Boys You Gotta Learn Not to Talk to Popes That Way

I wrote a while back that trump and his fellow Republican incompetents were starting fights they can't finish.

Well, trump went and started a fight against Pope Leo XIV and pretty much the whole Catholic Church (via Angela Giuffrida at the Guardian): 

Pope Leo said he did not fear the Trump administration and would continue to speak out against war after Donald Trump delivered an extraordinary broadside against him in which he said he did not think the Chicago-born pontiff was “doing a very good job”, while also suggesting he should “stop catering to the radical left”.

In remarks that have been widely criticized, the US president used a lengthy social media post to sharply criticize Leo while he flew from Florida to Washington on Sunday night, then continued in comments on the tarmac to reporters. “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo,” he said.

Trump made the comments after Leo suggested over the weekend that a “delusion of omnipotence” was fueling the US-Israeli war in Iran. While it is not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes, it is exceedingly rare for the pope to criticize a US leader – and for the president to respond in such a stinging manner.

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” the president wrote in his post, adding: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” He repeated that sentiment in comments to reporters, saying: “We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a nuclear weapon.”

This actually isn't the start of the fight, but an escalation. It turned out months earlier people in trump's administration threatened Leo and the Church to play along to trump's war agenda (via Christopher Hale at his blog Letters From Leo):

In January, behind closed doors at the Pentagon, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre — Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States — and delivered a lecture.

America, Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.

As tempers rose, an unidentified U.S. official reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.

As a student who took AP European History in high school I can confirm two things: If your mom teaches AP Euro you should NEVER fall asleep in her class; and the Avignon Papacy was a serious political mess.

Any decent scholar of history should tell you that trump's admin invoking an Avignon situation is a political threat (here's Professor Thomas Lecaque at Religion Dispatches):

But what’s getting a ton of attention is both the worst sourced, and most intriguing, piece: that an American official in that meeting invoked the Avignon Papacy. As much as I hate giving in to the speculation, that’s a particularly weird thing to invoke, unless you’re trying to—in the most Gretchen Weiners “fetch” way I can say this—make Catholic Integralism happen in America. (Holy Cross professor Mathew Schmalz defines Catholic Integralism as the belief that “religious values, specifically Christian ones, should guide government policies.”)

So what is the Avignon papacy and why does it matter? So kind of you to ask. The important thing to understand for today, is that it refers to a highly politicized 14th century stretch where a series of Popes, all of whom were French, resided in Avignon, rather than Rome. These popes were in many ways an extension of France’s monarchs...

But it matters, at this moment, because it’s easy to see how an invocation of Avignon is a (very) thinly-veiled threat of violence. Clement V didn’t move to Avignon out of nowhere. The King of France put his thumb on the scales to get him elected, after having sent his minister, Guillaume de Nogaret, to beat Pope Boniface VIII and hold him captive in retaliation for excommunicating him. 

The death of Pope Boniface VIII led to the short reign of Benedict XI, who also died very suddenly, just eight months into his reign. Clement V was, at the time, the Archbishop of Bordeaux and a friend of King Philip. To put the story in plain terms: his election was due to the intervention of France, after it had murdered a recalcitrant pope, who happened to be the king’s enemy. The move to Avignon put the Papacy where France could get to them more easily. This isn’t a random piece of medieval trivia; within the most brain-rotted neomedievalism imaginable, it’s a threat against Pope Leo XIV—but also the Vatican itself.

It hasn't just been trump and his lackeys - even "converted Catholic" VP Vance - threatening Leo and the Catholic church over trump's illegal and inept warring. Far Right pundits and elected officials have attacked the Church - which is pro-immigrant/pro-migrant - to defend trump's sadistic anti-immigrant raids across American communities. Know-nothing Sean Hannity is out there arguing that Pope Leo doesn't even know the Bible (you know, the ONE THING they teach a lot at seminary school and something most Popes can quote from memory).

A lot of this hostility is coming from the American conservative mindset that only their ideology and dogma matters. The modern conservative (Republican) movement formed around a Culture War focused on racism, sexism, and control, a reaction against the civil rights and women's rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s that threatened white male patriarchy. When the Republicans merged with the conservative - mostly Pentecostal, evangelical - Christian groups to form a coalition under Reagan in the 1980s, they worked alongside a Catholic church willing to fight against abortion rights. The religious wingnuts got used to the idea of having a large international church on their side.

Thing is, other than agreeing on "pro-life," "anti-gay," and "traditional gender roles for women", the Protestant conservatives - who are pro-business greedheads and racist towards non-whites - have little in common with Catholics who tend to oppose greedheads in defense of the poor and are more liberal (kinda) on racial equality. Now, as the American conservative ideology shifts further rightward into racism and sadism, they're finding the Catholics are no longer on their side.

Angered that the Catholics aren't backing trump, the wingnuts are lashing out; falling back on the anti-Catholicism that informed conservative views well back into the 1840s - hi, Know-Nothings! - and into the 1960s - hi, Klansmen! The Far Right still railed against the Church over the decades since, especially when the Popes and stateside bishops refused to excommunicate Democratic elected officials like Joe Biden who were still Catholic (and liberal).

