This article surmises the church could sell off SOME of their real estate holdings and gather about $600 billion, so having $47b on hand doesn't seem out of whack.
So I attached a link you needed. Do you have any that disputes the incredible wealth of the church, and would you not acknowledge, as my link states, that Jesus would not have held onto this massive wealth and sold it, like he asked individuals to do in the New Testament, and give the proceeds to the poor?Anyone else read it yet... all 184 pages? (Lots of white space, so not as imposing as it sounds.)
If you haven't read it yet, a heads up that it's NOT about climate change. Very little of it is about climate change, anyway. Its scope is MUCH broader than that.
I have to give Francis credit for writing a letter that takes to the woodshed most governments, most corporations, and most individuals of the richest nations, and proposes some sweeping solutions to some of the world's biggest challenges. I think most of what Francis said will fall on deaf ears. But I applaud him for trying.
Much of the letter is, not surprisingly, based on belief in a God who is responsible for creation. And some is based on Christian beliefs, and some on Catholic Christian beliefs. But the letter is addressed to all people, and I think that those who don't share in those beliefs will still find much of it applicable to them.
If you haven't read it yet, a heads up that it's NOT about climate change. Very little of it is about climate change, anyway. Its scope is MUCH broader than that.
I have to give Francis credit for writing a letter that takes to the woodshed most governments, most corporations, and most individuals of the richest nations, and proposes some sweeping solutions to some of the world's biggest challenges. I think most of what Francis said will fall on deaf ears. But I applaud him for trying.
Much of the letter is, not surprisingly, based on belief in a God who is responsible for creation. And some is based on Christian beliefs, and some on Catholic Christian beliefs. But the letter is addressed to all people, and I think that those who don't share in those beliefs will still find much of it applicable to them.
I think many liberals have cherry picked the parts of it they LOVE and disregard the parts that they HATE.
The fact of the matter is, the pope has intertwined the environment with abortion. His message is that one should not put environmentalism on a pedestal unless you are devoutly Pro-Life.
How many times have you heard the liberal media point that out with all their pope hugging coverage lately?
Economically, the pope is a Marxist. He is from the South American school of Leftist economics. He sees capitalism as a problem, not the solution it has been to billions of people.
It is easy for him to criticize the institutions you mention for he has no skin in the game. None of the massive cost of taxing carbon will fall on the Catholic Church's debit column. He won't have to employ the scads of people who will lose their jobs and won't be asked to pay for the middle class and the poor's skyrocketing home heating oil, gas for their cars or electricity for their homes.
It is like the city council of LA, San Fran and Obama calling for a minimum wage raise for peeps, as long as someone else is footing the bill.
His words will fall on deaf ears because the Catholic Church no longer can claim the moral high ground on anything. The current pope wasn't in charge when the priest scandal broke out but he fast tracked the pope who was to sainthood, hurting tens of thousands of victims who blame Pope John Paul for doing fkin nothing about the problem for years.
I am going to guess this wasn't the answer you were looking for. You can blame the pope for that.
telling people to divorce is OK and to do what ever they feel.
But what I really wish he would say is that the Catholic church or any other religion is like a big club that you choose to join.
That there is no God and there was never any god or goddess. That it's all make believe. But it's Ok if it makes you feel good.
I don't know what the response would be. For one I would applaud him and support him... with a dollar bill... like a strip dancing girl.
But maybe that's his next move.
or he really is the anti-christ and about to take over the world.
-- Modified on 7/2/2015 8:53:37 PM
I expect that's going to be a fairly common reaction.
However, if you read the letter (did you read it, or did you just "cherry pick" the parts you hate?), you saw that abortion was mentioned only once in 184 pages:
"Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? 'If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away'."
The letter is about concern for nature, including all living creatures. In that context, I can see why Francis brought up concern for the unborn. Just another thing that makes the letter difficult to read for many.
Is Francis a Marxist? I think he'd probably call himself a communist instead of a Marxist. The Catholic Church has communistic roots dating back to Roman times (cf. Acts of the Apostles), long before Marx's time. It's clear that Francis sees excessive consumption as a huge problem, but I don't think he sees capitalism per se as a problem--capitalism as practiced today, yes.
I disagree with you on why Francis' message will fall on deaf ears. I think it will because it's a hard message to accept, just like "human activity is causing climate change" is a hard message for many to accept. He's advocating a massive change in how the world is run, how businesses operate, and how most people in developed nations like the USA conduct their daily lives. Who wants to hear that kind of talk?
Question for you: if Francis wasn't the right person to deliver a message like this, who is?
