatican.
|
| I just always thought Benedict's resignation was surprising and
| there was something more to the story.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Conventional wisdom is he attempted to resign 3 times, had a
| stroke, and had a pacemaker all before he spent a further 8
| years of his career elected as pope and then actually resigned.
| This all extends decades prior to his final resignation, giving
| the same health and desire for retirement reasons as prior
| attempts.
|
| As for whether there was something more than the conventional
| wisdom to the story... I'm not really sure the news of his
| successors death is the correct thread to spawn that
| conversation in as it's getting to have little to do with
| Francis.
| losvedir wrote:
| I think it's relevant. We're discussing the life and impact
| of Pope Francis. I'm speculating that he was chosen
| specifically for his outward focus.
|
| I'm a practicing but not terribly devout Catholic, and my
| impression of Benedict was that he was very formal and
| focused Pope on the Church itself (eg how we had to relearn
| all the prayers and responses in the Mass). Francis was much
| more about helping the poor of the world, and to my limited
| experience didn't affect Catholicism, with a Capital C, very
| much. His politics aligned with mine, so I didn't mind that
| so much, but I can't help thinking that all was very
| intentional, and that there be dragons lurking within the
| Vatican institution that are being ignored.
| tbihl wrote:
| I can't remember the provenance, but there is a compelling
| argument that Benedict only expected to live a few months
| beyond his stepping down. He probably despaired of not being
| able to show the stoicism of his predecessor at the end.
| jimmcslim wrote:
| The Vatican published an interesting document on AI [1], which
| attributes a number of quotes to Pope Francis:
|
| * As Pope Francis noted, the machine "makes a technical choice
| among several possibilities based either on well-defined criteria
| or on statistical inferences. Human beings, however, not only
| choose, but in their hearts are capable of deciding."
|
| * In light of this, the use of AI, as Pope Francis said, must be
| "accompanied by an ethic inspired by a vision of the common good,
| an ethic of freedom, responsibility, and fraternity, capable of
| fostering the full development of people in relation to others
| and to the whole of creation."
|
| * As Pope Francis observes, "in this age of artificial
| intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary
| to save our humanity."
|
| * As Pope Francis observes, "the very use of the word
| 'intelligence'" in connection with AI "can prove misleading"
|
| [1]
| https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu...
| timeon wrote:
| > * As Pope Francis observes, "the very use of the word
| 'intelligence'" in connection with AI "can prove misleading"
|
| Yes, LLMs are more about knowledge than intelligence. AK rather
| than AI.
| diggan wrote:
| Illustrating perfectly how wide this conversation really is,
| as we don't even have consensus about what "knowledge" means
| :)
| moralestapia wrote:
| We do!
|
| https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/knowled
| g...
| diggan wrote:
| The Cambridge Dictionary has its own internal consensus,
| true, but there are so many more ways people understand
| that specific word :)
|
| Wikipedia even has it's own page with some of the various
| definitions people use:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_knowledge
|
| Then we have implicit/explicit knowledge (https://en.wiki
| pedia.org/wiki/Implicit_and_explicit_knowledg...) where
| some people assume one of them when they say "knowledge",
| others refer to the other.
|
| In fact, there is an entire scientific field to
| understanding what "knowledge" actually is/means:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology
|
| So yeah, it isn't as simple as looking it up in a
| dictionary, unfortunately.
| moralestapia wrote:
| You fell for the midwit trap.
|
| You can pick any word you choose and do that exact same
| thing.
|
| Let's try "blue": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue
|
| There's probably a couple PhD dissertations written
| around the origin of the color, it's hue and whatnot ...
| but also, most humans by the age of three can understand
| and identify the color blue.
|
| At some point you will understand that you will never
| have absolute and complete axioms from which to build
| everything on [1], and you have to work with what you
| have.
|
| If 99% of people in the street can agree on the meaning
| of a word without much ambiguity then that's a good
| starting point, and people eventually compiled all of
| this that's how dictionaries came to be ...
|
| Man, I wish I was you at this moment, just to experience
| the absolute mind-blown of realizing the power of
| dictionaries and what they truly represent, I would
| compare it to learning to speak all over again!
|
| (This may sound trivial, but at some point in time there
| were no dictionaries and most folks where living like my
| friend @diggan here. Then someone was like _yo, let 's
| agree on what these words mean_ and put together this
| impressive piece of technology. Very few things have had
| a larger impact on society, no exaggeration.)
|
| tl;dr If you buy a soda and it's two dollars, you give
| the clerk two dollar bills. You don't give the clerk a
| lecture on "what exactly is a US dollar?" unless you want
| to go to jail.
|
| 1: not even math has been able to accomplish that, even
| through many things there start _by definition_ which is
| kind of a cheat code, lol
| fwip wrote:
| Yes, but blue doesn't have a "Definitions of Blue"
| Wikipedia page.
|
| There are nuances to definitions of common words "what is
| blue, what is a bicycle, what is a dollar, really?", but
| the magnitude of variance in definition is not shared
| with something like "knowledge" or "intelligence."
|
| With these high-level concepts, most people are operating
| only on a "I know it when I see it" test (to reference
| the Supreme Court case on obscenity).
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Yes, but blue doesn't have a "Definitions of Blue"
| Wikipedia page.
|
| Oh, I understand, so the criteria is to have a Wikipedia
| page like that?
|
| You know what's interesting, I couldn't find neither of
| these:
|
| * t`ryft lm`rf@
|
| * Zhi Shi Kai Ding Yi
|
| * Definitions de la connaissance
|
| * Definiciones de conocimiento
|
| Should we add "and it has to be written in English" as a
| requirement?
|
| I know this is arguing ad absurdum, but the point is,
| again, that if you choose to be _that_ strict, you wouldn
| 't even be able to communicate with other people, because
| your desired perfect 1:1 map of concepts among them
| doesn't even exist.
| fwip wrote:
| No, I mean to illustrate that "blue" and "knowledge" have
| a vastly different degree in variation in definition.
|
| Like you say, all words of course have different
| definitions between individuals, but you and I are
| obviously able to communicate without specifying every
| definition. There exists a spectrum between well-agreed-
| upon definitions (like "and") and fuzzier ones. The
| definition of "knowledge" is divisive enough that many
| people disagree vehemently on definitions, which is
| illustrated by the fact that there is a whole Wikipedia
| article on it.
|
| If there is a "midwit trap" related to this, there is
| certainly a Sorites paradox trap as well - that because
| all words have varying definitions, that it is no use to
| point out that some words' definitions are more variable
| than others.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > At some point you will understand that you will never
| have absolute and complete axioms from which to build
| everything on [1], and you have to work with what you
| have.
|
| To have hardware that displays blue, and code that
| manipulates blue, you must have a very clear and
| unambiguous definition of what blue means. Notice I did
| not say correct, only clear and unambiguous. Your whole
| point seems to be that words mean what a native speaker
| of the language understands them to mean, which is useful
| in linguistics and in the editing or dictionaries, but
| the context of this discussion is the representation of
| some concept in symbols that a computer can process,
| which is a different thing. Indeed, it's possible that
| the difference between code and 'vibes' will have to be
| in some way addressed by those very definitions of
| knowledge and intelligence, so I think these are relevant
| questions that can't be hand-waved away.
