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?

That sounds like my kind of Airbnb. Couldn't we all use a few nuns to help with housework, childcare, etc?

But seriously, respect to the man for not living like a Roman emperor as he could have chosen to do. You're totally right that it's hard to win as a pope. You're damned if you live in wealth and you're damned if you live in poverty.

It would be nice if other popes followed suit and lived like normal people (plus or minus a few nuns) and sold off all the palaces and gold to try and do some good with them.

Not sure if you've seen Conclave @PantyBear but I would really like the Sister played by Isabella Rossellini on my side in pretty much everything!

Sorry. I wasn't trying to cause any offence. I was a young person when I was last part of this world but I remember the sort of politics that I was aware of in the cathedral/church/school communities and I'm maybe projecting the bits I didn't see and imagining how it might look as an adult. I get the significance of the foot washing and I think it's a very powerful ritual. Peace be with you.

I haven't but Isabella Rossellini as a nun in the Vatican sounds worth watching. I'll check it out.

My friend is a bishop. (Outing to say who) I think many of the hierarchy have a very dim view of those who converted for this reason. Aside from the practical issues of having to support families. It is very telling that when the ordinariate got its own bishop, last year. Not a single RC diocesan bishop attended his ordination.

@PantyBear
And also with you x
Isabella Rossellini is formidable in the film

I'm not sure why so many priests leaving because of the ordination of women in the C of E swam the Tiber rather than the Bosphorus, although some did the latter. Orthodoxy has no problem with married priests (not bishops though) Although you are supposed to be wed before ordination and there are other rules, those who were married and joined when the C of E changed were accommodated as their ordinations were new within Orthodoxy. I know a few.

I'm not sure how I would feel as a celibate RC priest to be serving alongside married men but not really my business.

I watched conclave last night. A bit of a daft fizzle out at the end but very pretty throughout. Personally the welcoming of married vicars disgusted me. It was not well done.

There was a lovely anecdote on one of the channels streaming the funeral - maybe BBC? - about how Francis liked to bob around Rome in a punto to speak to people. Pope in a Punto sounds like a segment in a 90s comedy game show.

Also a really nice piece with a nun who spoke about how his theological knowledge was always tempered with humanity and how the church needed more of that not less. I am no longer part of the church but I think more people who are occasion Catholics would be lured back as more regular attenders by a doctrine that reflected more of the reality of the life Catholics live in the modern world.

If changes could be made at the council of nicea and at VII, why not again now, when the world has changed almost beyond recognition.

Basil is missed. Hugely.

With regards to contraception, let's not forget that the majority opinion in the second Vatican Council was in favour of contraception within a Catholic marriage, but that this was overruled by the then pope. About time it was revisited.

Yes absolutely this^

Revisiting the issue would cause an enormous schism though I fear which is why the hierarchy have avoided it and have happily foisted a massive fudge on to their congregations which I personally think is very cowardly. As long as the conscious of the hierarchy, ie men, is clear, then that’s ok!

While I agree wholeheartedly that the advent of the pill has largely been beneficial to men, and the effects of it have not all been positive by any means, I think internal misogyny leads to the RC church not fully comprehending and understanding the damage that is done to women by not allowing contraception.

I was the youngest child in a RC family and my mother couldn’t cope. Our life revolved around our local parish and my parents were devout and tried their best but they couldn’t cope with so many children which had had serious mh implications for my mother which damaged many of my siblings and me. How many families were like this in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, where the effects are still being felt!

I grew up in Ireland and became aware of the damage done by back street abortion which put the life of the mother at risk.

What about abusive relationships where controlling or physically violent husbands demand sex from their wives?

What about rape?

What about humility? When it’s obvious that most of their congregations are using contraception; why are the hierarchy not listening to the collective wisdom and lived experience of their parishioners, including the female ones?

This issue is a very clear example of why we need more women in the hierarchy of the church, helping to set the rules.

“………When it’s obvious that most of their congregations are using contraception; why are the hierarchy not listening to the collective wisdom and lived experience of their parishioners, including the female ones ?……. “

Wise words @Conversationkiller654

Every Catholic Church I’ve ever been to is at its core female. From the children’s liturgy to the readers, choir, cleaners and organisers. Always predominately female with the priest and deacons like peacocks in a flock of peahens. It is obvious that contraception is used and condoned. It’s obvious that the majority of the appetite for parish life is female. If the intention of the church is to lead and support then it is obvious that excluding women from an equal role is not right or sensible. Change is good.

