This week, hundreds of delegates from around the world began a monthlong meeting as part of Pope Francis’ “Synod on Synodality”—a gathering to discuss the future of the Catholic Church. It could radically change the religion. The group is considering groundbreaking alterations to orthodoxy on same-sex unions and whether or not women can be ordained as priests. The process has changed, too. For the first time, delegates include women.
A synod is a conference for church leaders and lay people to engage in conversation about how to bolster the good of the church. Since the 1960s, delegates from the global church have come together to discuss evolving issues. The current synod is part one of a multi-year process that will culminate in 2024 with Francis’ decisions and includes particularly controversial topics, like celibacy and divorce.
The lead up has been punctuated by conservative concerns about just how liberal this meeting may get. The synod kicks off days after a letter became public in which the pope considered blessing the existence of queer couples and the allowance of female priests.
Pope Francis wrote that while marriage is an “exclusive, stable and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to conceiving children,” pastoral charity is also needed, and may be discretionary. Pastoral prudence, he wrote, “must adequately discern if there are forms of blessing, solicited by one or various persons, that don’t transmit a mistaken concept of marriage.” On female priesthood, the pope asserted that, whereas nobody can publicly contradict the church’s current rules prohibiting women’s ordination, they should study it.
For some, this rhetoric may seem like the bare minimum. But for others, like Americans on the right, it’s scary as hell.
Conservative Catholics across the U.S. have been some of the most vocal globally in pushing against reforms, and fear that the church is changing in a way that doesn’t match scripture or their ideology. One New York City priest, Reverend Gerald Murray, worried publicly that the pope “will authorize things that are not contained in Catholic doctrine or that will contradict it,” like women deacons or blessing gay unions. “We’re not Protestants,” he said.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Archbishop Emeritus of St. Louis, a vocal opponent to Pope Francis, was in the group that sent the pope a letter inquiring how he would be responding to these issues at the summit. “It’s unfortunately very clear,” Burke said on Tuesday, “that the invocation of the Holy Spirit on the part of some has as its aim to push forward an agenda that is more political and human than ecclesiastical and divine.” (Burke was not invited to the meeting at the Vatican.)
Pope Francis’ track record on queer and women’s rights is complicated. He formally allowed women to read from the Bible during Mass, but also came out against women becoming ordained. Speaking about queer people in 2013, the pope famously asked, “If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them?” He has argued that homosexuality should not be treated as a crime in different countries but clarifies that he still thinks it’s a sin. Francis has framed many of these decisions as instances where localities should turn toward scripture and an evolving discernment as it befits their needs as part of his hope of growing the Catholic Church.
Because of this potential divide between local and global doctrine and application, it is possible that American Catholics may not even see these changes, should they be formally supported by the pope but not adopted by local priests.
As Mother Jones previously reported, American catholicism has splintered as some of the devout entrench themselves in wider conservative politics. Right-wing provocateurs like Milo Yiannopoulos and Steve Bannon notably have moved in Catholic circles saying Pope Francis should be curtailed. Yiannopoulos, who touts a traditionalist form of Catholicism, has been telling anyone who will listen to him, to “make the Vatican straight again” and “make America homophobic again.”
The pope himself seems unfazed by the ire of American Catholics. “They got mad,” he told reporters in late August after a squabble. “But move on, move on.”
Until they start paying tax and stop molesting children all of them can fuck right off.
As someone who is not an only atheist but an anti-theist, I have no love for the Catholic Church and either its ancient, middle-age, or present form. However, I’m also a realist. For the Catholic Church to even be publicly willing to discuss such matters (especially things like LGBTQ issues and female ordainment), well, even I’ll admit that something decent may come from this in the end, even if it’s not all what decent society may want (or demand).
In its history, the Catholic Church has been on of the world’s most renowned institutions for being inflexible in its conservative dogma. Extremely rarely do the even ever discuss openness, especially publicly, to changing doctrine. This is one of those extremely few times. I would be extremely shocked if nothing came from this, especially considering the current pope.
