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.
Let the ex-Communications begin.
Yeah. I was pretty sure the dude in the big hat that was they only direct link to God was infallible.
Yes and no.
They believe that the pope can be infallible, but only sometimes. And sometimes means twice. As in, it has only been used two times.
There is no set list of ex cathedra teachings, but that’s because there are only two, and both are about Mary: her Immaculate Conception (declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854 and grandfathered in after the First Vatican Council’s declaration of papal infallibility in 1870) and her bodily Assumption into heaven (declared by Pope Pius XII in 1950).
Based on precedent, your pope name seems like it needs to be “pius” to be eligible for infallibleness.
Oh I am looking forward to a new era of anti-Popes.
Yeah, if the church wants to survive it’ll have to adapt, but there are too many people who think the church never changes and that their angry childhood nun was the voice of god.
I’m waiting for all the Trump-supporting Catholic Bishops in the U.S. to start their own American Catholic Church at this point.
I think is going to be hard nowadays when property rights are pretty stabilized. In ancient times a bishop deciding to go for his own would could have a chance to keep the real state and accounts of the church they administer, nowdays the Vatican could easily send their lawyers to whatever place is trying to independence and kick them off their land.