Thing is, bashing Pope Leo - who is not only popular with the American Catholic population but also with Americans of other faiths on the same page when it comes to supporting immigrants, families, and the White Sox - is going to alienate a significant faction of Republican voters who aren't happy with trump's war on migrants and are more willing to stand with the priests protesting outside ICE prison camps than with the haters.

Seriously, going after a Pope from Chicago is not going to end well for trump or the other religious wingnuts in the GOP.

Holy Forking Shirtballs, We Got Ourselves a Pope Guy

There's a ton of stuff going on that I need to catch up on, from previous posts that need updates currently happening in the news.

The easiest thing to report on is that the Cardinals elected a new Pope on the second day of conclave, some considered it unusually fast but the results were just as fast for the last three elections or so, nothing shocking about that. What was shocking is that the smoke didn't come out purple (Prince, why hast thou abandoned us), and that the new Pope is a guy from Chicago (!):

And he's from the South Side of Chicago, home of the beleaguered White Sox, the Daley political dynasty and, until they decamped for Washington and eventually the White House, Michelle and Barack Obama.

The new pope, who has spent much of his career ministering in Peru and leading the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was born Robert Francis Prevost on Sept. 14, 1955, at what was then called Mercy Hospital, at the corner of South Prairie Avenue and 34th Street.

But while Prevost made his debut in Chicago, his parents and two older brothers were already living just south of the sprawling city in a working-class suburb called Dolton...

Prevost's father, Louis Prevost, served in the Navy during World War II and worked as a superintendent of schools in the south suburbs of Chicago.

The future pope's mother, Mildred Martinez Prevost, was a librarian with a master's degree in education and two sisters who were nuns.

His mom was a librarian?! (respectful grumbling noises)

The rest of the bio at the NBC News article details Prevost's education, heading to Villanova to get a degree in math before joining a Catholic Order - for St. Augustine - getting another degree in theology and then a doctorate for Canon Law in Rome itself. His career in the church was balanced between work in Peru - to where he got naturalized as a citizen there - and overseeing the Augustinian order as an admin.

The bad news? Prevost got involved in the cover-ups of various sex abuse scandals both the American Midwest and in Peru. While he himself hasn't been accused of the acts, he failed to report the matters or failed to remove the culprits from their positions. It can be argued that the church's bureaucracy was corrupt enough that Prevost couldn't do any other, but it remains shameful that he didn't do more to protect the victims and work to prevent any future ones.

The good news? Prevost's taking the name Leo (the XIV, that's 14 in Latin) as symbolic of what role he wants to perform as pontiff: Reformer. In particular, carrying on his predecessor Leo XIII who stood for workers' rights, better wages, and social justice for the poor on a global level. Leo's already attacking the Artificial Intelligence movement, how it threatens human dignity and labor rights.

There is also the huge implications of the Catholic Church promoting an American-born to the Papacy and how it's a huge rebuke to trump's regime (via Francis (no relation) X. Rocca at the Atlantic (paywalled)):

...the conclave that concluded today in Rome has chosen the first American pope in the history of the Catholic Church: Robert Francis Prevost. Making the milestone even more remarkable is that Prevost was chosen on just the second day of voting by the most geographically diverse body of papal electors in history. Perhaps most surprising of all is that the Church’s first-ever American pope was selected during Donald Trump’s presidency, as Washington assumes a more contentious stance toward the rest of the world...

Many observers are likely to cast Leo as anti-Trump, a role that Francis was often cast in himself. In February, a profile on X apparently belonging to Leo reposted an article criticizing J. D. Vance, who had argued that Catholics should prioritize their family and neighbors over foreigners. And indeed, it seems likely that the new pope will continue policies—such as advocacy for migrants and environmental protection—that his immediate predecessor embraced and that the current U.S. administration largely opposes. But almost any of the 133 men voting in the Sistine Chapel today would have done the same had he been chosen pope... By taking the name Leo, the new pope is clearly signaling an intention to highlight modern Catholic social teaching, a tradition that began with Leo XIII, who reigned from 1878 to 1903.

That the new Pope is going to come out swinging for workers' rights is happening just as trump and his oligarch billionaire buddies like Elon Musk are gutting federal workplaces and causing havoc with our trade / tourism industries to where large-scale unemployment is unavoidable.

Leo's position on immigration - similar to Pope Francis' - already puts him in conflict with trump and the sadists in trump's administration (via Ali Bianco and Gregory Svirnovskiy at Politico):

A social media account under the pope’s name repeatedly criticized the Trump administration — and especially Vice President JD Vance — in the months and years before assuming the papacy.

A series of posts under an account for Robert Prevost — now the Bishop of Rome and newly anointed as Pope Leo XIV — shows the Chicago-born Cardinal reposting an op-ed criticizing Vance on his interpretation of his faith, and the strict immigration policies that Vance along with President Donald Trump have touted.

