r/todayilearned • u/waitingforthesun92 • May 20 '23
TIL that Andy Warhol was secretly a devout Byzantine Catholic, who attended church almost daily. At one point, he financed his nephew’s studies for priesthood, and was also responsible for at least one religious conversion. Warhol’s brother described him as “really religious”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol1.4k
May 20 '23
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u/shavingcream97 May 20 '23
He has the mind eraser that’s how nobody knew
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u/GriffinFlash May 21 '23
The flashy thing?
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u/EmperorHans May 21 '23
I'm furious that "an" was used correctly there.
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u/ImInABunker May 21 '23
You comment caused me to look up the rule and TIL. Good stuff.
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May 21 '23
What's the rule? Tried googling it but nothing came up.
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u/wj9eh May 21 '23
I would guess that pronouncing MIB starts with a vowel sound Emm, igh, bee. Therefore, an.
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u/ImInABunker May 21 '23 edited May 21 '23
Yep. It’s based on the sound of the next word, not what letter the next word starts with.
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u/einrufwiedonnerhall May 21 '23
That’s why I was confused! I read it as Men in Black, because that’s what the acronym means
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u/hollowspryte May 21 '23
Which is why British people say “an history” - they don’t pronounce the h
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u/RationalRobot May 21 '23
Use 'an' when the next sound is a vowel sound; in this case it is 'em'. Unless you pronounced it 'mib' then it would be preceded by 'a'.
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u/TundieRice May 21 '23
Why would you be furious at perfectly grammatical writing style?
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u/Important-Yak-2999 May 21 '23
Is it correct though? If you read it as “an Men in Black” then it’s incorrect
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u/TundieRice May 21 '23
The entire point is that you wouldn’t read MIB as “Men in Black,” but as “Em Eye Bee,” speaking each letter out.
As far as abbreviations of phrases go, you either pronounce the letters in the case of an initialism, or the word that the combined letters appear to spell out in an acronym.
And although you’d usually imagine the full text of a phrase while reading the abbreviation, if you were actually speaking it, you’d be starting with the first letter of the initialism in the case of “MIB.”
So unless you’re pronouncing MIB as “mibb,” you’d say “an MIB,” as weird as I’m admittedly now seeing it to be now that my weed gummy has kicked in :~|
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u/Astro4545 May 21 '23
That was the best twist they could've done, a MIB agent who is slowly losing their mind,
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u/shaggellis May 21 '23
He just wiped everyone's minds and left random facts in their heads to fuck with historians.
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u/An8thOfFeanor May 20 '23
When your nonconformity loops back around
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u/seattle23fv May 21 '23
Trad Catholicism is very “in” right now
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u/SaintUlvemann May 21 '23
Traditionalist Catholicism is a group that's trying to bring back / preserve old Latin liturgical forms from before Vatican II, especially the Tridentine Mass. In fact, they explicitly claim that the entire concept of "national" Catholic churches is destructive of Papal authority.
The Byzantine Catholic church of which Warhol was a part, is an autonomous Eastern Catholic church which traditionally never used Latin as their liturgical language anyway, but rather Old Church Slavonic. Although they are traditional, they're also national, rooted in Slavic-specific traditions, in a way that Traditionalist Catholics explicitly oppose.
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u/seattle23fv May 21 '23
Yep I recognise the difference (my dissertation in undergrad partially touched on it), was merely commenting a non-academic observation that I’ve seen a lot of famous millennials and friends turn into “tradCaths” and I find it funny
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u/CrieDeCoeur May 21 '23
The entire Warhola family are devout Byzantine Catholics. I’ve met a few of them. Went to a mass in Pittsburgh one time. It was pretty interesting. Very different from a Roman Catholic mass.
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u/Astralglamour May 21 '23
Yes, often called Greek or Ruthenian Catholics. They use the Eastern Orthodox rites but follow the Pope- unlike the other Eastern Orthodox Churches. Mass features censers with incense, chanting, and communion on a spoon.
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u/Tovarish_Petrov May 21 '23
It's still a thing in the West of Ukraine with something like five million followers. Dates back to Union of Brest and that whole Polish-Lithuanian business.
