In an extraordinary pushback against Pope Francis, some Catholic bishops in Africa, Poland and elsewhere say they will not implement the new Vatican policy allowing blessings for same-sex couples.
Others downplayed the policy approved this week by Francis as merely reaffirming the Vatican’s long-standing teaching about marriage being only a union between a man and a woman.
The reactions show how polarizing the issue remains and how Francis’ decade-long effort to make the church a more welcoming place for the LGBTQ+ community continues to spark resistance among traditionalist and conservative Catholic leaders.
Some of the strongest responses came from bishops in Africa, home to 265 million Catholics, or nearly a quarter of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics. Many of those Catholics live and their churches operate in societies where homosexuality is condemned and outlawed.
Isn’t, according to Catholics beliefs, the pope infallible? Is that not a core part of the religion that separates it from Protestants?
Are we about to witness a splitting of the Catholic church?
I mean, that’s kind of why we have all the offshoots…
It kind of makes sense when you realize all the Abrahamic religions are just spun off some dude named Abraham’s story about how an imaginary man in the sky commanded him to kill his brother, so he did. And then the voice said to kill his son, and he was gonna do it. But at the last second the voice said it was test. So clearly the voice is kind and should be worshipped.
Sometimes a new leader makes them less crazy, sometimes more crazy
But at a fundamental level the vast majority of western religion (like Middle East to West Coast North America) is based on some dude who listened to the voices inside his head to kill his family members 50% of the time.
It’s all built on a flawed premise. So anything else can be rationalized.
Which is why most followers were either born into it, or joined in incredibly stressful/difficult times in their lives.