The account in mid-April reposted someone else’s rebuke to Trump’s meeting in the Oval Office with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, and pointed to an op-ed by auxiliary Catholic Bishop Evelio Menjivar of Washington, D.C., highlighting the suffering of migrants summarily deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador.

“Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed?” the op-ed that Prevost reposted reads.

In a more pointed example, the account in February posted an opinion piece from the National Catholic Reporter, a liberal-leaning Catholic newspaper, titled: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

It's telling that the rabid MAGA base are livid about Leo XIV being the head of the largest American Christian denomination (via Greg Sargent at the New Republic (paywalled)): 

Right after the news broke that Robert Francis Prevost was elected as the new pope of the Roman Catholic Church, the internet produced lots of evidence that he has promoted articles critical of JD Vance and Donald Trump, and even expressed sympathy for George Floyd. That prompted MAGA figures to erupt in anger. They attacked the new pope as anti-Trump, pro–open borders, a Marxist, and soft on thugs and drug dealers, as Media Matters documented...

In a podcast with Matt McManus (a contributor to Commonweal) Sargent covers some of the attacks (via transcript):

McManus: Well, I’m sure we’re going to learn a lot more about the new pope’s views over the next couple days as people scour everything he is ever written and everything that he is ever said. The choice of the name Leo is itself significant. Pope Leo was widely regarded as the “People’s Pope” or the “Workers’ Pope” because he is one of the founders of Catholic social teaching. Now, to be clear, the O.G. Pope Leo was by no means a socialist or a Marxist, the way they, say Laura Loomer, is trying to imply that the current Pope Leo is a Marxist. But he did stress that there were significant problems with capitalism that led to the emergence of things like atheistic socialism and atheistic Marxism and called for a conciliation between workers and capitalists that would favor the workers—or at least better their conditions. So I think that in itself is telling about the direction that he is planning on going in.

But if you look at some of the stuff he said over the past couple years, he is very clearly pro-immigrant. Back in 2015, he stated that he was opposed to the death penalty. He spent a long time in Peru, by all accounts living in quite modest circumstances and demonstrating an unusual level of concern for the poor. So that’s all a positive sign.

Sargent: Well, MAGA is not happy about any of it. Charlie Kirk accused the pope of “retweeting George Floyd propaganda.” Laura Loomer erupted over the idea that the Pope seemed to endorse the need to pray for Floyd, calling him a “career criminal” and “drug addict.” MAGA figure Sean Davis called the Pope anti-Trump and pro–open borders...

If you are known by your enemies, then we know Leo XIV is going to be someone standing up for the immigrant, the impoverished, and the "what the hell happened to our jobs" citizenry.

It's still early, but there ought to be a betting line in the UK on how quickly the Pope is going to excommunicate JD Vance, and for whichever sadistic stance Vance will take in defense of trump's crimes.

In the meantime, just be aware the new Pope is a White Sox fan (the first known pontiff to attend a World Series!), an eater of Chicago-style hot dogs and tavern pizza (not sure about deep dish, alas), and now comes with his own Power-Up music intro.

Just as long as Bobby... uh, Pope Leo remembers this one key thing from the Blues Brothers:

Boys, you gotta learn not to talk to nuns that way.

If The Smoke Comes Out Turquoise, I Think That Means They Ordered Mexican For Dinner (Ow Stop Hitting Me)

In what are very dark times indeed, I know I shouldn't be snarking on stuff but the whole "Elect a New Pope" thing is just open for humor. 

For example, the news report that the Vatican had to re-install the smokestack they use to announce to the crowds if they elected a new pope or not (via Clare Marie Schneider at NPR):

Throughout this secretive, locked-door affair, the recently installed chimney will be the only indication to the public about how the process is going. After a ceremony within the Sistine Chapel is held to mark the beginning of the conclave, the doors are locked, Bry Jensen, host of the long-running Pontifacts podcast, told NPR.

That's when "the verbal and communicative gates go down," Jensen said. "There is no further communication until a pope has been elected, aside from smoke."

As the cardinals deliberate, they vote until they reach a two-thirds majority agreement on who to elect. With each vote, they burn their ballots in a stove installed in the Sistine Chapel for this purpose. If black smoke plumes from the chimney, the cardinals aren't in agreement and will need to vote again. Once white smoke can be seen from the chimney, it signals to the public that the Roman Catholic Church has a new leader. The process relies on chemicals to produce the desired color...