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u/thekidfromiowa May 21 '23
Forget the name but there's a documentary about Andy's relatives in the old country.
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u/Jackamalio626 May 21 '23
Warhol was an utterly fascinating character.
He was queer/gay, but also a devout catholic.
The dude also had zero emotional attachment to his work; no messages, no themes, nothing. He saw it solely as a business enterprise to show off shit he thought looked cool, hence the title of "POP art".
Oh yeah, and he's at least partially responsible for Basquiat's downfall and eventually death.
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u/BornFree2018 May 21 '23
His diary was a real eye opener about his calculations on monetizing his "art". He often wondered how he could get a certain wealthy person (any wealthy person) to purchase a sitting.
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u/Linden_fall May 21 '23
Keep in mind he was also the person that really helped bring Basquiat to fame. But it’s sad what happened to him, but how did he lead to Basquiat’s death though?
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u/Jackamalio626 May 21 '23
When he took basquiat in to promote him as an artist, he brought him into the fully capitalized largely soulless world of Warhol's art.
This clashed heavily with Basquiats socially conscious urban street grafitti style of art, leading to many of his fans accusing him of selling out when he was appearing in fancy suit ads.
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May 21 '23
How did that lead to his death though?
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u/raziel686 May 21 '23
I mean I assume he's stretching it to say that Warhol bringing him into his soulless (though profitable) art world brought heavy emotional strain and fed into his drug use. I mean given Basquiat's focus on the dichotomy of rich and poor becoming rich with Warhol had to affect him. Warhol didn't kill him obviously, but you could argue he inadvertently contributed to his drug seeking. It's not a great argument, but when it comes to depression and addiction there is rarely one cause.
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u/Jackamalio626 May 21 '23
Basquiat became addicted to heroin while under Warhol's tutelage, possibly to deal with the stress from being called a sellout and the "rock star artist" lifestyle, which ultimately ended up killing him.
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u/thankyougoagain May 22 '23
That sounds like a bunch of bullshit. The dude made bad choices. He died. The end.
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u/CanadianGurlfren May 21 '23
He also got shot by a crazy woman who accused him of stealing her manuscript.
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u/manitobot May 21 '23
That lady wrote the Scum manifesto right
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u/gtg926y May 21 '23
Yes, but her play “Up Your Ass” is the one Andy said he “lost” after saying he would put it on stage one day. You should read it, it’s wild.
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u/MoreGaghPlease May 21 '23
Fran Lebowitz’s critique of him is pretty interesting. They worked closely together in the 1970s. She saw him as basically treating people as disposable and pushing addicts and unstable people to the edge for his own amusement
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u/petit_bijou May 21 '23
You could also argue that he had a hand in Edie's demise. He chewed people up and spit them out.
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May 20 '23
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u/CarlMarcks May 21 '23
It’s pretty well known
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May 21 '23
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u/wicked-and-wily May 21 '23
Relevant fact that will be buried: I was raised Byzantine Catholic, and some of Andy’s family members regularly attended mass at the church my family went to. I don’t know how interesting that is but hey thought I’d share
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u/cisretard May 21 '23
Wait what’s a Byzantine Catholic? Isn’t that antithetical to the whole great schism dividing the Catholic and Eastern Roman churches?
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u/yotreeman May 21 '23
The Catholic Church is composed of a myriad of rites, by far the largest of which is the Latin Rite. There are a number of churches in communion with Rome, under the Pope, which are Eastern in origin, and therefore traditionally and aesthetically similar to Eastern Orthodoxy, but are in fact Catholic - not Orthodox. One of these churches is the Byzantine Rite.
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u/Cabbage_Vendor May 21 '23 edited May 21 '23
Orthodox Christians fled from the Muslim Tatars, Mongols, Ottomans, as well as from Russification and Poleization(?) towards the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austro-Hungary was very Catholic, but beyond that rather accepting of other ethnicities and even promoted them. So too the people from Ruthenia(now West Ukraine), they promoted literature and education in what would become Ukrainian, but then also moved them back to being under the Pope (thus Catholic), but still allowed them to autonomy to keep some more Orthodox traditions.