| lanstin wrote:
| I feel a little blue. Does your code understand that? Can
| the code function properly in civilization without that
| understanding?
| karaterobot wrote:
| The code will function, in the sense of executing,
| whether the underlying concepts are sufficiently well-
| understood or not. Considering the ramifications of that
| statement might lead you to seeing why people want to
| understand what they're building before they build it.
|
| I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you were asking
| questions in good faith, but I'm not sure that's true
| anymore, so good luck.
| gopher_space wrote:
| > If 99% of people in the street can agree on the meaning
| of a word without much ambiguity then that's a good
| starting point
|
| This turns out to never be true once you get into actual
| details. Try to buy blue house paint for a basic example.
| moralestapia wrote:
| I do not understand your comment as buying blue paint is
| an extremely trivial thing to do unless you're in the
| middle of the Sahara desert.
| Fargren wrote:
| I think they mean there many hues that some people will
| cal blue and other will disagree. And definitely if you
| try to buy paint and just say you want "blue" there's a
| huge spectrum of things you might get
|
| This website was doing the rounds not long ago:
| https://ismy.blue/
| lanstin wrote:
| Which blue paint? If you are buying by yourself, it might
| be simple, if you are a decisive sort, but there's more
| blues than I at least expected.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Because everyone knows that millennia of epistemology can
| be summarized in a single incomplete sentence.
| abruzzi wrote:
| I was always taught that knowledge was "justified true
| belief."
| glutamate wrote:
| The Gettier examples disagree!
| prometheus76 wrote:
| Now you get into the tricky waters of defining
| "justified" and "true". It's a circular definition that
| does not settle anything.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Einstien said it was what was left over when you forgot
| everything you leaned in school.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Knowledge is well described (not necessarily explained, but
| described) in information theory. Intelligence, sentience,
| consciousness, even whether something is alive, are fuzzy
| concepts.
|
| Biology has a working definitions of "living organism" that
| includes a way to calculate likelihood that something is a
| living organism, but it still is probabilistic.
|
| Understanding is another concept that depends on philosophy
| of the mind as opposed to concrete physical processes.
| shiandow wrote:
| Interesting, I would consider knowledge to be something
| innately human in a way that solving problems isn't.
|
| Though intelligence is possibly even less well defined than
| knowledge, so it's hard to tell.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| I believe knowledge is what you know based on facts and
| experience; wind sensors could gather data and store it in
| a database without a human touching it beyond initial
| setup. With enough data, and basic information about where
| the sensors are located, the computer becomes very
| knowledgeable about wind in a region without human
| intervention.
|
| I believe intelligence goes beyond that: knowing that such
| a system is a solution to an observed problem, architecting
| said system, using the output to solve a problem, analyzing
| the results, and deciding where to deploy additional
| systems.
|
| I think both examples above can be done by AI (if not now,
| then soon)--but only after being prompted carefully by a
| human. However, a generalized AI that can do all of the
| above for any problem in the known universe is likely very
| far off.
| cmrx64 wrote:
| if knowledge is a justified true belief, i'm down for
| saying LLMs have beliefs. to the extent that they are
| incorrigible, their faith may actually be superhuman.
| carabiner wrote:
| Noam Chomsky just called it "plagiarism software."
| chpatrick wrote:
| Pretty disappointing from someone who spent his career
| modelling language and the cognition behind it.
| f30e3dfed1c9 wrote:
| It is probably exactly _because_ he spent a career
| considering the cognition behind language that he is not
| as impressed by LLMs as many others are. I 'll readily
| admit to being expert in neither language and linguistics
| nor AI, but I am skeptical that anything going on inside
| an LLM is properly described as "cognition."
| drdaeman wrote:
| I suspect the disappointment wasn't about whenever LLMs
| exhibit cognitive-like properties or not, but rather
| about the negative connotations tied to the word
| "plagiarism". Yea, they replicate patterns from their
| training data. So do we (ok, to be fair I have no idea
| about others but I believe I know that I do), and that's
| normal.
| permo-w wrote:
| does it really matter if it can be described as cognition
| or not? to me these models are useful for how effective
| they are, and that's literally it. the processes going on
| within them are extremely complex and at times very
| impressive, and whether some arbitrarily undefined word
| applies or not does not really matter. I think sometimes
| people forget that words are not maths or logic. when
| words come into language, no one sits down and makes sure
| that they're 100% logically and philosophically sound,
| they just start to be used, usually based on a feeling,
| and slowly gather and lose meaning over time. perhaps
| when dictionaries were first written there was some
| effort to do this, but for lots of words its probably
| impossible or incredibly difficult even now, never mind
| 200 years ago, if they could even be bothered in the
| first place.
|
| to give an example, a quite boring "philosophy question"
| that's bandied around, usually by children, is "if a tree
| falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a
| sound?". the answer is that "sound" is a word without a
| commonly-accepted, logically-derived meaning, for the
| reasons given above. so if to you the word sound is
| something human, then the answer is no, but if to you a
| sound is not something human, then the answer is yes.
| there's nothing particularly interesting or complex about
| the thought experiment, it's just a poorly defined word
| f30e3dfed1c9 wrote:
| Re: "does it really matter if it can be described as
| cognition or not?"
|
| To Chomsky? He'd have to speak for himself, but I suspect
| the answer is "yes, obviously, at least to be of interest
| _to me_. "
|
| Note that I'm not saying LLMs are useless or even that
| what they do is usefully described as "plagiarism."
|
| But it seems entirely unsurprising to me that Chomsky
| would be unimpressed and uninterested -- even to the
| point of dismissiveness, he's pretty much like that --
| precisely because they are unrelated to "cognition."
| JasserInicide wrote:
| _does it really matter if it can be described as
| cognition or not?_
|
| Yes...it does. "AI" aka modern flavor LLMs as we
| understand them today are just doing certain things thats
| humans can do but orders of magnitude faster. What
| exactly is impressive about it being able to succinctly
| sum up any topic under the Sun aside from the speed? It
| will never create a new genre of music. It will never
| create a new style of art from the ground up. It lacks
| the human spark of ingenuity. To even suggest that what
| it does anything close to human cognition is egregiously
| insulting.
| permo-w wrote:
| isn't it funny that half the time when you see criticism
| of LLMs it's almost like the words have been stolen from
| someone else?
|
| the opinion you're parroting here completely misses the
| point of LLMs. their purpose is not to start artistic
| movements or liberally think for themselves and no one is
| claiming it is. their purpose is to accelerate
| information retrieval and translation and programming
| tasks, which they by and large are incredible at. even if
| they had the capacity to _invent_ artistic movements,
| which in theory they most certainly do, _starting_ an
| artistic movement is pretty much intrinsically a human
| thing, and it requires desire, inclination, trust and a
| grounding in the real world, such as it is. your "spark
| of ingenuity" is not lacking because of some issue or
| lack of creativity, it's lacking because it's not the
| point and no one wants it to be.