When that article popped up on Bluesky, I just HAD to Reply Guy with this:

This time, it's been set to provide a vast array of colored smoke: Black = no pope Blue = the pancakes were soggy Red = they've decided on watching "Sinners" Green = they've found the hidden stash of Irish whiskey Pink = it's Roan Chappell! Purple = Prince has returned! White = pope

— Witty Librarian Resistance (@paulwartenberg.bsky.social) May 4, 2025 at 9:21 PM

(I'm Unitarian. I'm *allowed* this amount of levity towards my Catholic brethren. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it)

That said, there's a few more colored smokes that the cardinals can send to signal their intents:

• Violet = They've agreed to buy for Janis Joplin her Mercedes Benz
• Beige = They've narrowed the selection of Pope down to a White guy
• Taupe = They've narrowed the selection of Pope down to a Latino guy
• Onyx = They've narrowed the selection of Pope down to a Black guy
• Fuchsia = They're just messing with us. Seriously, is fuchsia even a real word?
• Olo = How are there even new colors to be found? Don't we have a full palette of 256 blends and tints and gods know how many options to choose from in the RGB chart?

There will be no Orange smoke. There is no way the cardinals will vote in trump after his ill-humored and tone-deaf mockery of their papacy.

That all said, to the cardinals getting locked in with each other over the next couple of days - they rarely elect a pope on the first go, there's too many candidates and factions to winnow down thanks to the two-thirds majority requirement, and I doubt one of them will get over 50 percent the first round - and we're all praying they select a new Pope who does look to the future, towards the more positive virtues of faith such as charity, humility, love of others, and grace.

Smoke On the Altar, The Miter On This Guy. Francis, the Pope Who Lightened Up

Jesus. It felt like only yesterday I was making "Lighten Up, Francis" jokes.

Pope Francis passed away last night (via Scott Neuman at NPR):

Catholics across the globe are mourning the death of Pope Francis, remembering him for his humility, generosity of spirit, concern for the poor, and steadfast efforts to restore trust in the church after years of scandal.

Francis died early Monday in Rome at the age of 88, just one day after Easter Sunday. His death marks the end of a 12-year papacy that began in 2013 following the historic resignation of Benedict XVI — the first pontiff to step down in nearly six centuries.

You might need to refresh your memories about how eventful that transition was: Popes tended to rule the Church until dying, because you didn't want the whole "Infallibility" matter crop up if there are two guys - no girls allowed, damn them - running around with claim to that kind of power.

But Benedict was facing numerous scandals, some of which he couldn't resolve without compromising his own authority, and so handing off power to a replacement Pope was the third option available. To his credit, Benedict didn't seem to interfere with Francis' work in his retirement, so they avoided that problem in the long term.

Francis brought a more liberal - other than retaining the Church's conservative views on homosexuality - agenda to Catholicism that had been sinking into reactionary conservativism - in response to the Vatican II Reforms - since the reign of the long-lived Pope John Paul II. It helped Francis' cause that he was one of the more notable successes of a church serving to millions of Catholics across the globe.

Francis, the first-ever Latin American pope, once served as archbishop in Buenos Aires. In the Argentine capital, the government declared seven days of mourning and citizens gathered for a special mass at the city's cathedral, Reuters reports.

The pope also touched the lives of many Latinos around the world by communicating with them in Spanish. Hatciri Lopez, a lifelong Catholic from rural Johnston County, N.C., told NPR member station WUNC that Francis grew her faith...

Where John Paul II broke through as a non-Italian Pope in 1978, Francis went further as an Italian-descended immigrant to a Latin American nation, and expanded non-European representation towards Third World nations struggling with poverty and political oppression. When Francis spoke about the need to protect and support refugees, and promoted favorable immigration policies, he meant it.

One of Francis' last admonitions as his health declined was going after Vice President JD Vance - who converted to Catholicism in 2019 - and trump's anti-immigrant policies (reported by AP News correspondent Nicole Winfield via PBS News):

Francis took the remarkable step of addressing the U.S. migrant crackdown in a letter to U.S. bishops in which he appeared to take direct aim at Vice President JD Vance’s defense of the deportation program on theological grounds.

History’s first Latin American pope has long made caring for migrants a priority of his pontificate, demanding that countries welcome, protect, promote and integrate those fleeing conflicts, poverty and climate disasters. Francis has also said governments are expected to do so to the limits of their capacity.

The Argentine Jesuit and President Donald Trump have long sparred over migration, including before Trump’s first administration when Francis famously said anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants was “not a Christian.”

In the letter, Francis said nations have the right to defend themselves and keep their communities safe from criminals.

“That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” he wrote.

Citing the biblical stories of migration, the people of Israel, the Book of Exodus and Jesus Christ’s own experience, Francis affirmed the right of people to seek shelter and safety in other lands and said he was concerned with what is going on in the United States.

“I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” Francis wrote. “The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality...”

It's a bit of dark humor that the Pope died just hours after meeting Vance in person to "exchange views" that clearly made it seem as though Francis wanted to pope-slap the fool before expiring. Comparisons to how Vance's visit to Francis mirrored Liz Truss' visit to Queen Elizabeth II before the Queen died were unavoidable on social media.

With that all said, what will be Francis' legacy? Alongside pressing the Western world to be more accepting of migrants, he also reportedly worked to appoint bishops and cardinals to reflect the diversity of a church catering more to Africa, Asia, and South America than ever before. While Francis remained opposed to gay marriage and gay adoption rights - to keep the more conservative internal factions in line - he did work to tone down the harsher rhetoric - opposing criminalizing homosexuality for example - and showed signs of setting a foundation of making the Catholic Church more amenable to gay rights with whomever succeeds him as the Capo de Capo uh Pontiff.