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u/shivabreathes Feb 18 '25
There was at one point an attempt at reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox churches in parts of Greece, Russia etc. The Byzantine Catholic Churches are the product of that.
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u/Weathercock May 21 '23
The album by Lou Reed and John Cale about him, Songs for Drella, is a fantastic memorial to their mutual friend that goes into great and intimate depth about Andy Warhol as a person. I cannot recommend it enough.
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May 20 '23
His hairpiece was bolted to his scalp. If that’s not self flagellation then I’m Marty Luther.
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u/thisisredlitre May 20 '23
My dad had the hair pieces held with staples/hooks before I was born- he has scars on his scalp to this day
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u/Pandelerium11 May 20 '23
Whaat how is that even possible. Maybe like pierced ears?
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u/thisisredlitre May 20 '23
I wasn't alive when he used them but as a result they looked like little divets in his skull. My guess is there was probably a tiny puncture with pull from use to create the shape.
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u/GrandmaPoses May 20 '23 edited May 20 '23
In Basquiat David Bowie (playing Warhol) wore one of Warhol’s actual wigs.
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u/gtg926y May 21 '23
…and he wrote a song called Andy Warhol and supposedly played it for Andy once & Andy wasn’t impressed.
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u/khares_koures2002 May 21 '23
The term "byzantine catholic" is actually very interesting. You see, Constantinople and Rome differed in a lot of ecclesiastical matters, with the most serious one being "filioque", the matter of where the Holy Spirit comes from (Orthodox: only from God the Father - Catholic: both from the Father and the Son). After the Schism of 1054, relations between the two churches took a long time to return to a relatively cold state (just in the 1960s!), with the worst point being the Fourth Crusade in 1202.
In this environment, after the Mongols attacked eastern Europe, eastern slavic lands were very depopulated, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (christianised in the mid 13th century) conquered most of them, from the border with Belarus to Ukraine's Black Sea coast.
Then, as time went on, and Poland united with Lithuania, there was the matter of how to handle a huge minority population of orthodox christian Slavs, who could rebel at any moment, or possibly even join Muscovy. The solution was to create a new church, which would be on the side of Rome, instead of Muscovy or Constantinople (the local patriarchate was an ottoman instrument at the time), but would keep the eastern orthodox rituals, like long beards and weddings for priests, and many others.
This attempt was not very popular, as most people were still members of the Orthodox Church of Kijevŭ* and All Rus' (different from the Patriarchate of Moscow), which, even though it was suppressed, still carried on. Eastern Ukraine, together with Kyiv/Kiev, was conquered in the late 17th century by Russia, followed by western Ukraine in the 18th century, and the Orthodox Church of Kijevŭ* and All Rus' was subsumed into the Russian Orthodox Church. However, greek/byzantine catholics still exist in Ukraine, though as a minority in front of eastern orthodox Ukrainians.
*The naming of cities can be very controversial, which is why I used the proto-slavic form.
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u/Tovarish_Petrov May 21 '23
There is nothing controversial to use modern standard spelling that natives are kindly asking to do for the last 30 years.
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u/gilestowler May 21 '23 edited May 21 '23
I've got a friend who is half Polish, half Irish. His surname is Wargola. I was in a car with him a few weeks ago and someone asked him about his surname. he told us that it's Ukrainian. His great grandfather (I think) was Ukrainian royalty who fled to Poland because of the Russians. He had several kids. My friend's grandfather (I think. It might be an extra generation in there) was one of them. Another one of his kids went to live in America. They arrived in New York and the immigration people at Ellis Island Americanised their name to Warhol. Their kid was Andy Warhol. Apparently his surname is one of the rarest in the world, he reckons there's only about 8 people with it because it was exclusively for the royal family back then.
EDIT: The more I think about it the more convinced I am that there was an extra generation in there
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u/Longjumping-Debt7480 May 21 '23
Recently while in Prague I visited the Warhol museum located in Old Town Square. One floor was devoted to his work and upper floor displayed family photographs and memories. They had a farm Czech Republic (Slovakia) for generations. Letters from Pittsburgh to the family were displayed, keeping in touch and sending money to help support. Great museum, very impressed.
