get on your knees and pray we don't get fooled again

[lookingforwater]

Habemus papem.

So they elected the Argentinian.  Here's the breakdown:

1. He's a Jesuit.  This is good.  Jesuits are a force for good more often than they aren't, and they're certainly more liberal than other orders.
2. From what I've heard, he supports the use of contraception to reduce the spread of disease.  This is also good, if it's true.
3. He's not

Comments

[danalwyn]

From a non-believer's standpoint, I'm also cautiously optimistic.

I read some complaints early from Latin Americans who were questioning his role in the Argentinian dictatorship years, but I can't really see there being much of a choice but to overlook this. The demographic heart of the Roman Catholic Church is now very much outside of Europe, and they needed to demonstrate an awareness of this at the highest level. But many of the cardinals from those regions have served under less than ideal regimes, and it will be hard to find a single one untainted by some manner of allegation of collaboration.

This may say something about the structure of the church. Then again, it may just say something about age. All of those cardinals were serving the church back in the 80s, the last decade of the Cold War, before the end of the great ideological crisis. It may just be unrealistic for someone to serve in a politically charged position for that long, through that much turbulence, with a clean nose.

I'm a firm believer that you can't really know what a Pope is going to do until he does it - seeing that the highest office really is different from previous positions. Because of that I remain cautiously optimistic that he may bring in positive change, although for me this choice is much less pertinent than for you.

[lookingforwater]

I'm just going to keep being mildly annoyed with the harping on his affirming Church teachings on sex-and-life stuff. I mean, yes, it's put the Church dramatically out of step with a lot of the rest of the world, but. That stuff is doctrine. It can't just be handwaved away - it has to be argued away, rationally, using the existing structures, otherwise the whole thing comes crashing down.

It's like having a bad precedent in the law. It's there and it sucks but you can't ignore or overturn it willy-nilly, because that opens the door to a lot of other things being ignored and overturned willy-nilly, and many of those things will be very good things. And you may say "well, but it's blatantly unjust," and I agree with you, but. The ability to run off and make your own church, a better church, with blackjack and hookers every time you run across something in the doctrine you don't like is what's led to a lot of the really, really amazingly toxic evangelical/dominionist groups.

and ugh my brain is not working so maybe my point isn't coming across but: it's not as simple as just changing the doctrine, because unbroken chain and whatnot.