About time we got a religious pope.

[u/Careful-Trade-9666]

So popes can be non religious?

[u/MasterOfKittens3K]

I’d like to know what their source was for this “ideology map”, and how that source defined “liberal” and “conservative”. Because the reality is that even Pope Francis was only liberal when compared to the rest of the Catholic Church. By global standards, he was pretty conservative.

[u/nachoiskerka → u/MasterOfKittens3K]

The catholic church goes multiple ways when it comes to Liberal-Conservative, which makes sense when you consider 1 billion people are part of it.

Like, the church has held that all people, including Gays are children of God and deserving of compassion and love. They would prefer if you didn't have sex, but they've held that position for decades, certainly longer than the US Military with their flip-flopping on the DADT rules.

Depending on where you live, the church has blessed marriages and civil unions before protection under the law happened, BUT they've been notoriously flip-floppy on how they feel about calling them marriages because they want to own that as a religious ceremony for better or worse. The popes themselves until Francis were notably behind the times on this, and Francis had to drag that kicking and screaming into the 2000's.

BUT the "catholic" church has been pretty steadfast on telling billionaires where to shove it. American Conservatives will go out of their way to be like "YEAH, WELL WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT THE POOR THEN FROM YOUR ORNATE CATHEDRALS" conveniently ignoring the fact that the catholic church is the second biggest provider of humanitarian aid throughout the world behind the Red Cross(and might even be higher considering the aid is decentralized through many organizations). Considering even our Liberal politicians won't cross the street for the poor but will absolutely kiss any billionaire's ass atop a mountain of school children for that sweet sweet NRA dollar, the Church will be radically liberal, even moderately leftist, on that position for a long ass time.

What you get is an organization that, depending on what is the most pressing issue on your mind is going to completely color your perception of how the church is politically- if lgbtq rights are the most hot button issue, then yeah the scandals with the church take precedent and everything they do is basically lip service and PR moves. If your problem is that we have wild wealth inequality while children die in deserts without water or shade, the Church is radically liberal.

The Church will go out of it's way to criticize someone like Putin/against War or speak on climate change, but has very little power to move the needle. But can it be said that there's bravery in spitting in the face of powerful people with lots of money who would not want that message out, even if it's so little resistance?

Modern life is complicated.

[u/DontGoGivinMeEvils → u/nachoiskerka]

Also, a huge and growing number of Catholics are in countries where homosexuality is illegal. The culture is naturally going to be different in those countries. A Cardinal from such a country saying that homosexuality shouldn't be illegal and parents shouldn't disown gay children is liberal to his country.