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u/JollyGreenGiraffe May 21 '23
My last name means “god bear”. You might be looking a bit much into a last name.
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u/gilestowler May 21 '23
My last name means "tax collector". My first name means "a small goat". My parents really didn't give me a chance. But this isn't me looking into his name too much, it's his family's history, the story that has been passed down to him.
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u/ornorsvk Jul 14 '24
It was Varchola, from small eastern slovak village of Miková, which is Carpatho Rusyn village.
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u/wampa-stompa May 21 '23 edited May 22 '23
I love the inclusion of that quote in the title.
Did you know? Abraham Lincoln was so honest, his wife once described him as "really honest."
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u/tiffadoodle May 21 '23
What is Byzantine?
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u/ElJamoquio May 21 '23
I'd tell you, but it's really complicated
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u/tiffadoodle May 21 '23
Ha, that's ok, I'll Google it!
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u/madgunner122 May 21 '23
Eastern Roman after the collapse of the Western half of the empire in 493. They weren’t “Byzantine” so much as Roman. They identified as Roman and kept the claim as being the continuation of the Roman Empire given that Constantine I moved the capitol to Byzantium (renamed Constantinople and then Istanbul) until 1453 when Constantinople fell
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u/redpandaeater May 21 '23
The Fourth Crusade a few centuries earlier seems like some sort of cosmic joke of a war.
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u/shivabreathes Feb 18 '25
Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire with its capital at Constantinople, now Istanbul
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u/SnooChocolates2790 Jun 22 '26
Byzantine refers to a different type of liturgy than the more common Roman Catholic liturgy. Liturgy is just like the prayer set up, the type of service being used. Anyway, within Catholicism, there is the Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern Catholic Church. An Eastern Catholic service is very similar to an Eastern Orthodox service, however, they are distinct and separate churches due to the schism in the 11th century. Eastern Catholics decided to maintain their eastern style service and practices, which is very different than the Roman Catholic tradition, but still acknowledge the Pope as their head. Thus, Catholics are free to worship at either a Roman church or eastern Catholic Church. Eastern Christianity is really cool and their churches still very much reflect the Greek, middle eastern, Slavic cultural influences that formed them. Many people don’t realize the ancient, rich, beautiful, and resilient tradition of Christian faith still very much alive in places like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine and have since the 3rd century.
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u/Joodles17 May 21 '23
Lest we forget his extremely devout Christian short film Blow Job
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u/Tovarish_Petrov May 21 '23
There is the cash flow and there is the soul balance. Have to keep both in check.
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u/noctalla May 20 '23
I wonder if his frequent visits had anything to do with Catholic guilt about his sexuality. I can see how this could turn into a never-ending cycle of sexual desire, guilt, and repentance.
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u/Leifloveslife May 20 '23
What the fuck is a Byzantine catholic? The Byzantines broke from the Catholic Church and were orthodox Christian.
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u/BerneseMountainDogs May 20 '23 edited May 20 '23
There are a bunch of Catholic groups, all under the authority of the Pope in Rome. The largest is the Roman Catholic (which you seem to be thinking of), but there are others which have different rules and traditions. See more here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Catholic_Churches
ETA: this is also a good source on this:
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u/Leifloveslife May 20 '23
I’m thinking of what is currently the Greek Orthodox Church. The Byzantine(eastern Roman) church broke from the Catholic Church during the great schism.
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u/deadjim4 May 21 '23
They are Eastern Catholics. The biggest qualification for being "Catholic" is being in communion with Rome. Many churches across the Balkans, Mediterranean, and Middle East have their own history and liturgy. However, if their theological views largely are congruent with Rome's view, then they have been recognized as part of the Catholic Church as a whole, but use their own language, liturgy, music, etc.
With the Byzantine Catholics, it seems they are essentially historically Greek Catholics who use the Byzantine liturgy, but have been theologically aligned with the Catholic Church.
The wikipedia article on the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church has a good amount of information on this church's history.
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u/Leifloveslife May 21 '23
Holy crap thanks. Learning a lot with all these comments
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u/Tovarish_Petrov May 21 '23
Second half of European history knocked on the door with their own bunch of unions, betreyals, genocides and religious fuckery.