Certainly, there are many tractors that will hold back the more radical of proposed changes, but now is the time where we will see any serious changes were likely to see for a long time within the Catholic Church. I’m excited to see what manages to get done at this synod.
I am sure this is a “be careful what you wish for” moment, but part of me is hoping that the American conservative Catholics are insane enough to try appointing their own Trump-aligned antipope and schism from the church, just so that the more rational Catholics in the US can have their literal “Come to Jesus” realization about how far gone the political right has become.
I firmly believe that there is a scary number of Americans who would get behind such a move. But at this point, I have just about accepted that the political divide in the US will not end peacefully, so if that’s our fate, I’d like to at least have the lines drawn cleanly.
You’re describing every form of Protestantism since Martin Luther.
C’mon…
A bit different; protestantism disagrees with the practice of having a centralized church at all, while other schisms in the Catholic church that took place in the past still maintained the church structure. They just appointed antipopes that were more politically aligned with their ideals.
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For the Catholic Church to even be publicly willing to discuss such matters (especially things like LGBTQ issues and female ordainment), well, even I’ll admit that something decent may come from this in the end, even if it’s not all what decent society may want (or demand).
Nothing will come from this.
It’s not a “huh, maybe we were doing something wrong, maybe we should change” meeting, it’s a “Oh, the peasants are getting uppity again, quick, say that were graciously considering human rights or something to calm them down” meeting.
It’s the KKK holding a meeting considering on whether to allow black people to join.
We don’t want something decent to come from the Catholic Church, though. It’s the fact that they are so backwards and hateful that is causing them to lose adherents like crazy. This is what needs to continue. Making moves like accepting women and LGBTQ people only helps them stay alive even longer.
Hey Hitler killed Hitler, so call it even?
Nah fuck those robed pedophiles till we strangle the last politician with the last ones entrails.
Wtf. I’m saying that the Catholic Church only makes major changes to dogma once a millennium or so, and I’m pretty interested in what they’re gonna do since it affects the lives of countless billions of people. You can quibble over the fact that you don’t get all you want, and I agree that they’re still a shitty theistic monolithic organization, but I was talking about what benefits a change in their dogma would bring, not fixating on the shortcomings.
I’m not your enemy.
Until the pope can stop his priests and congregation from fucking children, is there any reason to think there will be any positive change?
Like most figures in religion and Catholicism, the pope is a fairweather friend for Catholics. When he’s singing their tune they’re happy to quote him and laud him for his god given thoughts. When he isn’t, well we get exactly the reaction he’s been given: his own people saying he is wrong even though they were claiming he is God’s earthly representative just moments earlier.
I’m not outright saying nothing at all good can come of the effort to make change, as there will be some small minority that actually adhere to it, but I don’t see that happening for the vast majority of Catholics who will continue in their bigotry.
Change over generations will occur moreso, but I think that was coming regardless of his stance. At least that’s what recent history has shown us.
Until the pope can stop his priests and congregation from fucking children
Are you of the belief that the Pope has super powers?
No, but they do
You’re the one demanding the Pope be, at minimum, prescient, and ideally omniscient.
not just that but literally from this article:
“marriage is between a man and a woman”
no it fucking isnt. Source: all the places where you can get married without being a man and a woman.
they are saying pasta can only have red sauce while i eat a bowl of carbonara in front of them.
the best one can do now is say “marriage *should go back to being between a man and a woman”, which they won’t because they’re fucking cowards.
they should own up to their own stupid ass beliefs.
Yiannopoulos, who touts a traditionalist form of Catholicism, has been telling anyone who will listen to him, to “make the Vatican straight again” and “make America homophobic again.”
My dude, you are queer. You married a man and were proudly gay until a year ago. You’re only just now faking a successful conversion to the straight life so your new Nazi friends don’t lynch you in town square.
Go back to Britain and stop making American politics worse than it already is. Or stick around and don’t act surprised when you inevitably get “Night of the Long Knives”-ed.
