Today's source material, from racist Uncle Pat Buchanan:
Bishop Cupich was conveying instructions the papal nuncio had delivered from Rome to guide U.S. bishops in choosing a new leader.
They chose Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., who has a master’s degree in social work, to succeed Archbishop Timothy Dolan whom Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times describes thus:
“[A] garrulous evangelist comfortable in front of a camera, [who] led the bishops in their high-profile confrontation with the Obama administration over a provision in the health care mandate that requires most employers to have insurance that covers contraceptives for employees.” [...]
Yet here is further confirmation His Holiness seeks to move the Catholic Church to a stance of non-belligerence, if not neutrality, in the culture war for the soul of the West.
Conservatives, long distrustful of the Catholic Church, had come around the last decade or so as the American Catholic church became radicalized and partisanized. For a church whose founding doctrine was service to the poor and pacifism, things like birth control and homosexuality came to dominate its agenda. Once a solid Democratic voting block, President Barack Obama won Catholics by just two points in 2012.
Our civilization is being de-Christianized. Popular culture is a running sewer. Promiscuity and pornography are pandemic. In Europe, the churches empty out as the mosques fill up. In America, Bible reading and prayer are outlawed in schools, as Christian displays are purged from public squares.
Officially, Christmas and Easter do not exist.
There are as many mosques as churches in Europe? Kids can't pray silently to their own gods in school? And if Pat wants to see overflowing churches, he should check them out on December 24, which is weird because Christmas supposedly doesn't officially exist?
Of course Buchanan is right that his brand of regressive social reactionism is dead. Without the Catholic Church lending its millions of dollars and captive Sunday audiences to the doomed effort, the pace of progress can only accelerate. Conservatives must thus pivot, from parroting the proclamations of the bishops as unassailable ("war on religion because of birth control mandate!") to good ol' fashioned Rome bashing. You can read the nuts yourself, below the fold.
If the ignorant social justice priests want to reduce youth unemployment they could start by not praying for a living wage. Then they could look into the other causes of poverty, which stem from immorality- like out of wedlock birth rates and not applying yourself in school. These result from what was formerly known as fornication and sloth- but those words are now deemed judgmental and outdated, as is the idea of sin.
You know what would help with out-of-wedlock birth rates? Birth control and abortion.
The multiple ways to heaven, one size fits all, doesn't offend anybody, multi-cultural world religion is coming. Expect it to be enforced by a one world government. Expect this to happen soon, if we don't do something quick about king 0bama.
The Pope is now Obama's fault. Obviously.
“Who am I to judge,” Pope Francis says of homosexuals.
Does this pope not know that it is his foremost job to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ? God has called homosexuals an abomination!
Jesus called homosexuals an abomination? Would love to see THAT citation!
Jesuits like Pope Francis are big into the Obama Gospel of Social Justice.
Justice for society is evil.
Spot on! The mosques are filling up. Islam suffers no self doubt. The churches are emptying out, worshiping secularism. The culture has become debauched and debased. The foundation crumbles, bit by bit, until the fateful day when the edifice collapses. We are weakened and our testing time is coming.
Christianity must be more like Islam!
The Catholic Church, once leading the charge to free Poland and break up the USSR, will once again crawl back under a rock...like it did during the rise of the Third Reich. Such poor, well intentioned, misguided Pope, who is leading the entire Church down the road to hell.
The Bible teaches that nations are punished by the leaders the people appoint.
I admit it, I didn't think Godwin's Law would apply to this thread. I'm properly chastened.
Pope Francis is the inevitable result of Vatican II and the decades of Church "reform" that have followed in the debri-strewn wake of that disastrous council. The dechristianizing of the one and only Church founded by Jesus Christ Himself is, at least at the human level, well-nigh complete.
Just like Hitler, I hear.
Pat, we should wait for Christ second coming, and find out who ordered the HIT on him. I have an idea..
The Jews, right? This IS just like Hitler!
I wasa wonderin' when someone would raise the issue of Catholicism's abject absence on moral issues. Thank's Pat, but now you know why their churches rely so heavily on ILLEGAL aliens for MONEY!?!
So ... tending to heavily Catholic Latino immigrants leads to abject absence on moral issues? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with these people?
The ----long -----long subverted,
----------------infiltrated,
-----------------------dubious,
----------------------------------ROMAN church.
'MAY--SIN---Re'
'CAP---ALLLL---'A'
'JESU ---'IT'---Re'
--------------------USURY
---------------------------------'YOU--GEN----NIX'
LOOK at what's unfolding!
GOD loves the remnant.
TAKE HEED!
HEEDED ... I think.
I think it's a mistake to view the Pope's different approach to these "culture war" issues as moving the church toward neutrality. Pope Francis seems to understand that proclaiming the Gospel, saving souls, and caring for the poor is precisely how Christians are to "wage war," not by delving into the muck of partisan politics. Our Lord steadfastly avoided the political controversies of His time. The Scriptures, along with the whole of Christian tradition, make clear that the only real revolution is an interior revolution of radical repentance and transformation.
Authentic Christian culture cannot be imposed by political will, especially not in a nation founded upon Enlightenment liberalism. It must grow organically from the life of a people whose day-to-day lives are rooted in Christian faith and practice, and you don't get that just by voting for Republican politicians and calling yourself a "good Christian conservative." What Pope Francis challenges us with is the full weight of the Gospel, not just the part we can fit neatly into our political agendas.
They've got awesome liberal trolls over there.
I have been very leery of this new pope and his pronouncements and it appears for good reason. I was hoping that when he started cleaning house in the Vatican, things would change for the better in the Catholic church. Now I am not so sure, as at least the previous leadership of the church, upheld their understanding of the Scriptures. It appears this new pope is more concerned with appeasing the left, then upholding the Word of the Lord.
Libtard Pope.
I’m glad to see the Pope is concerned about today’s young people. So, I would like to Thank Them for everything they do to help us Boomers [...]
Congratulations you are exactly what Obama is looking for. Followers that are easy to lie to. Dumb, boring, predictable and tedious. Petulant and soft.
Helpless and aimless, without morals or ethics. And on top of it you don’t
believe in God. Surprisingly though, you do believe in vampires, zombies and your college professors. You can’t change a flat tire but you are a master on XBox. You don’t have a sense of urgency and that is a shame. I guess you believed me when I said you had plenty of time. You really don’t. Michelangelo had already sculpted the Pieta and the David in his twenties, Isaac Newton wrote Principia at twenty seven, Albert Einstein at twenty six wrote The Special Theory of Relativity and Steve Jobs founded Apple when he was twenty one. Oh well, smile, take a selfie, and dream about tomorrow after all you have your whole life in front of you.
Mark Zuckenberg founded Facebook at age 20. Science is full of young people doing
amazing work. Same with art and business and every other field. But hey, cherrypicking four people in all of history, and claiming today's youngest generation isn't up to par is fun! Because as everyone knows, every single person of Albert Einstein's generation wrote the Theory of Relativity too! It was all the rage at the time. That and onions. Tied to the belt.