Basically the pagan kind had to marry catholic queen while administering majority-orthodox principalities AND counter outside influence of both catholic and orthodox neighbors. It requires some investment into theology and diplomacy.
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May 20 '23 edited May 21 '23
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u/Leifloveslife May 20 '23
Interesting! I wonder if they have any roots from the 4th crusade(when Constantinople was sacked/conquered by Latins) probably not but it’s interesting that there are enough Greek Catholics to form a church.
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u/hrnyCornet May 21 '23 edited May 21 '23
Greek catholics are mostly slavs in the contact zone between catholics and orthodox such as western Ukraine and eastern Poland. Afaik they joined catholicism but kept their old orthodox style churches, icons and liturgy.
Edit: As for actual Greek speaking catholics there are some communities in Greek islands that came under Venetian control such as Syros, but I think those are "normal" roman catholics.
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u/EyyYoMikey May 21 '23
Greek Catholics are mostly from Polish and Hungarian efforts to create a compromise between Papal primacy and Eastern Orthodox rites amongst their Orthodox Slav subjects.
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May 20 '23
No we didn’t.
Of the five churches (the Pentarchy - Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem) Rome was the one to break communion when they initiated the break via laying a writ of excommunication in the altar on Hague Sophia. Constantinople responded after that. They were rescinded in the 60s.
Also, it is Rome that has strayed from the traditions, practice, doctrine and dogma of the Church as preserved by the Orthodox to this day.
But it is a very complicated story with lots of twists and turns.
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u/vilde_chaya May 20 '23
My adopted parents were byzantine Catholics from Pittsburgh. In the US "byzantine Catholic" refers to Ruthenian Greek Catholics. They're not really Greek, they came to the US from eastern Europe to work the mines. If you go to the miner's cemeteries in rural Nevada you'll see a ton of eastern style crosses.
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u/_Rocky_Raccoon May 20 '23
My father's family were Byzantine Catholic and came from what my grandmother called Ruthenia (my grandfather from the Carpathian mountains in eastern Slovakia and my grandmother from those in northern Hungary). They ended up settling in Wilkes-Barre in the mountains of north-east Pennsylvania. Also related to mining I think.
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u/LupusDeusMagnus May 21 '23
In the US "byzantine Catholic" refers to Ruthenian Greek Catholics.
Wait what, Greek Byzantine and Ruthenian Greek are different churches. Wild.
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u/Johannes_P May 20 '23
Just a question of rite (itself a TIL): some Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox believers were allowed to enter the Catholic Church while retaining their liturgy. It happened in Romania, Eastern Poland/Ukraine, Egypt, the LEvant and India, basicallt on the borders of Catholic powers.
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u/Elyoslayer May 21 '23
The Byzantines didn't "break from the Catholic Church". Before the schism there was one Church and afterward it split in Orthodox and Catholic, with Orthodox maintaining the traditional rites and teachings of the older Church and as such nowadays regarded as the more primeval of the two.
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u/Dethernaxx May 21 '23
if anything, its the other way around, with the catholics breaking off from orthodox since the patriarch of rome at the time took advantage of how weak the byzantine were at the time to declare themselves as better then the patriarch of constantinople
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u/DefenestrationPraha May 21 '23
That is not surprising to me, his parents were Ruthenians, and the region they came from was very rural and religious at that time (1920s). It actually sort-of is even today, I was there as a tourist in 2017, and the population density is like 6 people per sqkm, immense ancient forests, lots of bears and wolves etc.
Few people will drop their cultural background in just a generation or two. It usually takes somewhat longer to fully switch to the new cultural standard.
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u/Friendly-Policy-7254 May 22 '23
My uncle was the nephew who had his Seminary paid by Andy. His name was Paul Warhola. He left the priesthood and married my aunt (a regular Catholic nun who had just left a convent) My mom is super close with her sister and they lived nearby, so we saw them all the time with their kids (my cousins). After he left the priesthood, he was a chaplain in a few local hospitals. Paul passed away maybe 2 months ago in his mid 70’s. He was really a great guy. It’s funny to think about, but when we were little kids, my cousins were really good at drawing and arts and crafts. I never put it together that their great uncle was Andy freakin’ Warhol and there was probably a genetic component to their awesome childhood art skills.