|
| whether it is "cognition" or not is completely irrelevant
| to their purpose and use, and its a complete waste of
| time trying to litigate if it is or not because the word
| in itself is poorly defined. if you're trying to figure
| out if j=k but you can't define j or k, and you do know
| that k isn't a big factor in the usefulness of the
| system, then what is the point? is it jealousy? fear? I
| assure you, LLMs are not a threat to the special
| ingenuity of your mind
|
| this opinion is the equivalent of watching the invention
| of the pocket calculator and complaining that it can't
| write calculus equations on a black board
| JasserInicide wrote:
| _their purpose is not to start artistic movements or
| liberally think for themselves and no one is claiming it
| is._
|
| _your "spark of ingenuity" is not lacking because of
| some issue or lack of creativity, it's lacking because
| it's not the point and no one wants it to be._
|
| There are plenty of people/communities online that want
| it to be exactly that and want to remove the pesky human
| element from the equation. Dismissing them because it
| doesn't fit your argument doesn't mean they don't exist.
| permo-w wrote:
| point to them
| chpatrick wrote:
| If can answer questions about a subject because you want
| to university and studied it, does that make you a
| plagiarist?
|
| To me this is the usual "it doesn't _really_ understand"
| claim which people say because they feel like their human
| exceptionality is threatened.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I think this is wrong. For nearly a hundred years, popular
| media has been priming the public to understand that
| artificial intelligence is superficially intelligent but is
| very prone to malfunction in inhuman ways. All that media in
| which AIs go haywire used to make nerds roll their eyes, but
| resonated with the general public then and has proved
| prescient now.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Not even knowledge. Knowledge requires intentionality and
| belief as well as justification. LLMs don't have any of
| these.
|
| We ought to avoid anthropomorphizing LLMs. It is muddle
| headed.
| bmicraft wrote:
| I'd add that knowledge usually implies a claim to truth,
| while llms can only offer information with varying
| likelihood of being true.
| exe34 wrote:
| > but in their hearts are capable of deciding
|
| I question both the organ and the action.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Question, but perhaps, open your heart to recent research...
| There is neural tissue in and around the heart. There are
| studies showing personality changes and memory inculcation as
| a result of heart transplants. Recipients end up with memory
| and sometimes traits of the donor.
|
| Are we sure? No. But neither should you be. Question but be
| open to answers you may not expect.
| exe34 wrote:
| I'm not sure, but I'd bet PS200 that within 10 years it'll
| still not be something that 99.9% of medical schools will
| teach. just because I'm not sure, it doesn't make both
| cases remotely equally likely.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31739081/
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| He's speaking to a popular audience in a poetic fashion. No
| one believes a pump in your chest is the seat of intellgence,
| even if it may be involved in some extended and removed
| manner with the expression of intelligence.
|
| If Francis held Thomistic views on the subject, then even the
| brain, while needed for human intelligence, does not suffice
| for its operation, as functions like abstraction require the
| intellect, which cannot be entirely physical in operation
| since form cannot exist in matter without also instantiating
| the form, something by definition opposed to abstraction.
| j_timberlake wrote:
| People downvote this guy because obviously nobody actually
| thinks with their blood-pumping organ.
|
| But as for the quote, it's incredibly clear how little
| empathy most people have towards others, to the point where
| AI will _easily_ out-empathy them, both as a
| conversationalist and as a robotic assistant (such as a 24 /7
| robot nurse with no other patients).
| chaorace wrote:
| I rarely feel this way about someone of Pope Francis' age and
| social position, but I've genuinely admired Francis as a
| thinker. He was a bona fide Jesuit, through and through. The
| next pope has big shoes to fill.
| neves wrote:
| Note that Antiqua et Nova was authored by the Church. With
| its profound philosophical tradition, the Church offers
| insights in this text that surpass anything ever written by
| Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| I'll also add that many of his admirers as well as his
| detractors exaggerated his virtues, his merits, and his
| flaws. He was both the victim of a media and film industry
| all too eager to spin him into the "progressive pope" --
| never shying away from quoting him out of context to push
| an agenda -- and the issuer of problematic and ambiguous
| documents and off-the-cuff remarks that only served to
| generate confusion.
|
| Intellectually, Benedict XVI and John Paul II were in a
| different league. As far as the Jesuits are concerned, I
| know that in the popular imagination, the Jesuits are
| imagined to be some kind of "progressive", intellectually
| superior order, but historically, they were sort of the
| shock troops of the Church. They certainly have merits to
| their name. While they did become involved in education,
| they drew from the traditions of education in the Church.
| Education and scholarship, however, are not their charism.
| Compare that with the Dominicans, for example, who have
| teaching and education as their mission (Thomas Aquinas is
| probably their most famous member).
| andrepd wrote:
| But jesuits _are_ historically linked to education and
| the sciences, this is a fact.
|
| I agree with the "ambiguous statements" though.
| andrepd wrote:
| > offers insights in this text that surpass anything ever
| written by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs
|
| There's a low bar if there ever was one
| senderista wrote:
| Benedict seemed more academic, but Francis seemed more
| humane.
| lanstin wrote:
| Academic thought != clear, deep thought. Working out all
| the details is good, but getting to the crux of the matter
| is also needed.
| moffkalast wrote:
| * As Pope Francis observes, the wave function collapses.
| lazzurs wrote:
| A man has died, that is sad.
|
| Under his watch he did not move the church to fully acknowledge
| or deal with the historical and widespread abuses the
| organization he led was involved with. He had opportunity to be
| the leader to bring the organization around and he did not. Let's
| all hope his replacement will.
| weard_beard wrote:
| He didn't make things worse and he, in his heart and in his
| words, kept the spirit of Jesus' teachings and not the dogma of
| power and patriarchy.
|
| May the next pope feel emboldened to further this as the church
| itself becomes less of a lumbering monster.
