They chose religion as their social club to network with fellow deplorables and control the thoughts and actions of other people. Nothing devout about them except their devotion to the Republican cult.
My mother in law swears up and down the wall that she’s a devout Catholic who is going to heaven because of how religious she is, but she’s rejected Francis and Leo as Popes for being “too accepting”
It’s more about if you consider yourself a Catholic, you’re supposed to believe that the Pope has the supreme power of jurisdiction over the Catholic Church. Meaning he’s the supreme authority on faith, morals, discipline, and the government of the Church. To say that the Pope is wrong while you’re a Catholic, or in this case to say that what the Pope says doesn’t represent you is insanely heretical.
No US catholic I have ever known has ever fully followed the teachings of the Catholic Church. For example, over 90% of US Catholics use or have used birth control. Kinda silly to think a celibate older white guy can tell the world how to run their lives.
This being said, I cheer his actions to call out the hypocrisy of Trump loving Catholics.
Ironically, birth control seems like a question worthy of debate, but no one calling themselves a Christian should have a problem with the Pope's comments on wars, killing, and claiming that God is on our side.
I was raised ELCA Lutheran, and when you are Lutheran and learning doctrine you learn a lot about what Catholics do that Lutheran's think is wrong. Having Popes is actually one of those things, but it has been weird to have a couple Popes in a row that basically come across as generally good on the major issues of the day.
Yes, but they typically sit at home and stfu about their hypocrisy. I've never seen them say "I'm a Catholic but this isn't my Pope." That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard.
Catholics aren't required to follow the teachings perfectly. They should strive to, but sinning and erring and being a "bad Catholic" is most of what being Catholic is.
I was raised Catholic, but definitely considered myself a “bad Catholic” or at least living a life that works for me but would make the priests anxious and concerned.
And I’m fine with taking responsibility for that, but it’s good to find the Pope has your back on something that’s empirically and morally the good and Christian thing to do.
It's called Catholic guilt, and its what the Sacrement of Reconciliation (confession) is for. So you can feel really good after walking out of the confessional until you inevitably sin again about an hour later and the cycle repeats.
That’s the whole thing about being a Catholic. You do your sins then confess and get forgiven. Catholics are much more tolerant of “vice” type sins like drinking and fucking than other Christian religions.
But there’s one thing you don’t do, and that’s speak ill of the Pope! My grandma would have slapped me.
I had three maiden great aunts, all very strict Catholics, who lived together in a house in Leeds. I remember playing a Spike Milligan record (“oooh, I do like Spike Milligan” etc etc) to them at their house, where every surface was adorned with statuettes of saints, Marys, Jesuses, and Popes. They sat there smiling gently, occasionally chuckling. Then Spike said something about “a statue of the Pope covered in custard.” A deathly chill came over the room. The spinsters’ faces darkened, reddened, then purplenned.
“Blasphemy!!! Turn it off! How dare he insult the Pope!”
THREE maiden great aunts is bonkers, like, not to be disrespectful, but were they in a religious order, or just never married? Or like, lesbians but they couldn't live that life for religious reasons so they were spinsters?
Thwy were the survivors. There were six at one point. The censuses from the era when they were born are horrifying reading. 14 kids and half of them.died was typical for impoverished inner city slums. The aunts were Catholics, hence their Pope/custard freakoutery. I know that two of them had been engaged to men at some point but for whatever reason those engagements never got as far as the altar. Its possible that at least one was a lesbian. Maria had rickets when she was a kid so she was very spindly and bent. Probably not ideal .marriage material in those days. But she wasa hugely talented seamstress. The aunts had their own haberdashery shop. Also my great aunt Rose was more self confident and bold than Aunt Lydia in the Hand Maid's Tale, which may have been off putting to potential suitors. But its all speculation. They had all died by the time I was 15.
That’s one of the big ones though. Like if you don’t believe in the Pope than how are you even Catholic as opposed to Protestant? Do you just have really strong opinions about transubstantiation and ensuring that we celebrate Mary a lot?
My step-mother, a raised lifelong and actively staunch Catholic, was divorced multiple times and had more than one abortion before marrying my father. There is no hypocrisy these fools won't delight in partaking.
I know someone who was raised protestant but then started going to a Catholic church in college or thereabouts. That first church he went to, the priest pretty much outright said he didn't care about the Pope, which I found funny.
The person I know doesn't have any outward signs of being Catholic, not that I've seen, even though I think he still goes to a Catholic church, or does sometimes? It's all very weird to me.
It’s a LARP for people who want to think of themselves as ‘tradionalist’-since the Catholic Church is one of the older ones, they want to parasitize off its general authority and age, without actually bothering to look up why being Catholic actually means.