But what the pope prefers is classic Marxism.
And when you mention "excessive consumption" I ask honestly, per whom? The Catholic Church is wealthy beyond belief. Real estate holdings, massive influx of cash, papal jewels and objects that are priceless, etc etc etc.
When the pope decides to sell his "excessive greed" and put those proceeds to help people under his auspices battle disease, starvation and basic human needs, I will listen to him on what the fk everybody else is doing wrong.
Lastly, I am not sure what "message" you think should be or needs to be espoused, but re: the topics we have discussed, it seems the pope is one of the last people on the planet that should be its spokes person.
... it would help to read the letter. Then perhaps you could answer my question about who is better suited to deliver that message than Francis. President Obama, perhaps? 
Francis is the wrong guy to pick on for "excessive greed". He's the least greedy pope in recent history. As for helping people, do you have any idea how much aid organizations sponsored by or supported by the Catholic Church give in the USA and around the world?
Know any buyers for used basilicas? Selling off the Vatican's artworks would generate a one-time chunk of cash, true... and would kill the recurring revenue stream from ticket sales to see those artworks, and put most of that art that's now available to the public into the hands of private collectors.
The Vatican (City) is a country--the world's smallest. How about you push for all nations to sell off their property and artworks to help the poor and needy?
One can be the "least greedy" pope in history but even by that description, he would still be greedy. A person who has devoted his life to not only be Christian, but is head of the Catholic Chirch, you should expect much more from him than merely being the "least greedy."
Catholic charities has been around a lot longer than the current pope so giving him credit for that is silly. You took a specific criticism I made of the pope and somehow managed to try and turn that into me denouncing the charity wing. I did no such thing.
And comparing other nations to the Vatican is absurd. I don't hold other countries to a standard that the pope professes but chooses to ignore. He is the one out there making the moral argument and he should be held to the higher standard.
I don't feel the need to read a bunch of bullshit from a guy that fastracked the sainthood of the ring leader in the priest scandal. What he did and failed to do, was horrific but the current imbecile in the Vatican couldn't wait to bestow upon him the highest honor one can give to a human in the RC church.
Some people stand up to evil placed on our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. And some people, like the current pope, stand down to it. I have ZERO desire to read his drivel on other topics as he has ZERO moral ground on which to preach.
... and put his money where his mouth is. When the Hypopecritical leader of the Roman Catholic Church espouses a simple and humble existence while living in a fucking palace (wtf do you think the Vatican is)? Why does the Pope sit on the Papal Throne?
Let him use some of the $47 Billion US Dollars the Vatican holds in its portfolio (in addition to the priceless works of art and real estate holdins around the world. 47 billion can feed alot of poor hungry people, or it can feed the bombastic ego of a ruling empire that switched from military to religious based and still requires opulent palaces of worship and a percentage of everyones income. They call it tithe, Evangelical Tea Partiers call it taxes, I call it extortion. What a crock of phoney baloney bullshit
The church currently and actively engages in discrimination towards women.
So people can tell me all they want how "cool" the pope is but until he corrects some deep and obvious flaws in his glass house, he needs to STFU about others throwing stones.
... to documentation of the Vatican's $47 B USD in cash.
Or is that figure just "a crock of phoney baloney bullshit"?
This article surmises the church could sell off SOME of their real estate holdings and gather about $600 billion, so having $47b on hand doesn't seem out of whack.
So I attached a link you needed.
Do you have any that disputes the incredible wealth of the church, and would you not acknowledge, as my link states, that Jesus would not have held onto this massive wealth and sold it, like he asked individuals to do in the New Testament, and give the proceeds to the poor?
... as facts stating that the Catholic Church has at least $47 B USD in cash sitting around.
I'll take your post seriously when you appeal to all of the world's religions--all Christian denominations, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddists, etc. to liquidate all of their assets, including all property, as the article you posted asks the Catholic Church to do. Then please explain how these organized religions will function without places of worship, and how their religious and charitable work will continue without any facilities, computer systems etc.
BTW, that article you posted misstates the data from the Economist article. The "$5 billion in annual charity spending" isn't all of the charitable spending of the U.S. Catholic Church. It's only the contributions from one organization, Catholic Charities USA. There's many many other charitable organizations supported by the Catholic Church. There's also the $147 billion the U.S. Catholic Church spends each year on health care and higher education programs. Many people think health care and education are important, even if you don't.
Here's the original Economist article, which has a link to detailed data used for their report:
They have squandered billions of the people's money on child rape and mismanagement of the books. And you think somehow this helps your point? On what planet?