Francis had to deal with a lot of the fallout from earlier papal reigns such as the sex abuse and coverups - and a simony scandal thrown in - but he notably recovered the Church's reputation to at least a grudging (re)acceptance on the world stage. His personal reputation leaves behind a man known for his dedication to science, humility (he lived a spartan, simple life even as Pope), humor, and above all that Christian virtue of Grace.

And now?

Now we get to see if that movie Conclave got it right.

P.S. De Chelonian Mobile.

One Sentence Statement about the Passing of Pope Benedict XVI

There is a Circle of Hell dedicated to those who betrayed their position of office, there is a Circle of Hell for priests and bishops and Popes who allowed pedophiles and rapists to attack the children and families of their own parishes, there is a Circle of Hell for those who lied against the victims, there is a Circle of Hell for those who covered up crimes for the sake of power and money, and so there is a Circle of Hell tonight for Pope Benedict XVI who died knowing full well that thousands of young women and men of his own Catholic Church had their lives broken or destroyed all so he could be Pope.

Schisms Ahead

This was the big bombshell today, as the Catholic Bishops decided to go to war over who gets the daily wafer and wine (I think. I'm Unitarian, dammit, I'm not fully hep to the rituals of the Trinitarian types!) Via Sarah McCammon at NPR:

After a contentious debate, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has voted to move forward with a process that could call into question the eligibility of politicians like President Joe Biden to receive Communion.

The bishops voted 168-55 in favor of drafting "a formal statement on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church," officials announced on Friday afternoon, the final day of their three-day virtual meeting. Six bishops abstained.

Biden's election as only the nation's second Roman Catholic president has prompted renewed debate over denying communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, a position at odds with church teachings.

During their online meeting, bishops held a spirited discussion Thursday before voting on the proposal to direct the bishops' Committee on Doctrine to draft the statement. Such a document, once completed, could include guidelines for denying communion to public officials...

If you have any awareness of the Constitutional arguments over the Separation of Church and State, you might notice that this is drawing a very big line in the sand with a major church interfering with the order of the federal government.

Churches and religious leaders are not supposed to tell politicians what to do: Withholding something as sacred as Communion is a way of bullying an elected official to toe the church's faith instead of upholding the secular laws. In spite of the overtly religious psychotics running around out there claiming we're a Christian Nation, the United States is NOT supposed to be a theocracy. Congress (and the rest of the government) cannot put one church above any others (per the First Amendment), nor should they impose Religious Tests (per Article VI of the Constitution).

What the Bishops are doing here is imposing a Religious Test, in an attempt to put themselves - and their fellow Far Right anti-abortion Christian allies - above all other churches and Christian faithful who are Pro-Choice.

It should be telling that the Bishops are doing this in spite of the fact that a majority of American Catholics are Pro-Choice: The church leadership stateside is about to alienate a large portion of their own parishes doing this. It should also be telling that the Bishops are doing this in spite of their own Pope Francis - The Head of the Whole Damn Church, the one who is supposed to be Infallible and carrying the keys to Jesus' Kingdom - not to use the Communion as a weapon against their own churchgoers. 

It should be telling that this is a political move, not a religious one. If the Bishops were serious about punishing politicians who ignore Catholic church stances on Life, you'd be seeing the Bishops denying the Communion service as well to Far Right politicians (mostly Republicans) who cheer on the death penalty that the Church also condemns. The hypocrisy of this reeks.

At first glance, this looks like a partisan political power grab by the national Catholic leadership. A means of imposing their will in open violation to the Separation of Church and State they'd been observing for centuries. It would also seem to be organizational suicide, above all: The Bishops are about to drive off more than half of their own church-goers just to score cheap political points that would likely lessen their political influence on Catholic Democrats (their target in this matter) who can simply walk away, and are doing this at a time when church attendance across the board in the United States is spiraling downward. 

But here's the thing: Try to think the way the Far Right religious types - the Evangelicals and other anti-abortion churches cheering on the sidelines - think. Try to recognize who would truly profit from this move of the Catholic Bishops alienating both their parishes and their own Pope.

There are a handful of ways this will all play out, all of them benefitting the Far Right ultra-religious who currently hold sway over the Republican Party, keeping allegiance to the corrupt like trump and the racist, sexist world-views that underscore their hypocrisy.

Let's say the Bishops finish making this proposal a reality, and they go ahead with denying the Eucharist to liberals and Democrats who support a woman's right to choose. They risk the political reaction of having the Catholic Church's tax-exempt status taken away. What the Church might do here would be considered "issue advocacy" and violate their exempt status.

The simplest response by the federal government if the Catholic leadership goes this way would be to remove that exemption. It would certainly break the financial power the Church would have as a lot of their properties suddenly get taxed, and it would collapse a number of non-profits no longer able to stay well-funded when federal subsidies dry up. 