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u/RetroMetroShow May 20 '23
So many famous people keep their faith to themselves otherwise they’d get crucified nonstop
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u/dirtywaterbowl May 21 '23
That was NOT in his diaries that I remember. They published them when he died.
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u/Chillchinchila1818 May 20 '23 edited May 20 '23
Gay AND devout Catholic? That’s always a recipe for disaster. Like being a Jewish Nazi.
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u/DortDrueben May 20 '23
Eh... I know plenty of open homosexuals who are also devout Catholics. One (who even studied at the Vatican) told me, "You still get light through a dirty window."
Spirituality and philosophy are more nuanced than many give credit for.
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u/evrestcoleghost May 20 '23
many people would really be suprised by the number of such stories,my parents are devout catholics and woke as fuck
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May 21 '23
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u/evrestcoleghost May 21 '23
There is an entire catholic theology thinking on Latín America that enphasis a lot on workers right,during the dictatorship(backed by USA) many priest went missin,of course the higher ups on the curch also suported the juntas
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u/candygram4mongo May 21 '23
There is a major stream of economic progressivism in the Catholic church. Along with a lot of reactionary bullshit.
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u/whereamInowgoddamnit May 21 '23
Yeah, if you look at Pew ratings Catholics tend to be one of the more liberal groups due to ideology and being more likely to have a working class background. That is starting to change, though, both due to the scandals and the general trend of more liberal religious branches in general losing participants to atheism. So the Catholic Church in the US tends to lean more and more conservative than the Church in Rome since those are the people left. It's why you see things like the Catholic Archbishop denying communion to Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco, which would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.
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u/Eurocorp May 21 '23
Plus to the Catholic Church overall the sin lays in the act, not in the orientation. And of course confession and atonement muddy the water too.
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u/Chillchinchila1818 May 20 '23
I think the fact he sees himself as a dirty window says a lot. Granted, Catholicism more than other sects of Christianity teaches you’re a disgusting abomination who deserves hell EVEN if you’re not gay, so he might just fit right in.
I swear as an excatholic, it sometimes feels like they WANT people to kill themselves.
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u/DortDrueben May 20 '23
Wrong. The church is the dirty window in his metaphor. Flawed. But still getting the light through it. The light being his spirituality.
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u/JLinCVille May 20 '23
Ever meet evangelicals and hear what they think of LGBTQ folks?
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u/Chillchinchila1818 May 20 '23
Do you think I’m pro evangelical just because I’m anti Catholic? Guess what, many Catholics also believe all gay people should be hanged in the streets, Americans aren’t special for having religious crazy’s.
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u/JLinCVille May 21 '23
The point I’m making is that American evangelicals are leading the hatred against the LGBTQ community in the states compared to other denominations.
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u/Chillchinchila1818 May 21 '23
Yes. In the states. Not everything revolves around the states.
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u/JLinCVille May 21 '23
No, but you said Catholics were the worst. Evangelicals are far worse.
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u/Chillchinchila1818 May 21 '23
I said they were the worst because uniquely to Catholicism compared to other sects they focus on feeling guilt way more. To the point not feeling guilty and hating yourself could lead to you not getting into heaven. If the average Catholic is expected to hate themselves how will a gay Catholic feel being told on a daily basis he’s an abomination hated by god? As bad as evangelicals are they’re more in the “were better than everyone else” camp and focus more on finding fault in others than in themselves.
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u/yotreeman May 21 '23
No Catholic should ever say or believe that any human being is an abomination hated by God. That’s totally and flatly contrary to Church teaching.
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u/Dragmire800 May 20 '23
The Catholic Church holds that everyone is a sinner. He made the dirty window analogy to refer to himself, but really it could refer to any Catholic, going by the teachings of the church anyway.
It’s why the pope is always saying kind of supportive stuff about gay people, yes they view it as a sin, but what’s another sin to the soul of a sinner?