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| I don't think anyone who would be ready to completely do a 180
| with the Catholic Church will be the pope soon (or ever, given
| how the system works). He has, however, nudged that ship in the
| right direction and with what he has done and with his
| appointees. Let's just hope it continues with whoever replaces
| him.
| veggieroll wrote:
| Not only that, but he actively made it worse by protecting
| abusers. McCarrick, Rupnik, Zanchetta, and many more. It really
| makes me sick to see so many people speaking well of Pope
| Francis. He is an enabler and a vindictive hypocrite.
| daedrdev wrote:
| He is restricted by the system around him, with the internal
| Vatican politics and overall views of members of the Catholic
| Church being very relevant here. His replacement may be more
| conservative as a reaction to the decline of Church membership,
| or may not be, but I don't think he can be faulted personally
| for not attempting to set the wrongs of the church right, he
| clearly wanted to do so.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| So Pope Francis departs for a meeting with his boss perhaps?
|
| Jokes aside, he seemed like a genuinely decent human being and
| enough of a humanist to cast aside some of the drier absurdities
| surrounding the bureaucracy of Catholic Church administration,
| and ideology.
|
| Even as someone who's deep in the skeptically agnostic camp on
| any questions about supreme creators (after all even a firm
| atheist can't be absolutely sure there is no genuine God) I had
| more respect for the apparent practical concern for humanity of
| this pope, particularly compared to the more typical nature of
| historical pontiffs.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| > after all even a firm atheist can't be absolutely sure there
| is no genuine God
|
| Why so? There is no reason for one to exist so not having one
| is the obvious case.
|
| We could of course assume anything, that we are av stylization,
| that the world is a large ice cream, that what we see is not
| the reality, whatever
|
| If we go for that, sure, we cannot be sure of anything. But we
| then must also believe that we may live in a large ice cream.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >There is no reason for one to exist so not having one is the
| obvious case.
|
| It's a usable supposition, sure, and I agree that being asked
| to prove a negative is silly, but you can't actually be sure
| that one doesn't exist. It's not the obvious case at all,
| it's not even all that obvious as a supposition.
|
| What's more, superficially at least, it makes more sense to
| believe in a supreme, essentially divine creator than it does
| to believe visibly enormous complexity deriving from a mostly
| unknown nothing.
|
| I'd say that this more than anything has been responsible for
| virtually all cultures in history believing in supreme,
| divine creators of one kind or another vs no historical
| cultures that I know of believing in the universe springing
| from random chance and hand-wavey nothingness behind it.
|
| We could also of course be living in a large ice cream, you
| can't be absolutely sure that's not the case either.
|
| Though, the idea of being the creations of a tremendously
| powerful and conscious being that created a universe
| hospitable to our use and for our potential given by all our
| evident cognitive and material tools seems to me a lot more
| plausible than being subject to an accidental existence in a
| gargantuan ice cream environment.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| > Though, the idea of being the creations of a tremendously
| powerful and conscious being that created a universe
| hospitable to our use and for our potential given by all
| our evident cognitive and material tools seems to me a lot
| more plausible than being subject to an accidental
| existence in a gargantuan ice cream environment.
|
| Why, they are the same to me. None is more probable because
| none needs to be.
|
| We can explain some things (until we cannot, and then we
| look for another model). Some we cannot explain because we
| do not yet have the appropriate knowledge. Someday we will,
| or we won't.
|
| The difference between me and someone who believes in one
| or more deities I that I can say "we don't know because we
| are not good enough yet". They need to say "this is driven
| by god" (for reasons I cannot explain)
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| > What's more, superficially at least, it makes more sense
| to believe in a supreme, essentially divine creator than it
| does to believe visibly enormous complexity deriving from a
| mostly unknown nothing.
|
| We would come from nothing in the same way God came from
| nothing. There's little reason to conclude the universe was
| ever non-existent.
|
| > Though, the idea of being the creations of a tremendously
| powerful and conscious being that created a universe
| hospitable to our use and for our potential given by all
| our evident cognitive and material tools seems to me a lot
| more plausible than being subject to an accidental
| existence in a gargantuan ice cream environment.
|
| I actually thought you were going to say the first clause
| is less probable than whatever the second upcoming clause
| would be, because it sounds so improbably specific and
| human-crafted.
|
| I think the belief that we were gifted our cognitive
| superiority (if that even is something unique to us in the
| history of the universe) by a divine entity is not meant to
| be an explanation of where our cognition comes from, but a
| method of assuaging our guilt. Because if God gave us the
| tools to debase, kill, maim, and roast ourselves on this
| rock, then surely it is meant to be, and will add up to
| something meaningful.
|
| In fact, it's much more likely giving monkeys the ability
| to talk was an act of The Devil, not God.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > We would come from nothing in the same way God came
| from nothing.
|
| That would only be true, if your God is part of the same
| universe, which by (christian) definition wouldn't be
| truly God. When you talk about God as the creator of the
| universe he has also created time and thus causality and
| other properties of the universe, like that things come
| from other things.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Most cultures have believed in a multiplicity of gods
| rather than just a single creator god. This new-fangled
| monotheism is a relatively modern invention.
| Mawr wrote:
| > What's more, superficially at least, it makes more sense
| to believe in a supreme, essentially divine creator than it
| does to believe visibly enormous complexity deriving from a
| mostly unknown nothing.
|
| It can't make more sense to believe in one entirely made up
| thing vs another since they're both made up.
|
| > I'd say that this more than anything has been responsible
| for virtually all cultures in history believing in supreme,
| divine creators of one kind or another vs no historical
| cultures that I know of believing in the universe springing
| from random chance and hand-wavey nothingness behind it.
|
| Ascribing rationality to faith is an interesting
| supposition. It's all based on emotions, such as fear of
| death, on the side of the believers and greed on the side
| of belief-providers.
|
| > Though, the idea of being the creations of a tremendously
| powerful and conscious being that created a universe
| hospitable to our use and for our potential given by all
| our evident cognitive and material tools seems to me a lot
| more plausible than being subject to an accidental
| existence in a gargantuan ice cream environment.
|
| No, it just seems more comforting to you. That doesn't make
| it any more plausible.
| tbihl wrote:
| >It can't make more sense to believe in one entirely made
| up thing vs another since they're both made up.
|
| It makes sense to believe in Newton's laws, which he made
| up, even though we know the study of kinematics flowing
| from them is wrong. We have observed them being wrong.
| Someone else made up a complicated explanation of why and
| when Newton's laws are wrong. That guy's theories formed
| the basis for some incredible stuff that works really
| well, and he's probably wrong too... but I'll believe
| them both.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Why so?_
|
| Because it can't be proven either way. An atheist who claims
| to know for certainty that there is no god is expressing a
| religious, faith-based viewpoint. I guess that isn't
| necessarily at odds with being an atheist, but part of why
| I'm an atheist is that I try to avoid believing in things
| that aren't provable and don't fit existing evidence.
|
| > _If we go for that, sure, we cannot be sure of anything._
|
| We can be sure of things that have been proven using the
| scientific method. Certainly we can't be 100% sure, because
| that method is applied by fallible humans. But it's silly to
| suggest that levels of sureness don't matter; I can be more
| sure about the idea that we don't live in a giant ice cream
| than of other things, and that's fine.
|
| But I think it's true that we can't _really_ be sure of
| anything... and that 's also fine.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| I'm curious how devout Catholics will perceive it when the leader
| of their Church dies on their holiest day, which commemorates the
| resurrection of Christ. Will they going to see it as a symbol, a
| sign, or perhaps some kind of deeper message?
| probably_wrong wrote:
| The way I see it, expecting holy days to somehow be "safe"
| ignores the basis on which the Church was built.
|
| Martyrs were mauled by lions regardless of their work in
| spreading the word of God. Jesus himself died just like the
| common thieves next to him. The Catholic Church is built by
| people, and people sometimes die.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| It wasn't regardless, it was because. They're not saints
| despite being martyrs, but because they are.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| That's the nicest day to die. One can simply move from one
| celebration to the next.