And stop with the "Francis is better than the last pope" nonsense I see you bragging about. He rushed John Paul to sainthood which MANY victim rights groups begged him not to do. Just another spit in the face of people they abused physically and then mentally. Explain THAT to me about your precious pope.
When you get done with that one, tell me why he continues to discriminate against women? And why he lives in a fkin palace when many, many dirt poor Catholics sleep on dirt? Tell me the address of the palace Jesus lived in. I'd love to go see it sometime.
Be honest NDP, you are a liberal catholic with a huge man crush on a guy that is pro global warming. Isn't that what this is all about?????
If you took time to research a subject before attacking it, you might learn something. But it's easier to hate something and someone when you don't know much about it or them, isn't it?
For example, you could find out that Francis doesn't live in a palace.
And if you had read that document that's the subject of this thread, you'd see it has little to do with global warming.
Did you see the picture of his living quarters? You don't think the tens of millions of dirt poor Catholics would consider that a palace? Wtf? Tell me honestly...WWJD?
And if he isn't using his palace, why not sell it and give the benefits to the poor? Again, WWJD?
But that's not what YOU meant by "palace", is it?
If I were you, I'd be cheering Francis on for his efforts to reform the finances of the Catholic Church and refocus the church on helping the poor, not running him down. And if you believe in prayer (which I assume you do as you seem to have a high regard for Jesus), you might say a few for Francis, that he'll be successful in his efforts. Maybe even sell that Vatican guesthouse (which is more like a modern hotel vs. a palace, but anyway...) someday.
Here's an excerpt from Fortune re what Francis has been doing to get the church refocused on what he considers his greatest mission--aiding the poor and underprivileged:
"The Vatican’s inept practices had inhibited giving, he explained, and had to stop. 'When the administration is fat, it’s unhealthy,' he said. Francis wanted a leaner, more efficient Vatican administration that would be solidly 'self-sustaining.' That, he said, would free up more money for his charities. 'You are the experts,' the pope said, 'and I trust you. Now I want solutions to these problems, and I want them as soon as possible.'
rather than merely TALKING about them. He is acting like a politician, NOT a spiritual leader. Let him clean his own fkin house up, as there is enough to keep him busy for years, and until then, He should STFU about what everyone else is doing wrong.
I can see this is a matter of "faith" to you as the facts mean nothing. Get back to me when he has made real changes and just didn't bloviate about them.
It's all out there, easy to find... if you're open to it.
You're right about one thing... there's enough to keep him busy for years. There's 2,000 years of history and tradition working against change. Everyone wants change overnight, but that's very hard to do in an organization like the Catholic Church. Maybe you read in the Fortune article how he gets up at 4:30 every day (he's 77 btw), and doesn't take any holidays off because "the poor can't take vacations, why should he".
It's funny, though. One of the things a pope does as a spiritual leader is communicate teachings in the form of letters called encyclicals. Yet you didn't approve of his writing his latest encyclical. It appears that for the pope, he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, as far as you're concerned. Or, he needs to check with you before he writes an encyclical, to make sure you agree with it.
If you can't convince us that the Pope is anything but just another lying sack of shit, you should be thankful that the lefties here, who are more predisposed to hate the church, haven't chimed in here.
So far you aren't doing a very good job selling this pope to us.
and please don't try and claim that you aren't trying to sell us. I've seen time share salesmen who don't try as hard as you have been doing the last few days. Just face it, we aren't buying what you are selling, at the point does it really matter why not?
... what I thought was an interesting, and potentially very important, document, written by someone who is the spiritual leader of 1 billion people but who has influence beyond the Catholic Church. You, Jack, and Ed turned it into an attack on the Catholic Church and on the author.
No, I am not trying to "sell" you. I am trying to set the record straight on what I think are inaccurate statements about Francis and the Catholic Church ("he lives in a palace", "the Catholic Church has $47 B USD in cash" etc.). If you want to call my attempts to correct these errors "selling", well, go ahead, I can't stop you. I know it's just your way of trying to shut down a discussion when you run out of things to say.
As one of your buddies likes to say, "haters will hate."
As far as I'm concerned, this discussion thread is closed, unless someone who has actually read the document wants to discuss it, pro or con.
It's you that has been beating this dead horse for days now.
If a Muslim equivalent to the Pope had written something similar, or the head of any religion, you would have gotten the same response from me. People who preach living your life based on a fairy tale don't get to preach to me about matters regarding science, and institutions worth at LEAST hundreds of billions obtained by convincing stupid people to just GIVE them money based on the same fairy tale don't get to preach to me about greed, avarice or generosity. Hate is such a strong word, but it does seem an appropriate word to sum up how I feel about the Catholic church.