However, that response would be a public relations nightmare: The United States hasn't de-exempted a church organization of this size ever. In fact, the government has penalized just one church for breaking the Church-State separation when they revoked the exemptions for Pierce Creek Church in NY back in 1992 when it openly campaigned against Bill Clinton. Going after the ENTIRE Catholic Church in the U.S. would shock every Christian organization, even the ones that are liberal and pro-choice, and create a backlash that would create a political divide within Democratic ranks among those who are still church-goers and those who went secular (and have no qualms about taxing the shit out of rich churches. Sorry Bono, but your Catholic Church has its own fucking bank). It would certainly give the Religious Right political ammo to attack the Democrats as "anti-Christian," which they do now anyway but would finally have "proof" to back those attacks.

Another option for Democrats and liberals would be to walk away, abandon the Catholic Church in droves and accelerate the downward spiral of church-going turnout. It would cut into the Church's tithing and donations received: It would force remote parishes emptying out to close and relocate elsewhere, diminishing the Church's reach. This is something that could seriously hurt the Catholic Church both now and forever.

However, this is still something the Religious Right wants. They WANT the liberal left-leaning influence of the parishes gone, leaving behind only the "true" faithful of the conservative pro-fetus church-goers who will become devout foot soldiers in the Far Right's war on everybody else. You see it in other Christian churches that have also lost enough liberal followers to where the more conservative forces have taken internal control of the church organization. The Far Right wants the Catholic Church to be as fully Far Right as they are, even if it means reducing their numbers from millions to hundreds.

The Religious Right would also crow to their media allies how this shows liberals abandoning Christ, becoming as Godless and Un-Christian as they've claimed all along. In a nation where religion still holds cultural/social influence, this would be a big hit against the Democrats even in the Blue states.

A third option wouldn't involve American politics, but the Church's internal organization. By ignoring Pope Francis here, the U.S. Bishops are risking serious rebuke by their Boss. It wouldn't even be fearing any financial devastation that might hurt the Church if the U.S. revokes their tax exemption, this would be a serious act of insubordination that could force the Vatican to denounce their Bishops for going too far, with disciplinary actions ranging from forced retirements, banishments to other parishes overseas where they lose their political authority, up to something severe as straight-up defrocking similar to what they did to priests and bishops tied into the sex abuse and coverups.

However, any of those moves to regain organizational control over the rogue Bishops - even if Francis narrows it down to just a handful of ringleaders - could well create a schism within the Church on a global scale. There are a large number of conservative, extremely pro-fetus Bishops and priests who would quit the Catholic Church if they feel the Pope is violating the Church's own tenets against abortion (that he is, by allowing pro-choice Catholics to continue on, betraying the cause). Not just in the United States, but across Europe and Africa and Asia and Central/South America. Any mass resignation could cripple the Church's organization for decades and likely accelerate the turnout spiral just as much as having the liberal Catholics resign the Church.

This again profits the Far Right, because any attempt to weaken the power of the Catholic Church - which opposes the Evangelical and Protestant churches on various other issues especially regarding poverty and racism - will strengthen their own (not just in the U.S. but across a lot of other nations coping with the violent Nationalist movements that go against the Catholic Church's more pacifist leanings).

None of this looks like either Biden or Francis are getting out of this matter unscathed.

To refer to Adam L Silverman at Balloon Juice:

Pope Francis’s papacy, however, has been an attempt to reestablish some sense of institutional equilibrium and balance back into Catholicism after the very, very conservative papacy of John Paul II and the reactionary papacy of Benedict XVI. Especially in regard to Catholicism in the US. He has been challenged, however, by a group of traditionalist Catholic leaders whose political, social, and religious views mirror, and are in some cases more extreme than, those of the popes who selected them. Some of these clerics have been weaponized by Steve Bannon in his attempts to either overthrow Pope Francis in pursuit of his neo-fascist national populism or to create a new schism and split the Church...

...Today’s actions are not the end of this dispute and controversy, but just one important step towards advancing it. The next step is for the USCCB to vote on the measure in November, just as the 2022 midterm election cycle is beginning. And even if they do vote to put this into action, it cannot prevent any specific bishop from providing President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, or any other Catholic politician or public figure who tries to separate their faith from public policy from receiving communion. Frankly, denying them communion isn’t really the goal. The goal is to create controversy, because to quote the old professional wrestling adage, controversy creates cash. It also creates attention and political opportunity. The real fight here is not over whether President Biden or Speaker can or cannot take communion. The real fight is whether Pope Francis is legitimate if his papacy is not focused on the exceedingly conservative and revanchist pet issues of the Church’s reactionary episcopate...

None of this is really about faith. It's all about wealth, power, and patriarchy. It's all about achieving those things through the divide-and-conquer strategy of the Far Right that's been going on for decades.

Thing is now, it's moved from the back rooms and into the public forum. It's moved up to the stage where the Far Right divides us all, faith against faith, community against community.