| tbihl wrote:
| I view it the same way I view three American founders dying on
| July 4th, two of them on the 50th anniversary of the signing.
| His force of will could take him a ways beyond when his body
| might reasonably have been expected to fail; having reached
| that point, he was not prepared to take the effort any further.
| adultSwim wrote:
| I recommend one of his books, The Name of God is Mercy
| lr4444lr wrote:
| I will never forget his sympathy for the motives of the
| terrorists who massacred staff at Charlie Hebdo:
|
| _"If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my
| mother, he can expect a punch," Francis said while pretending to
| throw a punch in his direction.
|
| He added: "It's normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the
| faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others."_[0]
|
| [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/charlie-
| hebd...
| kashunstva wrote:
| > You cannot insult the faith of others
|
| Why not? The concept of proportionality between an "offense"
| and a response that characterizes the liberal worldview was
| entirely missing here. If one chooses to take offense about
| some deeply held personal view, whatever it is, then fine; but
| let your response be proportional.
|
| The music of Beethoven is sacred to me, let's say, but I'm not
| prepared to murder you if you mock it, or miss a note in
| performance.
|
| The pope's threat of physical intervention himself seems at
| odds with the teachings of his own faith, too, as I understand
| them. Turn the other cheek, and all. But that would be for
| adherents to say for sure.
| mantas wrote:
| I didn't hear from him any call-to-arms to defend
| Christianity from those who keep making fun of it left and
| right. Be it other religious faiths or quasi-religious
| political movements. His actions seemed the opposite tbh.
| atrus wrote:
| I think there's an implied "and not expect a response" there.
|
| If you insult unhinged people (and people who kill over a
| mere 'offense' to their religion are unhinged), don't be
| surprised when you receive an unhinged response back.
| kelnos wrote:
| So we should all be chilled and silent, because there are
| unhinged people who might retaliate far out of proportion
| to anything we might do or say? That's no way to live.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Edit, see https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/buzz-aldrin-
| punched-conspi...
|
| That being said, as an American, the culture of mocking and
| gracefully learning from being mocked runs deep in my blood.
| I don't know if others share that same worldview.
| joaopaulomcc wrote:
| I believe that in the incident you referring to, it was
| Buzz Aldrin who did the punching.
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/buzz-aldrin-punched-
| conspi...
| wymerica wrote:
| That was Buzz Aldrin
| echoangle wrote:
| > Remember, a judge let Neil Armstrong off for punching a
| moon landing denier in the face due to persistent taunting.
|
| That didn't happen. The person you mean was Buzz Aldrin and
| it looks like there weren't even charges filed, and there
| was no judge involved.
| tehlike wrote:
| > That being said, as an American, the culture of mocking
| and gracefully learning from being mocked runs deep in my
| blood. I don't know if others share that same worldview.
|
| This is quickly getting forgotten.
| diggan wrote:
| > as an American [...] I don't know if others share that
| same worldview.
|
| I'm far from American, but have the same "blood", but I
| think it has nothing to do with being
| American/Swedish/Spanish/whatever, some people have
| different personalities, upbringings and
| strengths/weaknesses simply.
|
| Americans aren't "tougher-skinned" by default or anything,
| at least I didn't get that experience from interacting with
| Americans.
| boredhedgehog wrote:
| > The pope's threat of physical intervention himself seems at
| odds with the teachings of his own faith, too, as I
| understand them. Turn the other cheek, and all.
|
| The quote in question talks about _your_ cheek, not your
| mother 's or anyone else's. In many circumstances, you're not
| as free to forego the defense of others as you are your own.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Punching someone who insulted your mother is escalation.
| Not defense.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| This checks out - he worked as a bouncer at a nightclub to put
| himself through seminary.
| sneak wrote:
| Our leaders should not be normalizing or condoning responding
| to words with violence.
|
| Such an attitude is abhorrent and shameful.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| I think that article lost a bit of nuance somewhere. The Pope
| was specifically defending the right of Muslims to protest
| peacefully against deliberate insults to their religion:
|
| > Francis spoke about the Paris attacks while on his way to
| the Philippines, where around 1,500 Muslims protested
| yesterday against the depictions of the Prophet in the
| satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo. [0]
|
| He also explicitly condemned violence:
|
| > Francis insisted that it was an "aberration" to kill in the
| name of God and said religion can never be used to justify
| violence. [0]
|
| So, he wasn't justifying the attack on the Charlie Hebdo
| office.
|
| [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/charlie-
| hebd...
| wat10000 wrote:
| That's reprehensible, but also refreshingly open-minded. It
| shows an awareness that other religions deserve an equal
| footing to his own. I prefer this over the nuts who decry
| Sharia law while wanting to implement a Christian equivalent.
| rglullis wrote:
| Any Christian fundamentalist who advocates for its religion
| to become law is a _bad_ Christian who never understood the
| lesson behind "Render unto Caesar...".
|
| Now, contrast with Islamic teachings. Not every Muslim will
| advocate for Sharia, but there is a non-negligible part of
| them (leadership included) who think that _not_ advocating
| for Sharia is a sin.
| wat10000 wrote:
| What's the contrast? In both cases, there are good people
| who understand that their religion restricts them, not
| others, and there are bad people who think the government
| should enforce their religion.
| rglullis wrote:
| What part of Islam actively promotes separation of church
| and state?
|
| What country with a majority Islamic population is
| currently going through a secularization process?
| wat10000 wrote:
| What part of Christianity actively promotes it? There's
| that one line, which meaning is debated, in a book full
| of stories about religious governments.
|
| In any case, I only care about the practicalities. In
| terms of what they try to achieve, there's no real
| difference between the Christian and Muslim dominionists.
| rglullis wrote:
| > There's that one line.
|
| And centuries of liberal democracies where the church was
| just one institution that had no direct rule over its
| subjects?
| larkost wrote:
| The word "direct" is carrying an awful lot of weight in
| that sentence. The Catholic Church (as well as the
| Protestant and others) are very responsible for, or at
| least implicated in, many horrible things in the last few
| hundred years alone: - signed off on the slave trade for
| hundreds of years (even gave excuses about how that was
| God's will) - during World War II they promised to hide
| many Jewish children, only to subsequently steal them
| from their parents arguing that "they are now Christian,
| it would be a sin to give them to Jews" - the
| inquisitions - were the justification for so many wars
| (conversion by the sword) - have long been a tool of
| repressive governments, arguing that it fell under "obey
| your father" - in the U.S. many churches, including the
| Catholic Church have preached that voting for one party
| (Democrats) is a sin (often about abortion, but other
| topics have been raised)
|
| In general, the Church's political power has waned over
| the last 500 years or so, but there are an awful lot of
| calls from Republicans saying that this is where we have
| gone wrong.