They are selling them for the low low price of $13.95
... as I did. Do you have access to the Internet?
Oh wait... never mind!
You of course don't count, you have been twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to defend the Catholic Church, an organization I have nothing but detest and loathing for. I am just as likely to waste my time reading Dianetics or The Book of Mormon before reading a 184 pages of what ANY Pope has to say. Fair Enough
I just asked a simple question--had anyone else read it yet? "No, and I'm not going to" is a perfectly valid response.
I just question the wisdom of trying to summarize a document that one hasn't read.
Actually the word for rebuttal is rebuttal. I assumed you weren't a native English speaker but that's beside the point.
Indeed, anyone with a computer can easily read on line or download a copy and that also is not the point.
Of all the charitable work the Catholic Church performs, of all the things they give away for free, of all the homily's spoken for free and all the masses given for free, don't you think that could afford to make this one, oh so important, Papal Encyclical a little better priced to those without a computer than $13.95 plus S&H? Just maybe if it's that important?
Or, since it's so important, maybe the Vatican could pay people to read it. We all know they have at least $47 B in cash just sitting around. And if they would just sell off some of those basilicas, they could afford to supply hard copies to anyone who asked for it.
P.S. It's not a good idea to assume.
... because you don't like the guy who wrote it or the organization he leads.
Why didn't you just say so in the first place? It would have been a lot simpler.
As for non-sequiturs, about 95% of your posts in this thread have been non-sequiturs. Which I completely understand. How can you discuss a topic, to wit, Laudato si', that you know nothing about?
-- Modified on 7/4/2015 12:03:21 AM
One of the richest and most powerful institutions is lecturing the rest of us about greed.
An institution based on an entire series of fairy tales and mumbo jumbo is lecturing us about science.
Why do I need to waste an hour of my time reading 184 pages of hogwash?
BTW have you ever read Dianetics by L Ron Hubbard? If not, how can you discuss Scientology, or reject it's teachings?
... nor do I know much about Scientology, so I don't discuss it. From what I know about it, it doesn't interest me, so I haven't taken the time to learn more about it. Maybe I will someday, but it's not a priority.
I completely understand if you have no interest in reading this lengthy document and consider it a waste of your time. I wonder how many people, even Catholics, will take the time to read all of it. But it's hard to accurately summarize something you haven't read, isn't it?
I think I already did a pretty good job of summarizing what the pope had to say in two rather short sentences.
Scientology is also easy to summarize without reading Dianetics, "It's a quasi religion based on a bunch of mumbo jumbo written by a rather average science fiction author"
See how easy that is? Not to mention all the time it saves.
I completely understand if you have no interest in reading this lengthy document and consider it a waste of your time. I wonder how many people, even Catholics, will take the time to read all of it. But it's hard to accurately summarize something you haven't read, isn't it?
I don't read what the KKK puts out either so to you means I can't comment on it. Oh...ok. LOL
The interest I have is he is going to dupe people like yoirself with his nonsense on topics ne knows nothing about, lecture the middle class and poor on why they have to take it up the ass by these dumbass leftist policies that will kill growth, jobs, raise taxes and raise utility costs.
Maybe YOU think all of those are GREAT things. I dont.
... between the KKK and Pope Francis, then you don't know jack, Jack.
And if you're waiting for someone who's perfect to deliver this kind of message, and for the message itself to be perfectly formed, you'll be waiting a very long time.
The KKK has not done anywhere near as much damage as the Catholic Church.
and I will repeat my earlier take on the subject.
One of the wealthiest institutions on the planet is lecturing us on greed, and the same institution based on a fairy tale is lecturing us on science.
I think I know all I need to know on the subject.
I was speaking of another poster's comparison of Francis to the KKK. You twisted it to compare the KKK to the Catholic Church. I know you're smart enough to realize those aren't the same thing.
You can repeat your summarization all you want. I continue to find it puzzling how anyone can summarize a document they haven't read. You'd have very likely received an F on that in any high school or college class.
While I will admit the evils are different, they are evil nonetheless.
You can knock yourself separating and distinguishing the two if you like.
I have no such desire or time to do so.
...I do NOT acknowledge or validate any of the Popes dogmatic diatribes.
He does not speak to me, for me, or to my best interests.