I can't see a sane move here that could save either our nation's religious diversity or the Catholic Church's ability to stay intact. Either way, the goddamn wingnuts are going to win, and they are going to weaponize faith against everyone else who will get in their way.

When Churches Betray Faith, Churches Become Conspiracies

God. (via the Houston Chronicle and reporters Robert Downen, Lise Olsen, and John Tedesco):

In the decade since Vasquez's appeal for help, more than 250 people who worked or volunteered in Southern Baptist churches have been charged with sex crimes, an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News reveals.

It's not just a recent problem: In all, since 1998, roughly 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, the newspapers found. That includes those who were convicted, credibly accused and successfully sued, and those who confessed or resigned. More of them worked in Texas than in any other state.

They left behind more than 700 victims, many of them shunned by their churches, left to themselves to rebuild their lives. Some were urged to forgive their abusers or to get abortions.

About 220 offenders have been convicted or took plea deals, and dozens of cases are pending. They were pastors. Ministers. Youth pastors. Sunday school teachers. Deacons. Church volunteers.

Nearly 100 are still held in prisons stretching from Sacramento County, Calif., to Hillsborough County, Fla., state and federal records show. Scores of others cut deals and served no time. More than 100 are registered sex offenders. Some still work in Southern Baptist churches today...

And these are just the ones we know about, from 20 years or so. This is rape and sexual assault that likely had been going on for decades earlier.

For all the goddamn Christian wingnuts yelling and screaming about Muslims, the greatest threat to our families in the United States are the goddamn Christian wingnuts.

Did you catch that last bit? Some still work in Southern Baptist churches today.

Did you catch that earlier bit, where some of the victims were forced to get abortions? The Southern Baptists are one of the biggest religious groups to rail against abortion, but by God if their own should rape a woman or young girl then hey let's just make sure that medical procedure we don't talk about that it gets done in another state where nobody will find out.

Goddamned hypocrites. (Edit: I used an offensive word here earlier, I removed it for the sake of good friends)

How is this any better than what the Catholic Church has been doing for decades (if not centuries) covering up their own pedophiles and rapists? The Pope just had to come out recently and confess his church has been covering up the rape and sex slavery of nuns, on top of the recent revelations of what priests have been doing to children.

This isn't about God (other than perverting the Lord's work) this isn't about Faith (other than destroying it for thousands of victims) this is about Power, the power of institutional control that a church can grant to those in charge. This is about a blinded, lustful Patriarchy that views their flock not as followers but as the next meal.

There is no God in these churches the second their own politics demanded they protect the rapists and abusers instead of their children and victims.

To hell with these scandal-plagued institutions. For all that the laws of man have brought against them - charges and convictions and jail time - the churches themselves remain relatively unpunished, still standing, still seeking more converts and members (and victims for their abuses). Utterly convinced God has forgiven their sins as though THEY can judge their own corrupt selves.

To hell with them. We need our government to step up here. We need accountability.

These churches need to lose their tax-exempt status.

It is an argument cropping up across the world wherever these Church scandals have struck. A lot of nations grant tax-exempt status to churches out of respect to the idea that churches are charitable institutions, looking out for the well-being of their parishioners and their communities. They also do it as a sign of separation of Church and State, to avoid the political abuse of faith that history has shown doesn't end well for a lot of innocent people.

But these sex abuse revelations are exposing that concept as a lie. These churches are so horrified by exposure they've covered up, lied, betrayed victims, all because the threat of liability - of paying restitution to victims - drove them to cover up.

These churches love Money and Power more than they love God and People.

So if money is what they love(worship), that's where the punishment should be.

End their tax-exempt status.

Oh, they'll yell, they'll scream, they'll claim we're violating their First Amendment rights to free worship. Which won't be true. If they want to keep gathering and praying, they can do that. It's just they can't keep all the goddamned cash that rolls in when they do.

We have to recognize this truth: These churches that protected sexual predators and abused their own members are no longer churches. These organizations are now criminal conspiracies.

Goddamn them.

Francis In America

Holy sh-t kids it's THE POPE!

Pope Francis is in the United States for the next six days to pray for us godless heathens.

QUICK, HIDE THE PLAYBOY MAGS.

...

Wait, I'm Unitarian.  He doesn't get to judge me.  Whew.

What, NOW he tells us?!  Lighten up, Francis!

Kiss Me I'm Irish (And Pro-People)

This is huge, what Ireland just done.

Ireland - with 62 percent of the voters in favor, and winning in 42 of 43 districts - became the first country to deem by popular vote that gays have a right to marry:

"Today Ireland has made history - the first country in the world to vote for equal marriage," Prime Minister Enda Kenny told reporters.

"With today's vote we have disclosed who we are: a generous, compassionate, bold and joyful people. Yes to inclusion, yes to generosity, yes to love, yes to equal marriage," he said.

The voter turnout was 60 percent - much higher than in other recent referendums.