|
| One only look to the political donations of Opes Dei
| (Catholic branch dedicated to getting Cristian influence
| over the "Lay" sphere) to see them as major power players
| today. The Heritage Foundation (main writers of Project
| 2025) are intimately bound with the organization. And
| Chief Justice Roberts is also associated.
|
| So they may not be "direct" rulers, they are major power
| players.
| Lionga wrote:
| Did not expect to read on HN that thinking it is good to kill
| people for a caricature is "refreshingly open-minded"
| wat10000 wrote:
| Do I need to put "that's reprehensible" in bigger letters
| or something?
| Lionga wrote:
| No you just need to stop there (or better find more
| drastic tone, but ok) and not make it sound ok, heck be a
| good thing afterwards.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Dude was leader of a massive organization that claims to
| be a divine instrument and the only path to salvation.
| Acknowledging another religion as anything other than
| heresy is a step up.
| Lionga wrote:
| So if the terrorist of charlie hebdo would have just
| tortured the journalists there for a few hours and maybe
| cut of their fingers that would also be a "step up" or
| "refreshingly open-minded"?
|
| Dude I can not believe how it can be anything but
| horrible to make acts of terrorism and killing of
| innocent anything but the worst humans can do.
| wat10000 wrote:
| No. Using soft language about someone else's _words_ is
| not the same as using soft language about torture. It 's
| not even remotely similar. There isn't some transitive
| property of outrage here. If you can't tell the
| difference between saying "these terrorists had
| reasonable motivations for murdering those innocent
| people" and "at least that guy's awful statement has one
| thing going for it" then I really can't help you.
| Lionga wrote:
| If you can say that a statement that justifies killing
| innocent people because they draw a caricature had "one
| thing going for it" then I really can't help you.
| olivierestsage wrote:
| I'm not a Christian, but one of the main questions I have,
| reading this, is whether Francis would have had the same
| reaction if Catholics had been the ones doing the massacring
| after their faith was insulted. Something tells me that he
| wouldn't, and I think that's the most troubling part.
| Mr_Eri_Atlov wrote:
| Rest in Peace to a dude who actually lived his beliefs
| swat535 wrote:
| Pope Francis caused quite a bit of controversy among Catholics.
| From his crackdown on the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass) to his
| often unscripted, pastoral tone on issues like sexuality,
| economics, and interfaith dialogue, he unsettled many and yet
| drew others closer to the Church. With his passing, we're left to
| process a papacy that disrupted in the deepest sense of the word.
|
| As a Catholic, I often found myself both inspired and unsettled
| by him. His theology wasn't always systematic, but it was deeply
| Ignatian, rooted in discernment, encounter, and movement toward
| the margins. Francis often chose gestures over definitions, and
| presence over proclamations. That doesn't always scale well in a
| Church that spans continents, cultures, and centuries.
|
| His legacy will be debated. But I think what made him so
| compelling, especially to someone who lives in the modern world
| but tries to be formed by ancient faith is that he forced us to
| confront the tension between tradition and aggiornamento not as
| an abstract debate, but as something lived.
|
| He reminded me that the Church isn't a museum, nor is it a
| startup. It's something stranger.. the best I can described it is
| a body that somehow survives by dying daily.
|
| - Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.
| Requiescat in pace. Amen.
| blame-troi wrote:
| Being both inspiring and unsettling to me says he did the job
| well. I will remember him as the smiling Pope.
| solfox wrote:
| A teacher of mine often reminds me that in many cultures--like
| Japanese and Native American traditions--the role of having an
| enemy is viewed with a certain respect. Enemies help define us.
| They challenge us, sharpen us, and push us to grow. Western
| culture tends to abhor the idea of having enemies, but
| sometimes, having them simply means you've stood for something
| meaningful--something worth noticing.
|
| It seems Pope Francis had his share of critics--those who
| opposed his beliefs or feared his vision. And yet, he stood
| firm and made people think. In that sense, perhaps even his
| enemies affirmed the impact he was making.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Interesting, it depends on your temper and philosophy. A
| respected enemy is worth having, but when it devolves into
| primitive antagonism, less so.
| yusina wrote:
| "Enemy" may be the wrong word for this. To me, that implies
| wishing sth bad on the other party and aiming to
| hurt/damage/destroy it.
|
| "Opponent"? "Antagonist"?
| bayindirh wrote:
| The word enemy, by definition and function, is spot on,
| because its presence triggers the primal instinct: Staying
| alive, no matter what.
|
| Being in that mode opens a window to yourself no other
| state can open. You'll find what makes you tick, and what
| you are prepared to go through to make out alive in this
| situation.
|
| You'll be tested in your might, intelligence and more
| importantly, ethical and moral limits.
|
| The saying "You don't know how much violence it took for me
| to be this gentle." has roots in this perspective, so as my
| favorite quote from Murakami:
|
| > And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you
| made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even
| be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is
| certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the
| same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all
| about.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| "Opponent" is the word that a lot of anime/manga uses
| (translates to) when someone is referring to someone. There
| is a lot respect, and sometimes gratitude, shown for
| someone that is a worthy opponent. The idea being, as is
| noted above, that the opponent is someone that helps one
| become better.
| wcfields wrote:
| Not to sound like the oldest person in the room/thread, but
| the use of "opponent" as 'opps' has gained a lot of
| traction in the vernacular of Gen-z/alpha. Not so much as
| an outright enemy, and not so much as a 'hater'.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Rival.
|
| Source: Anime and Pokemon games :)
| snarf21 wrote:
| I agree that a foil can help foster introspection versus
| living in a bubble.
| p3rls wrote:
| Western culture abhors the idea of enemies? What??? Western
| culture, more than any other embraces its enemies since the
| days of The Dying Gaul. Read a book.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| Does the enemy have to be a person?
|
| I think the problem with enemies is 1) vindictiveness and 2)
| ineffectiveness.
|
| _Everyone_ dislikes some actions and ideas, and thus
| dislikes people who express those actions and ideas. Every
| group has enemy groups, who they oppose and who oppose them,
| even if they 're not explicitly named.
|
| A problem is when people start opposing others who don't
| express the actions and ideas they oppose, because they
| resemble the people who do. Anger generalizes, sometimes to
| ethnic groups, sometimes to the entire world.
|
| Another problem is when people attack others in ways that
| don't stop their actions or ideas. Violence doesn't seem to
| promote its ideas in the long term, and it can backfire.
| Jesus might be the greatest example of this.
|
| The way to kill actions is through counter-actions, and the
| way to kill ideas is through counter-ideas. These counter-
| actions and counter-ideas can be ugly or violent, or they can
| be pretty or pacifist. But every action or idea opposes
| another action or idea, which could be considered an "enemy".