I have many objections to the Catholic Church and its Big Kahuna:
Besides his attempt to meddle in political affiars that are way outside his purview or education, his predecessors for thousands of years perpetuated the heinous lie that Jews killed Christ, and now he's trying to impose his one sided values on Israel's conflicts. Who the fuck is the Vatican to declare a terrorist organizaton a State??? The naive little bastardo should clean up his own house and get rid of the predatory pedophile priests still infecting his organization, stick to preaching his God-awful dogma, and stay the fuck out of the real world. Fuck all these dogmatic douchbags who think they have the right to tell me how who and what to believe.
I don't tell anyone else how to think or what to believe in... I just want the same courtesy from others.
Fuck the Pope, fuck the Rabbis fuck the Priests and above all, fuck those mutherfucking child molesting Islamist Imams with a prophets staff shoved up their pieholes.
Thank you for letting me share. I'm going back to my history lesson - aka A Month of Zen.
When one has nothing valid to say, the call others stupid, dumb, ignorant, etc.
...that the Vatican would recognize a state that does not even exist.
Worse than that is that they have not received ANY assurances from the Palestinians re: terrorism.
What is it with Leftists like him or Obama, that they don't even have the courage to demand, that basic human rights be agreed upon before negotiating with totalitarian or potentially terrorist states?
Jack I don't think it has anything to do with Left or Right.
It has to do with Naiveté and Hubris. Naiveté on the part of the White House in their belief they have a clue when it comes to the Middle Eastern mindset. That holds true for Bush 43 as well as Obama administratios, just approached from opposing ideologies of Belligerence (Bush) and Appeasement (Obama). Neither approach was worth the papyrus it was scribbled on, and the unstable mix has yielded Islamic State, an entity so heinous that even barbaric terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are disavowing any association with them, and Saudi Arabia is actually in contact with Israel. Or do you really think the recent sighting of a Saudi airliner at Ben Gurion was just routine "maintenance"?
Hubris radiates from the Papacy in their incontrovertible and persistent attempts to exert their ideology on the rest of us. It's one thing to preach about feeding the hungry and the poor - many of them are of the Papal flock, so of course he wants everyone to foot the bill. In that regard, he's just like any other politician.
It's something else again when he sticks his nose where it doesn't belong. Like the Middle East
The Middle East certainly being one of them.
and yes, if they want to feed the poor, there are plenty of dirt poor Catholics and the Catholic Church has BILLIONS of dollars, so they are more than welcome to lead by example.
What I find particularly appalling about the Catholic Church (aside from fucking little boys of course) is that rather than feeding the poor, they actually guilt the poor into giving the Church money instead of the other way around. Just how fucked up is it that some poor Guatemalan eeking out a couple hundred bucks a month if he is lucky to feed his family is expected to give the church one dollar out of every ten he makes? and this is repeated millions of times in dozens of countries, and has been for hundreds of years. I don't see the priests, bishops or cardinals missing any meals, why should dirt poor people be guilted into giving to the church instead of feeding their family.
Which is essentially my argument as well
Appeasement is absolutely the mantra from the Left not the right. Look at Cuba and Iran as two examples we recieved NOTHING from those murderous thugs to restore some relations with them.
They will use the millions of new dollars to flow in to further their grip on the Cuban people and they have said so publically.
As for Iran, it is only people of the left that want this deal. They want ANY deal. You have the leadership in Iran saying there will NEVER be unfettered access to nuke sites by UNSCOM.
How do you negotitate in good faith with assholes like that? You can't. That's why we needed to walk away from the table a long time ago, restore crippling sanctions and add to them and possibly use military intervention if it gets to that, but what has Obama done? He has fkin relaxed them! And many on the left cheer him on!
I think you missed part of my text...
"It has to do with Naiveté and Hubris. Naiveté on the part of the White House in their belief they have a clue when it comes to the Middle Eastern mindset. That holds true for Bush 43 as well as Obama administratios, just approached from opposing ideologies of Belligerence (Bush) and Appeasement (Obama)."
The Bush Doctrine was borne of Belligerence, but just as ineffective as the unfolding of events have shown us.
In this matter we aren't quite as far off as you think. I would definitely not attribute an appeasement attitude to the Republicans or the Right wing. But neither the left nor the right are able to produce a balanced, cooperative perspective at this point.
We're going to need to clean our own house before we continue to meddle in the affairs of others. that won't happen as long as the US and John Kerry continue to be pussies with the rude and bombastic representatives of the New Persian Hedgemony. What's next? A Keffiyeh for Kerry? Hijab for Hillary? Blech
I didn't give the naïveté and hubris point you made any weight and clearly, both are valid and true. In my haste to rip Obama, I failed to acknowledge Bush's failings and you were right to point it out to me. Thanks man.
I couldn't agree more.
Sounds interesting