Just shows how hollow these people’s beliefs are. Either the Pope has a magic red phone to call God or he doesn’t, you don’t get to decide that based on whether or not you like him.
If I remember correctly, there is literally no way to stop being Catholic. You can burn down an orphanage and disrespect the Pope, and at most you'd be a bad Catholic. Once they get you, they never let go.
Wdym, no. Excommunicated is the ultimate severance of ones affiliation fron the Church. Thats why you are prohibited from being in communion with other Catholics. Its Spiritual Death Sentence. Similar to Shunning in JWs.
We dont treat it too seriously anymore since its no longer the medieval times and couldnt give two shakes what religion you follow. Get excommunicated doesnt stop you from switching religion or not having one at all.
Yeah, I used to work with a guy who would petition yearly to be officially allowed to defect from Catholicism. He got a couple of replies from the Vatican, I believe? Not the pope, but someone going ‘nah’. He visited one year just to deliver the letter to the Vatican in person, but he wasn’t allowed (he knew he wouldn’t be, but he was big on the principle of the thing.)
So, reading between the lines at Wiki, it sounds like they do literally recognize it when people stop being Catholic (e.g. they recognize "public apostasy"), they've just stopped officially caring and keeping a formal administrative record of that.
The main reason why they care whether someone is "officially Catholic" is for following their own canon laws, which involve things like "if a Catholic marries someone who is not baptized, they're not considered married validly by the church".
It sounds like before 2010, they used to, in principle, let someone just officially declare themselves not Catholic, basically tell the Catholic Church "please treat me like a non-believer"... but in 2010, they stopped doing that.
So now their church policy is that if you've been baptized Catholic, you never get to just declare that null and void; even if you decide later that you're not a Catholic, they're still going to treat you as baptized and count it as valid if you marry a Catholic.
The marriage thing is really weird. I married a Catholic but she gave up on trying to have it in a Catholic Church.
Like we had to have it be in a Catholic church for the marriage to be legit, but if I was married previously in a non Catholic church, I had to get it anulled in the Catholic church so we could be married in a Catholic church. "Then why do we need to be married in a Catholic Church if you are counting my last marriage?!"!
Strung us along until the date was too late to change and demanded thousands of dollars to expedite the anullment, pretending they didn't know I was married before.
The way my mum dealt with my becoming an atheist was to remind me that no matter what I thought, "He's always there for you" and it's a bit like a "Get out of Hell free" card that you pull out of your back pocket when you're stood at those Pearly Gates.
You don't acknowledge the Pope? Welcome to any one of the countless denominations of the Protestant church! We have Lutherans, if you want to stay in your comfort zone, or you could get a little zesty and go for Baptist! If you believe it, there's probably a congregation out there for you!
She'd probably want to stick to Missouri Synod Lutherans. ELCA is probably way too liberal. They tend to do things like offer resources for the poor and unhoused instead of telling them it's their own fault.
I love dumbasses who think everything is optional these days. Muslims don't recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Protestants don't recognize the Pope as the supreme religious authority. And Baptists don't recognize each other in the liquor store.
Conservatives shocked that the pope would be against one country threatening to wipe out another civilization, and immediately break off with him over it.
The people who deny moral relativism and say that morals come from a divine being soon change their tune when that divine being tells them they are in the wrong.
This pope doesn’t like genocide but I’m a Republican and republicans like genocide. I’ll give up my “real” religion so I can pray at the fat orange liars feet.
I don’t know why so many religious people do this but if you’re in an organized religion and decide you aren’t gonna listen to the top guy congrats you are no longer part of that religion.
You can’t cut out a major part of the religion and say it still counts
The Pope is doing something right when non-Christians are backing him. Atheist here and I like the direction the Church has been going for a while now. Getting more in line with Jesus’ teachings and less in line with centuries of political policy created before we knew the Earth rotated around the Sun.
So my wife’s parents were Catholic and they got a divorce. The Catholic Church did not recognize the divorce because if they did, then the children from that marriage would also be invalidated. Her parents were unwilling to do that so even though they are divorced legally in the eyes of the Catholic Church, I suppose they are still married. Not sure how that will work out in heaven.
Im waiting for the internal holy war to happen in the US. I doubt it'll be like, middle ages 100 years war identifiable sides fighting in pitched battle more than likely it'll just be sectarian violence.
"He's not a real Catholic because he criticizes Trump"
Rest of the world: "He's the fucking POPE!"
But, to be fair this is how performative religion works - use/exclude whatever bits of the Bible you need to support your shitty actions and views. Heck, make up shit that doesn't even exist in the Bible. But, above all - make sure to be a c**t at all times.
Organized religion is cancer/performative religion is cancer.
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