I went to google when his change happened (March 2021, for the record) and apparently since then he’s taken up the cause of fundraising for conversion camps… so that’s fun
Have you seen his pitch video for a Virgin Mary statue?
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1460270627651305476
The most vicious persecutors are those who attack in others what they repress in themselves.
Hypocrite
I never thought of Milo as a fitter Ernst Röhm with highlights.
Reverend Gerald Murray, worried publicly that the pope “will authorize things that are not contained in Catholic doctrine or that will contradict it,”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Catholic doctrine is what the Pope says it is. The Pope is supposed to be God’s representative on Earth, or some bullshit like that.
Yes. You wouldn’t believe how many Americans think they know their god’s will better than god though.
I’ve said it for decades but misogyny is something conservatives will never let go. It’s part of their identity.
Misogyny is literally baked into the Bible.
1 Timothy 11-12
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”
1 Corinthians 14:34-35
“Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”
As an ex-Catholic and a strong atheist, I feel the need to point out that Catholics do not subscribe to the doctrine of sola scriptura - Biblical literalism as defined by a human institution - and considers it borderline heretical.
Very true.
I come from an evangelical background which I treat as ‘American Christianity’ as it’s the predominant, loudest, and currently most politically powerful sect. When we deal with the likes of trump supporters, they’ll be evangelicals almost across the board.
52% of Catholics voted for Trump in 2020:
A quick google estimates that there are between 45 and 72 millions Catholics in the US and between 90 and 100 million evangelicals.
This article says Catholics make up 12% of registered voters while evangelicals make up about 20%.
Between 77% and 84% of white evangelicals voted for trump depending on which reports you look at.
Evangelicals are the larger bloc, and a larger percentage of them voted trump.
Who gets to decide what the current views and rules of the church are, the pope? I’d assume it’s absolutely against the rules to question what the pope says then, right? So, anybody who isn’t in line with what the current pope is saying a heretic too.
The whole thing is so stupid. Just like every religion, even with the rules written down, often to a mind-numbing degree, it’s always subject to interpretation. Just see the vast difference in interpretation between what various muslim groups think women should be allowed / forbidden to show.
That was exactly my thought. Reverend Gerald Murray doesn’t seem to know some of the basics of Catholicism.
The same verses that the Pope drives his authority from say that he can so change stuff. Matthew 16:17-19.
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, b and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades c will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be d bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be e loosed in heaven
As Lord Jiraiya’s representative on Earth, I can confirm this
12 years of Catholic school here and you would be correct, sir/madam.
So Vatican 3 basically.
Back in the day mass was done entirely in Latin and the priest didn’t address the congregation. This didn’t change until the '60s. Some sects are still pissed off over it
Wait, what… we aren’t even done with Vatican Council 2! 🤣
Don’t sweat it. These days nobody completes their papal backlog. It’s a running meme.
Just make sure to wait for the Christmas sales.
It turns out that The Vatican and Valve have more in common that previously believed.
“God is love.” -god
“That bastard!” - conservative worshipers
I feel like the most galling thing about xtianity is that you can be the most violent, murderous, racist, homophobic pos forever and, per doctrine, you’ll still be welcomed into heaven no matter what so long as you believe that the invisible sky friend exists.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ok. Let 'em be mad.
They’re already mad about something, I’m sure.
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Fairytale believers angry that fairytale is changing.
Raymond Burke is a piece of shit who covered up sexual abuse of children. How he’s still free blows my mind.
Wow, is Catholicism really ready to enter the 20th century!?
More accurate to say that some Catholic leaders are
lol I was asking
If you can just get together and decide “OK, now rule X has been changed to rule Y”; how is anyone supposed to take any of it seriously? It is literally made up as it suits them.
I’m not here to defend any religion, but you’re basically describing a social contract, which is just how humanity is organized
But the central conceit of any religious faith is the belief in the divine. The Pope is supposed to speak for God, the creator of all things, and the infallible judge of every soul that has or will have ever lived. Changing it to suit the modern social contract is a tacit admission that they were full of shit the entire time.