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Looking back on his papacy, I agree that we was very divisive
| in some aspects but also, being the pope has to be one of the
| hardest jobs on the planet, he's basically a world leader.
|
| At the "world leader" level it's impossible to do a job in a
| way where everyone will think it's a good job, you're always
| going to piss off one group or another with practically any
| action in any direction.
|
| IMO he took on one of the hardest tasks at the church which is
| "modernization". The way I look at it is the church is so old
| that it constantly needs modernization. But that comes at a
| steep cost as while you are attracting new parishioners, many
| of your older ones will scoff at the changes. And because of
| the church's age, this is something that must be done over and
| over and over again.
| numbers_guy wrote:
| Please stop talking in such general terms. No Catholics I know
| have been shaken by anything Pope Francis did. I have been
| educated in a Catholic school, which also served as a Catholic
| seminary, and I never heard Pope Francis say anything that was
| not in line with the catechism that we were taught back then.
| Loughla wrote:
| Many Catholics I know were absolutely shaken by this Pope,
| and were absolutely not supporters of the man. They thought
| he was too liberal and too modern.
| throwawaybob420 wrote:
| That sucks, because if you're catholic and you _dont_
| support the pope...you're not really a catholic
| Loughla wrote:
| You're correct. For many modern Catholics, it's about
| inertia. They've always been Catholic, but they want to
| do it their way. That's the entire purpose of the
| Catholic Church - to tell you exactly how to do church.
|
| Is also why there are so many converts from Catholicism
| to New age sorts of Christian churches.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| It is possible to be a Catholic and not support the
| direction that the Pope is taking the church; in the same
| way it is possible to disagree with the direction that
| the local priest is taking the parish. It is possible to
| look at someone as the leader of an organization you are
| part of, and treat them with respect, while not agreeing
| with every choice they make.
| mbfg wrote:
| That's the problem with calling yourself X, without a clear
| non-subjective definition of X.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Christ welcomed the poor, prostitutes, lepers, and thieves
| into his fold. Many Catholics are like a lot of
| Evangelicals in that they're Christian in name only. Their
| political beliefs ARE their faith and their religious
| beliefs are just a convenient shield for their politics.
| They like to associate with the man, but have taken zero
| time to understand him. The only time Jesus was openly
| hostile in the entirety of the Bible was when there were
| people trying to make a profit in the Temple. Contrast that
| to people who will attend a megachurch but hate gay folks.
| Francis did not condone gay marriage. He simply said that
| if a gay couple comes to you for pastoral advice, that you
| love them and attempt to give them the help they need. But
| you'd think the dude was prancing around in rainbow
| underwear on camera with the way people reacted to his love
| and grace.
| lambdaphagy wrote:
| I think what many Catholics found frustrating about Pope
| Francis was his tendency to make apparently off-the-cuff
| remarks which, while never quite explicitly straying
| outside the bounds of faith and morals defined by the
| Magisterium, often seemed to strongly imply the opposite.
| This was especially true for audiences that did not
| already know the Catechism through and through, which
| even most Catholics do not. In that sense, Pope Francis's
| remarks sometimes seemed to possess a kind of not-
| committing-heresy-can't-get-mad character. This was
| exacerbated in turn by the media's selective quotation of
| statements that were, if quite reasonable in their
| entirety, not exactly robust to misinterpretation.
|
| Although I personally wish Pope Francis had done certain
| things differently, God chose him for a reason. I will
| try reflect on that as I, along with the Church, pray for
| him.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Pope St. Pius X put it in _Pascendi_ : "It is one of the
| cleverest devices of the Modernists (as they are commonly
| and rightly called) to present their doctrines without
| order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and
| disjointed manner, so as to make it appear as if their
| minds were in doubt or hesitation, whereas in reality
| they are quite fixed and steadfast."
|
| Francis, like other Modernists, had the knack of saying
| heretical things in a way that the intended effect was
| obvious, but his defenders could say, "He never said
| that! And here's how you _could_ interpret him in a
| completely consistent with Catholic teaching. " Or they'd
| argue that he was speaking off-the-cuff and shouldn't be
| taken literally, or that he was misquoted by an atheist
| interviewer (to whom he kept giving interviews and never
| corrected the record). But everyone who wasn't in denial
| knew what he was doing.
| lambdaphagy wrote:
| I share some of your frustrations, and yet there is also
| a spiritual peril in failing to extend charity in the
| interpretation of these remarks, let alone in claiming to
| know that anyone who interpreted them differently is
| being willfully obtuse.
|
| The greater the errors of the Franciscan papacy in your
| view, the more you owe the man your prayers.
| Loughla wrote:
| Not to turn this political, but what are your views on
| trump?
| lambdaphagy wrote:
| That question very much does turn this political, and is
| not in the spirit of the thread. What is it that you'd
| really like to know?
| dkarl wrote:
| > while never quite explicitly straying outside the
| bounds of faith and morals defined by the Magisterium,
| often seemed to strongly imply the opposite. This was
| especially true for audiences that did not already know
| the Catechism through and through, which even most
| Catholics do not. In that sense, Pope Francis's remarks
| sometimes seemed to possess a kind of not-committing-
| heresy-can't-get-mad character
|
| He sounds like a good teacher, reminding people how much
| the faith encompasses outside of what they _feel_ that it
| encompasses. People need prompting and guidance on the
| parts that feel uncomfortable, not the parts that
| dovetail neatly with their intuitions. If their reaction
| to his teaching is to trust their knee-jerk discomfort
| over the pope, despite not being able to formulate any
| concrete objections, just the feeling that it must be
| wrong in a sneaky way they can 't put their finger on,
| then it seems like they have decided to let their own
| feelings be the highest authority.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I guess you can consider yourself lucky that the Catholics
| you know get the big picture. There's a whole world of
| Catholics out there, and unfortunately, not all do.
|
| It does make the news. This is something we should be aware
| of. Here's just one such story:
| https://apnews.com/article/vatican-pope-francis-samesex-
| bles..., not to mention the recent spats from VPOTUS.
| ZeroClickOk wrote:
| According to the rules in the first post, I cannot talk about
| politics in this thread, but the summary is, the political
| inclinations that he displayed were "uncomfortable".
| lukan wrote:
| You can, but is only encouraged if it helps make the topic
| more deep and interesting.
| numbers_guy wrote:
| Said political inclinations were written in the Catechism
| before any of us knew who Pope Francis was.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _No Catholics I know have been shaken by anything Pope
| Francis did._
|
| I'm not convinced that every Catholic you know constitutes a
| representative sample of Catholics worldwide.
| numbers_guy wrote:
| If you look at my other posts, I acknowledge this and I am
| only replying to posts who pretend to speak for the whole
| worldwide Church.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| Feel like I just read a eulogy.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| My favorite quote was when he talked about families in one of
| his many speeches.
|
| _" In families, there are difficulties. In families, we argue;
| in families, sometimes the plates fly...In families, there are
| difficulties, but these difficulties are overcome with love.
| Hate doesn't overcome any difficulty."_
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Terry Pratchett's classic book "Small Gods" has a section that
| is perhaps inspired quite directly by the Church, comparing it
| to a type of shellfish: "Around the Godde there forms a Shelle
| of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and
| Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte
| be noticed."
