Jojo

Easter was pretty good actually, but the lead up to it was terrible, coupled with being told by someone important that it “can’t be trans day of visibility because it’s Easter. It can’t be anything else”.

Buuut I made it and I’m okay. And I got to see the parts of my family that support me while the parts who don’t ignored me, so that was nice.

Agreed on basically all points, but tbf there are more people imprisoned in the us than an awful lot of more popular categories than trans folks.

Do you think catholics would go against what the pope has told them God has commanded?

Wouldn’t be the first time. In fact, it happens at a small scale fairly often, and it’s generally perceived as a tragedy when it does.

If this were a politician trying to sway congress that’s one thing, but is the vatican not functionally a dictatorship, with the pope at the top?

It’s not really. It’s an elected office, and certainly a political one. If there’s not a way to depose him once elected, it doesn’t make it not political. As for his supposed despotic power, he could theoretically do basically anything, but he doesn’t because the reality is that he doesn’t have the political will to do it.

In just the same way as the US president can just order all of the nukes to be launched at the moon, yes. But actions have consequences, so he doesn’t, even if it might be the “better” course of action for humanity if he did. Because it wouldn’t be the best course for his organization (at least from his perspective).

Numerous times, they just didn’t call it a crusade. Wars and genocide aren’t unique to Christians, or even to religion.

And actually, come to think of it, yes, wasn’t the third crusade organized by secular parties (kings and such) and not the Pope? If that makes it because of Christianity, then the Iraq war was because of WMDs…

When the pope says he can’t bless gay marriage, is that not letting him hide behind his religion for his choices?

No, it’s him acknowledging his religion and saying people should be kind and respectful anyway.

Homosexuality is a complicated subject among Catholics to say the least. Homosexual “acts” are officially a sin in Catholicism, and without the kind of change that would cause a schism, Francis can’t change that. From his perspective, if it did cause a schism anyone on the wrong side of the schism would be in jeopardy, and even if they weren’t they’d just continue on calling people sinners for being gay which Francis and the official stance of the church does oppose.

So the Pope saying it’s okay to bless people even if you think they might be sinning may not be the most progressive thing in the world, may not be the most progressive thing he could say, but I do understand why he would say what he’s saying instead of something more concrete.

I don’t have to agree with everything he says or thinks to recognize that.

Holding leaders to a higher standard doesn’t mean calling them evil because they believe something different than you, it means not letting them hide behind their religion for their choices.

But given that he does believe in heaven, and the organization he leads is made out of people who also believe in heaven, the fact that he’s trying to get as many people there as possible is hard to fault him for, especially when the thing he’s doing (telling the church to be more welcoming and kind to lgbtq folks) is objectively good.

I try to be more generous than that when considering other people’s motivations, even those whose actions I find despicable.

It obviously doesn’t excuse despicable actions, but it does give the opportunity to recognize when people are trying to be better.

Regardless, I’m fairly sure he would disagree with you, and I was discussing his motivations.

The Catholic Church has sponsored plenty of progressive endeavors, both in the fields of science and otherwise. Which is to say nothing of the numerous Catholic people who have done progressive things and would place their faith as their reason for doing so. So there is a lot of progress that has been made because of the church.

That being said, there have also been far too many times where the church deliberately resisted important progress and/or attempted to undo it, hence progress despite the church.

I don’t know where the balance lies on that, but I do think it’s worth acknowledging both and even moreso acknowledging attempts from within to ensure more of the former and less of the latter.

There’d be a schism, with the people who are currently getting upset instead just up and leaving. That might seem like a good thing, at first, but if the goal is to get everyone to heaven, you’re not really achieving it if half the people are leaving.

I mean, you could say that you’re not achieving it either way, but that’s the thinking anyhow.

And the previous commenter suggested locking them away forever instead of wasting resources on them.

Worth noting that it costs a lot of state resources to lock them away forever.

Well, yeah. Plausible deniability, my good Demonsword.