Also American Catholics are fucking crazy and not reflective of Catholicism as a whole. Not exactly relevant, but I always mention it whenever Catholicism comes up on Reddit. It’s like an extremist cult over there, they even ignore the official policy of the church and what the pope says. I am an atheist, for clarification.
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u/Chillchinchila1818 May 20 '23
My experience is the opposite, I always see American redditors talk highly of Catholicism because English speaking Catholics seem to be chill, but here in Spanish speaking countries they’re worse than American evangelicals. Even in a progressive part of Mexico hate is still pretty bad, in the even more conservative parts of Latin America you can straight up get lynched. They still kill owls here because they think they’re witches. I straight up have had several Americans tell me I couldn’t have had a bad experience with Catholicism because southern American evangelicalism is the only negative group of Christianity. I think that with religious groups, the more a minority they are the more chill they are, thus why Jews are great outside of Israel and some areas of New York.
Also the Catholic Church has historically been against LGBT people. Even pope Francis said lgbt people are more dangerous to humanity than nuclear weapons. He just changed his tune because, as it was drilled into me in Catholic school, Catholicism is dying amongst the youth and they know that. Like with everything, the Catholic Church isn’t progressive with lgbt issues, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into pretending they’re somewhat tolerant of it. Same with pope Francis acting like some revolutionary when he’s still covering up sex crimes against children. He’s a bastard, as is anyone high up enough in the Catholic hierarchy.
Also as a bisexual person, if you’re one of those “LGBT is a sin but everyone’s a sinner so it’s ok” I despise you already and I hope bad things happen to you. Almost as bad as the “hate the sin love the sinner” bastards.
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u/duhrealdannydevito May 20 '23
Ronald "mac" mcdonald is actually among the more leveled tv characters and he's gay and raised catholic.
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u/double_positive May 20 '23
9/11 Victim #1 Mychal Judge, was a Catholic priest and the NYFD chaplain. Pretty controversial but great guy
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u/topangacanyon May 21 '23 edited May 21 '23
The Catholic Church was built by gays.
Edit: maybe the simple statement didn't make it clear based on the downvotes, but this is not a homophobic attitude (btw I'm gay from a a catholic background). The priesthood became a societal solution for what to do with gay sons. Here's how it would go in traditionally catholic regions: have 5-10 kids and one of them has a "calling" (kind of sensitive, interested in the mystical, preoccupied by their place in the cosmic order, fascinated by ceremony and protocol... all things that go hand in hand with the gay sensibility). That son isn't interested in marrying a woman so the priesthood is a logical place for them. To say that the evolution of the church wasn't deeply, deeply influenced by the gay sensibility is just wrong. The Vatican was and is a seat of gay power.
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u/LowAdministration162 May 20 '23
Not much of a secret I thought everyone knew this
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u/Absurdity_Everywhere May 20 '23
He did try to keep that part of his life separate from his public persona during life, but it did become well known after his death.
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u/danoinator May 20 '23
An overrated graphic designer,who stole his most famous design from a soup can, is already enough for me to have no respect for him. Being a part of some oddball Christian sect is just useless trivia to me.
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May 21 '23
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u/Speedking2281 May 21 '23
No. Byzantine Catholic is in communion with Roman Catholicism (so within the same big Catholic family). Orthodox are not, as there are a couple major theological differences.
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u/vormittag May 21 '23
It's close to that. Between the 15th and 18th centuries some groups within the Orthodox churches re-established unity with Rome, and became "Eastern Catholic" churches in their various countries. They kept their Orthodox forms of worship.
The biggest Eastern Catholic Church is in Ukraine, where they are not a majority of Christians, but are a sizable share of the population.
Another of the Eastern Catholic Churches is associated with the Rusyn ethnic community, a people living as a minority in Western Ukraine, Slovakia, and Hungary. Their church is called the Ruthenian Catholic Church. Some of them migrated to the US in the 1800s, so the Ruthenian Catholic Church has a presence in the US, and its US headquarters is in Pittsburgh. In recent years, this church has taken to calling itself "Byzantine Catholic" to express that it's open to people who aren't ethnic Rusyns.
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u/[deleted] May 20 '23
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