|
| I think Pope Francis was committed to trying to dig through
| some of the shell to get to the godly bits of the religion, and
| this is deeply laudable. It was frankly weird to see the
| opposition to some of his seemingly obviously Christian
| stances. He'd say something like "I guess I don't really
| approve of gay people marrying, but I think we should be
| focusing on all of these suffering and dying poor people?" and
| then a bunch of people would bitch about it.
| tptacek wrote:
| People who aren't familiar with mainstream Catholicism might
| not understand that TLM is a pretty powerful cultural
| signifier; it's something close to a separatist movement within
| the church (in fact, it's the launch pad for an actual
| separatist movement, SSPX) and it's _quite_ conservative. When
| you hear the pejorative "tradcath", these are the people
| they're talking about.
|
| Naturally, the tiny but vocal minority of people who attended
| the TLM found Francis very activating. But it's important to
| know that those people are not broadly representative of the
| church as a whole. Most Catholics I know would barely offer a
| shrug if you told them (they certainly wouldn't already know)
| that Francis had restricted the TLM.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.
| Requiescat in pace. Amen.
| racl101 wrote:
| Held out all through out Easter. Lot of strength of character.
| sneak wrote:
| Strength and power of will does not affect one's lifespan or
| ability to resist disease. This is a myth.
|
| Disease is not a fistfight.
| AdventureMouse wrote:
| May he rest in peace
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Pope Francis was truly inimitable. A Pope to remember, and one of
| a kind.
|
| How to describe such a unique pontiff? Coming from "the end of
| the world," as he said, he truly represented a peculiar voice.
|
| He stands alone as the greatest international symbol of our age,
| an embodiment of its most salient characteristics. A man whose
| presence will remain indelible in our minds, and who really made
| his presence known in the Church.
|
| His fierce defense of his ideas, no matter what, marked the
| Church of our time forever. Catholics will never forget him.
| Traditional Catholics, in particular, will always vividly
| remember his legacy.
|
| May he rest in peace.
|
| source: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2025/04/francis-pope-
| who-w...
| layer8 wrote:
| https://archive.is/uo8bN
| RHSeeger wrote:
| I was sad to hear about this this morning. Pope Francis has been
| a lot more about "love they neighbor" than many of his
| predecessors, and I think that's been beneficial to the Catholic
| Church and the world as a whole (insofar as the Catholic Church
| has a fairly wide influence). I've appreciated his (sometimes
| controversial) stance in a lot of cases that boils down to "you
| don't follow Catholic teachings, but we should still treat you
| with love".
| thimkerbell wrote:
| Which churches come closest to Pope Francis's teachings and
| worldview? Ones that have both in-person and online services.
| thimkerbell wrote:
| What I don't know is how & what his approach does when it
| encounters gang stuff, how well it works there.
| jawns wrote:
| I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest ... the Catholic
| Church!
|
| Which _other_ churches besides the Catholic Church? Well,
| Catholicism is more encompassing than many people are aware of.
|
| For instance, you might have heard of the "Roman Catholic
| Church." Besides the Roman Catholic Church, aka the Latin
| Church (which primarily uses the Roman Rite), there are 23
| Eastern Catholic Churches, each with their own liturgical
| traditions, theological emphases, and cultural heritage. All of
| them are in full communion with the Pope.
|
| Note: While many Catholic parishes do offer live-streamed
| services, for the benefit of the sick and homebound, they do
| not fulfill the Sunday obligation to attend Mass if you are
| able to do so in person.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| There are many different orders of Catholic priests, but Pope
| Francis was a Jesuit and his teachings reflected that. Many of
| the Catholic universities (and even high schools) in the
| Americas were founded by Jesuits.
|
| Popping into the church connected to your nearest Catholic
| university is a good bet, but you can probably find a Jesuit
| priest nearby even if you aren't in the Americas.
| matteoraso wrote:
| RIP. I think history will find Pope Francis to be a man who was a
| fairly average pope that constantly got taken out of context.
| Nothing he did was really far out of line with Catholic doctrine,
| but he was often portrayed as being more liberal than he really
| was.
| bonzini wrote:
| > Nothing he did was really far out of line with Catholic
| doctrine
|
| Maybe he was merely good at pointing out the obvious, maybe
| it's what the church needed/needs?
| matteoraso wrote:
| Yeah, I can see that. Having a pope that's denounced by more
| conservative Catholics for truly believing in Catholic ethics
| shone a light on how far people were straying from the
| church. Really makes the pope look a bit like a Christ
| figure, when you think of it like that.
| smcin wrote:
| That's really much more of a comment about who controls media
| narratives these days and how to get your message out undiluted
| directly to the intended audience, and not anything specific to
| Pope Francis.
|
| Surprised noone here has mentioned yet that Pope Francis was
| only the second pope ever with a social-media strategy (Pope
| Benedict was the first, in 2012 [0][1], and didn't get as much
| traction as Pope Francis).
|
| "The Most Followed World Leaders on Social Media 2022" [2]
| ranked Pope Francis 3rd in 2022 with 53m followers, which
| is/was still low compared to singers, sports stars, celebrities
| and tech figures. It would obviously be crass and reductive to
| try to estimate the Pope's impact this way (and not, say,
| country visits, appointments, encyclicals, other official
| statements, reaction/criticism by other religous/political
| figures, administrative and legal actions, measures of
| popularity by specific groups, by factions, by country, by
| politics or religion), but as traditional media channels become
| less relevant, the Vatican will presumably have to move with
| the times, as in many other ways.
|
| Maybe the better question (as Dick Cheney would have put it) is
| which voices do/don't determine the media narrative on Pope
| Francis' papacy?
|
| As to your take (that he was wasn't that far out of line with
| Catholic doctrine, but often portrayed as more liberal and
| constantly taken out of context), that's the debate we're
| largely about to see happen.
|
| [0]: "Pope Joins Twitter: Benedict XVI's Screenname Will Be
| @Pontifex" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4897631
|
| [1]: https://x.com/Pontifex
|
| [2]: https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/the-most-followed-
| world...
| robblbobbl wrote:
| Condolences
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| To deeply reflect:
|
| Francis was the favorite pope of the Poor and of the Atheists.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| In Portugal, the local Catholic University is one of the foremost
| strongholds of Economic Neoliberalism.
|
| There were vicious attacks to Pope Francis on the newspapers by
| the most orthodox professors there.
| foxandmouse wrote:
| Though I'm neither Catholic nor especially religious, you don't
| have to be devout to recognize that Pope Francis has been a
| powerful force for good. From his warm outreach to refugees and
| the homeless to his landmark environmental encyclical Laudato
| Si', he has consistently championed the poor, fostered interfaith
| dialogue and empathy.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Very interesting to see he has died after the tons of press the
| church was putting out about his health and he was "recovering"
| and "fine".
| chippiewill wrote:
| When you're at that age it's not uncommon to be on the mend
| from illness as then deteriorate rapidly again.
| jounker wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do this here.
| damion6 wrote:
| I think he did well. Seemed thoughtful, can't expect him to
| totally buck the system. But he got it moving along again.
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