The pope has died

[BombayBicycleclub]

https://news.sky.com/story/pope-francis-has-died-the-vatican-says-12890455 just that really. Will they do the conclave now? Or in a few days as it’s Easter?

@Smallsalt
I think change is due, but I'm not sure it will necessarily lead to larger congregations .It hasn't worked in or for the Church of England.

In some ways a return to a more spiritual and mystic form of Catholicism might draw more people in/back to the Church.

However I think for the next few days speculation is premature and it should be a time of reflection on his life and death.

He served his people to the end. Greeting them, blessing little babies. It's a beautiful way to go.

Theology is important as well. Some of the divisive problems Francis had within the Catholic Church were due to the fact that often his statements seemed very muddy and contradictory, which won't in the end allow whatever he hoped to achieve with them to be regularized. He also walked back some reforms that Benedict had started, for example around the use of the traditional mass.
Benedict was considered to be a really phenomenal and precise theologian who could cut through difficult problems with a lot of insight. Why people see that as negative I am not sure.

The weight of Christianity these days isn't really in Europe, so I think sometimes we tend to have an unbalanced view. Many of the places with the most practicing Catholics are much more conservative.

Popes being accused of being 'too woke' started with Peter and Paul having a showdown over admitting gentiles and dropping Jewish food laws and has continued ever since whenever any Pope tried a reform. When Callixtus (218-222) introduced equal marriage (between slaves and free Christians) there was OUTRAGE in some quarters, Because we are all human.

It's not obvious to me.

If you're American can you spell it out please.

I'm not American but I'm reading at as suggestion that Vance was distancing himself from his wife's religion and hoping that racists would therefore not think of him as brown by association or something.

But not woke enough to support women priests. Or married clergy. Our local Parish Priest has to say mass at three churches. That's not sustainable as well as being inequitable.

I doubt it.
@queenofthesuburbs Until it's attitudes to women, gay people , divorced people, contraception etc have joined the 21st century, people will stay away.
The days of cowed brainwashed people being lectured and bullied by clergy who events have shown are no godlier than anyone else are long gone.
It doesn't need mysticism it needs realism and relevance to peoples lives

otoh, I know several churches where there are regular services with the liturgy of the word and communion, that can be and are led by women. I'm not convinced that ordaining women as priests is a good idea, but am very keen on opening all the church's activities, except eucharistic consecration, to properly trained members of the laity.

Bear in mind that a person doesn't have to be a priest to be Pope. At the moment they do have to be male, but that could change, without bringing in women priests.

It's clericalism that is the worst problem.

If JD Vance wants to distance himself from brown people, in public perception, he has joined the wrong church. Whatever its other failings the RCC has never been segregated on racial lines. He might have been better advised to join one of the many fundamentalist Evangelical sects which might align more closely with his pretend hillbilly background.

Until women are priests and priests can marry I think the Catholic Church cannot be all that it could be. I know many Catholics and “lapsed” Catholics who feel the same. I liked Pope Francis but he did not go far enough to make the titanic shift that is needed. I grow weary of the endless pandering to the pace of change. The church is the people and people can change.

The majority of Catholics, even practising ones, ignore the Church's stance on contraception. The Pope himself welcomed gay people and allowed blessings in Church.
Divorce is, I agree, a thorny issue, particularly if there is one "innocent" party who is then unable to marry and receive the Eucharist. But I suppose they could just divorce and "live in sin", which again, most Catholics do before marriage anyway.

I think if priests could marry, then this would lead to more ordinations.

oh yes

Even in rural Ireland, the proportion of brown people at any given Mass is higher than out in the street. I doubt that was Vance's motivation, but some of his political sponsors, knowing nothing about the Catholic church, could have seen it that way. I hope the Pope's work of re-setting the religious and social attitudes of those appointed as American bishops is continued by his successor. And that I live to see Dorothy Day canonised.

I agree. The C of E hasn't gained bigger congregations with their anything goes approach. A return to spirituality is needed and what if means to live a Christian life.

I'm sure it would, but because I see clericalism as the core problem I would see having more priests as a disaster. It is when there are huge numbers of priests supporting each other above all that abuses happen.

Male priests doing the thing that only a priest can do - the consecration - lay people doing everything else, is what I'd like to see.

I found his request for burial quite moving. Wants only 'Franciscus'. He was a good human. We need more like him. May he RIP.

Only about 40 percent of US Catholics are white. A third are Hispanic. The majority of Catholics live in the global South. It would be strange for Vance to pick RC to appear more 'white'. I'm not a fan of his politics but this seems like a bizarre accusation.

For me as an ex Catholic, Benedict’s theology, and that of most theologians, lacked humanity very often @TempestTost.

It’s very easy to be precise and dogmatic from a papal tower, wearing expensive hand made shoes, having been sequestered in clerical life since teenage years, and removed from the daily struggle of every day life that most people live.

How does theology, academic and linear, apply to the every day life of shades of grey that the majority of people live?

It sets a bar so high that most people fail and add guilt to whatever it is they struggle with. Catholic guilt is a thing, even for those of us who are no longer part of it. It is what kept people cowed and subservient for so long.

I find it as tone deaf as proclamations from the monarchy on sympathising with the struggles of every day life, which they’ve never experienced.

I can believe that whilst some of his statements may have been muddy for purists, Francis did relate to the struggles of living a ‘good’ life as defined by Catholic doctrine, in the modern world and tried to start a process of change.

Why on earth is this in AIBU?

But you need a priest for every mass then? Unless the host is to be 'pre consecrated '. In which case one priest would do for the whole world. Just ordain women. It's obvious they were priests in the early church - otherwise Paul wouldn't have been moaning about it.

But humans are muddy and contradictory!

We don’t need more fundamentalism in the world thank you. Doubt and struggle are good.

Why are the two mutually exclusive? An inclusive, spiritually generous, encouraging, kind, non-judgemental, ministry can be combined with inspiring liturgy, sacred music, profound contemplation and prayer.

Communion with the pre-consecrated is the norm in many places now (including weekday masses in parishes in Ireland) - theoretically you would indeed only need one priest, but there will always be more than that, some in religious communities.

I prefer keeping ordination for priests who are male, and celibate, and in a minority, and handing over the running and administration of the church to lay people. Which in some cases would just mean giving official recognition to what is already happening.

The CofE gives us a glimpse of what can happen if you retain clericalism with added women clerics. Not a great example.