Like if the Church started blessing gay marriages, then all those homophones who marched around with plaquards promoting bigotry would have to acknowledge that they were just ordinary, hateful morons, instead of divinely righteous holy warriors.
The entirety of the modern Christian faith is that god said one thing to one group and then changed it. This is not to get into the debate of authenticity or logic of religion or anything like that, it’s simply how it’s always been. God said only the Jews get to be my people. Then it was everyone who believes. God said no unclean meats. The he said the meats were fine. It’s the nature of the Christian faith. If you include the Mormons, there’s more changes, but I don’t know them.
Within the faith, it’s accepted as basically a change in the promises god made to humanity. And if we look at it giving them some leeway, why can’t he change it again?
Hey hey now, no need to bring homophones into this! What’s wrong with ewe!
The answer is, they don’t agree and that’s how religion branches off and all these hundreds of denominations come into existence.
I worked in an Anglican school two years ago and it almost happened in my time there. As more kids were coming through with fluid gender, half the clergy were in support, the other half weren’t, so there was talk about splitting up and creating some kind of Anglicanism 2.0.
So, you’ve gotta wonder, if this has been going on for 2,000 years how far off its original tracks is religion today? And people still follow it like it’s God’s word? Even if it was God’s word we’ve proper fucked it a few hundred times times to suit our narrative since.
Not everything is written in the Bible. Modern times bring modern problems and religious people need to decide which solution is in accord with their faith.
It is literally made up as it suits them.
This started literally thousands of years ago.
Yeah, when you start off with “Everything we say is always right”, then any change of stance or admission of error immediately brings everything else into question.
If you’re really curious, you can look at the tomes… and tomes… and tomes of tomes written chronicling the tomes of Catholic doctrine. They may be nutty, but they reason their way to the outcome they decided in advance. Out of all the christian sects, Catholics are the most ‘logical’ in their beliefs, and definitely the most prolific in their apologetics.
So all of these changes being considered will be put on the ever-updating philosophy they have. In fact, many of the changes are likely already supported by some priest’s writing, ready to be pulled out of the oh-so-super-secret heresy vault it’s currently in.
It just seems ridiculous on its face. If the “rules” are the literal word of God, then how can men change them? If they can change them to suit their own purposes, why should other men listen to them? How do the followers not care?
Because the literal rules contain a rule allowing the rules to be changed. Or, at least that’s how they decided to interpret a conversation that Jesus allegedly had at some point according to someone who wasn’t there at the time.
Prettttty sure this has happened a lot in the history of Christianity…
I don’t think the religion would’ve even lived this long without it.
Read up (or listen to podcasts) on the earliest history of Judaism. It’s genuinely fascinating history. Lesson learned is that they were making things up to suit circumstance since Yehovah became the big thing and probably longer. What protestants did and what Catholics think about considering doing now it’s just the newest developments in the long line.
Conservative US Christians are mad as hell.
LOVE to see it!
catholic != christianEvery catholic is a christian, not every christian is a catholic. The title was about US catholics.But, you can’t deny that US protestants are mad as hell too. That seems to be their default state.
Resentment and disagreement is in their very name, after all. I’m sorry for these people, they always need an enemy to fight to define their own identity.
I’d give it a better than zero percent chance that he’s dug up and put on trial after death
Yiannopoulos, who touts a traditionalist form of Catholicism, has been telling anyone who will listen to him, to “make the Vatican straight again” and “make America homophobic again.”
…what kind of self-hating fuckery is this?
He’s also pro-child abuse. No idea why anyone gives him a platform.
Right-wing provocateurs like Milo Yiannopoulos and Steve Bannon notably have moved in Catholic circles saying Pope Francis should be curtailed.
Meanwhile, Bannon’s friend Cheeto Jesus gets a pass.
Hopefully a ban on backing political candidates… That shit is toxic