This is huge because it's proving that most people do not want to go out of their way to discriminate or hate upon a significant minority within their own nation.  This is the first time a nation opened up to equal rights to getting married - a major cultural, economic, and legal right - by the will of the people rather than a legislative or judicial decree.

This is what being Pro-People looks like.

This is huge because Ireland is famously - almost notoriously - Catholic in their religious faith.  The power and sway of the Catholic Church and the papacy (used to be) greater here than in most other nations (including Italy where the Church originated and still houses its seat of power).  Ireland infamously has one of the harshest anti-abortion restrictions in all of Europe, and it only decriminalized homosexuality itself merely 23 years ago.

In theory and in practice the Catholic Church opposes homosexuality, one of several "conservative" Christian faiths to argue the sin of it.  However, regarding this vote, the Church itself remained oddly silent except for a handful of Bishops coming out late in opposition to it.  The power of the Church had dropped in the wake of sex abuse scandals... and there are signs the current Pope has shifted the dynamics of the Church towards social justice...

So maybe Francis has lightened up.

This is huge because the Irish vote was not only a sizable majority of available voters, and because the vote itself was a solid majority, the polling numbers suggested this wasn't a generational issue.  Whereas the younger voters will trend liberal-leaning (read: open-minded), older voters tend not to.  Except they didn't: polling showed "the support cut across age and gender, geography and income..."

This is huge because it shows to the rest of the world we don't have to hate or discriminate on the basis of our "fears", that we don't have the excuse of religion or faith to discriminate.

This is huge because the more other nations show us that allowing gay marriage does not mean the end of the world, the easier it will get in this "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave" to open up to gay marriage across all states.  Here, it's happening mostly by judicial decision and court order, and yet we're still getting politicians and conservative religious leaders standing up screaming "family values" and "religious liberty" as excuses to hate.

There are no other arguments against gay marriage.  The argument against being gay relies entirely on passages of the Hebrew (Leviticus is prominently mentioned) and Christian Testaments (Romans and other Pauline letters).  There are no scientific arguments against gay, where biology and psychology over the decades has revealed reasons why being gay happens (homosexuality is not a choice), and that being gay isn't really special it's just...a thing.

This is huge because more people are refusing to use religion as an excuse to hate.  Because more people are seeing the hypocrisy of religious leaders railing against gays using Leviticus while allowing EVERYTHING else banned in Leviticus and the Bible to happen.

This is huge, having more people being Pro-People.

Also, I Think The New Pope Never Watched Bill Murray Movies

I mean, seriously.  Who goes and gets himself elected Pope and then names himself Francis?

Because now every time this guy's gotta visit the United States, he's gonna get this:

And it's not like this guy had any tradition to follow.  There's no previous Popes by this name: there's been a ton of Gregorys, an army of Johns, enough Benedicts to feed a breakfast buffet, a surprising number of Clements, not enough Innocents, seriously not enough Eugenes (CAREFUL WITH THAT AXE)...  no, this guy's gotta go with a new name ready for mockery.  He could have gone with Urban, that's hip right now, or Lucius... no, he's gotta go with a name that's gonna be on Zazzle and CafePress t-shirts with "Lighten Up" right above the "Francis".

On the other hand, it's bound to give the actor playing Francis a boost in popularity on the IMDB website.

On a serious note, I'm not sure the Catholic Church did themselves any favors promoting a Cardinal opposed to same-sex couples adopting, considering that promoting adoptions overall promotes a pro-life message.

But what do I know.  I'm Unitarian: I didn't have a vote in the matter.

Wouldn't You Know It, the Busiest Weekend of My Life...

...and I miss out on the huge news of the Pope resigning to make way for a hyperspace bypass to make way for yet another groomed arch-conservative Cardinal who's going to use the Second Vatican Council decisions as toilet paper.  Maybe...

How much of this is due to the declining health of Benedict XVI - and how much is due to the fact that as Cardinal Ratzinger he presided over the investigations of hundreds of increasingly public revelations of pedophile behavior of priests some of which remained under wraps in defiance of other law enforcement agencies' attempts to bring about charges - remains to be seen.  In truth, the Pope wasn't a young man when he took the office back in 2005 anyway: also in truth, it's hurting the Church's claim to moral certainty when they've been implicated in massive cover-ups and allowances of child rape to continue even after the pedophile priests were identified and confirmed, and that the current Pope for good or ill had a hand in the internal affairs.

The Church will hold its Papal conclave by the end of the month.  If they can find a Pope willing to confront the truth of the sexual abuse, and willing to recognize that certain traditions that allow pedophiles to flourish in their organiztion need to pass on, then best of luck and God Bless.  But Benedict and his predecessor Pope John Paul II spent a lot of decades purging out the more liberal bishops and cardinals, leaving the more conservative (and the ones less likely to accept reform) as likely Popes.  And this sexual abuse mess has reached every corner of their institution... finding a bishop or cardinal free of the taint would be truly a stroke of God's Blessing...

P.S. Is this gonna screw up stuff like Ash Wednesday or anything?