Quite agree! In my parish the women type up, print and deliver the parish newsletter (to the elderly who can’t access it on-line), do the flowers, the children’s sacrament prep, the organising, cooking and serving the Lenten lunches, visiting the elderly and sick, rosary groups, cleaning, and leading the inter-Faith ecumenical meetings, plus everything you have mentioned Ohthatsabitshit.

It’s just as well that most of us are either fairly long in the tooth, or use contraception, as otherwise we wouldn’t have time to take such an active roll in the parish, if we were either permanently pregnant, or cooking and cleaning for twelve kids.

I worked in a place where the man with the 'Big Boss' title was an unstable, unpredictable, bully who couldn't cope with the admin side of the job. he had a well developed 'academic' skill set and could be charming, even charismatic, if he wanted to be. The public loved him. As long as they didn't really know him.

They couldn't sack him without massive scandal.

But after yet another official complaint from a foreign nation, they changed the management structure, so he stayed there, continued to be called 'Big Boss', but all round him administrators and managers rose up, paid more than him, senior to him.

All those women (and the laymen who work beside them), need the chance to get into all the admin and management roles (including Pope) that you do not need to be a priest to do. Mary McAleese said there's no major Canon Law barrier to any of that (she got very frustrated with the way her message was received). In my opinion they should to leave the priesthood as it is, open up the diaconate, and let women speak. And listen to what they say.

I'm in Austria.
We have a lot of pastoral assistants now because there aren't enough priests. There might be a group of 4 parishes with one priest and one pastoral assistant.
The vast majority of the pastoral assistants are women. They have to have a degree in Theology and a year's training or if they have a degree in something else they can complete a 3 year course alongside their work.

The pastoral assistants do just about everything. They do the majority of the admin for the parish, they celebrate Word and Communion services, they visit the sick and elderly, they can baptize children and hold funeral services. (I don't know whether this is generally allowed but the Catholic Church in Austria certainly does). They provide spiritual support for those who are struggling in their lives, care for the bereaved. Basically just about everything. They only thing they can't do is consecrate the bread and wine.

This has led to situations recently where our pastoral assistant has prepared and celebrated the entire Mass, including the sermon, because the retired priest who was helping out for a particular feast day just isn't well enough to celebrate an entire Mass. The priest then stood up after the altar, consecrated the gifts, said the rest of the Eucharistic prayer and then sat down from the Our Father to the end while the pastoral assistant continued with the Mass.

On the one hand, it's great that women are taking on responsibility and management in the church and being paid for it but on the other hand it looks really bad that a woman can celebrate the whole of a Mass but a male priest does the most important part.
It's a very messy solution to the lack of priests. Either these women should be ordained as priests or the whole thing needs a rethink because it's a contradictory mess.

Myself I’d support both female priests and marriage. Churches need to live and grow and the world is very different than it was. Celibacy is not helpful.Patriarchy is not helpful. These things slow progress and separate church from people.

I think celibacy is helpful because it means that even if they have personal ambition, it isn't dynastic. There's no special status for clergy offspring. There are no heirs hanging around.

Well - there shouldn't be.

Oh my goodness DeanElderberry
I don’t mean to sound disrespectful because there are some wonderful priests out there; truly good men who work themselves to the bone, but I’ve come across the very same “big boss” situation in quite a few parishes over the years and you could be describing our current bishop now!

He’s surrounded and supported by such a talented group of really devout and highly educated women from all walks of life, who he in turn treats capriciously (to keep them guessing and to disrupt plans deliberately to show them who’s boss) and with suspicion, as if their sole intention somehow is to underline him, when they could not have been more welcoming or respectful and more focused on their roles, which they had been doing extremely well for a few years before he arrived in most cases. (Well they started off that way; many of them are losing their enthusiasm now.) It’s so sad. You can see it starting to unravel before your eyes.

One of my truly life-changing moments was hearing the late Andrea Adams' radio 4 programme on workplace bullying in (probably) 1988. Until then it just wasn't a term. Several of the people she interviewed who were victims of it worked in the charity sector or in the CofE. I know it happens in the Catholic church as well. People who are committed to doing a good job and who care about what they do are the most vulnerable.

Is that generally an issue for married vicars in the C of E though?

Most teen and young adult children of vicars I know can’t get away fast enough!

This is at one and the same time fascinating, inspiring and encouraging, and as you say, also a contradictory mess, bordering on the insulting!

Anyone can Baptise. My mum baptised all of her grandchildren, just in case. She even let DS1 baptise one of his younger cousins.😆

Anyone can Baptise. My mum baptised all of her grandchildren, just in case. She even let DS1 baptise one of his younger cousins

I remember learning that when we read Tess of the D'Urbevilles at my (Catholic) school!