New Pope, Same Old Baloney

As someone who was born into the Catholic religion, I felt I needed to make a few comments on the election of this new Pope.  "Baloney", by the way, is a term Americans use for 'nonsense'.  For example, if someone tells you a lie, you might say, "You just told me a bunch of baloney!"  Or: "What baloney!"  "Bullshit!" is the dirtier term for "baloney."  Baloney is literally a cheap type of sausage that nobody wants to eat.
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In an interview Cardinal Dolan of New York City gave today, he states that Catholic Church doctrine will not be changed by the new Pope.  Indeed, he asserts that the most this Pope can do is to "oil" the machine so that the machine runs more smoothly. The "machine" is his term for the Catholic Church. It's funny because the term "machine" politics often refers to corrupt political systems in American cities like Chicago or New York.

Is the Catholic Church as corrupt as a corrupt political system? It surely looks that way.

Unfortunately, many Catholics in America and Europe are not going to be satisfied with mere "oiling." People should expect real reform.

For instance, there was a report in the early 2000s, which was called the John Jay Report on Catholic Priests, which indicated that about 4% of US Catholic priests in the USA had engaged in illegal sexual activities with children. That is one out of twenty-five priests.  That is shocking. That is outrageous.

Here is the John Jay Study (you can also google 'John Jay Study on Priests'): http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/churchstudy/main.asp

Furthermore, there is NO REASON that women should not be Catholic priests.  Indeed, in the early church women WERE priests.  The Catholic Church stopped allowing women to be priests for various social and political reasons - there is NOTHING in the Bible which mentions a "priesthood" or which mentions that only men may be priests.

Women priests in the early church:

Furthermore, there is nothing in the Bible which says that gay people are "contrary to God's plan." The current Pope stated that gay-marriage is contrary to God's plan.   In fact, it might be time for the Pope to be nicer to gay folks because it is estimated that between 23% and 58% of all Catholic priests are gay.  That's a lot of gay priests.
http://americamagazine.org/node/146081

Furthermore, the Catholic Church often functions like a criminal organization.  It often takes immediate action to cover up abuses that are presented to it. The previous Pope apparently had to resign because of the outrageous number of scandals, including an apparent gay prostitution ring that was being run out of the Vatican.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the Bible that states abortion is a "sin." Nor is there anything in the Bible which states that people who use birth-control are in violation of God's law or plan.  Hello, are over-population, starvation and global warming a part of God's plan? All three potentially stem from a lack of rational birth control.

The Catholic Church has just made a lot of stuff up. I'm tempted to say: Who cares who the new Pope is?

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By the way, few news sources are explaining why a person from Argentina was chosen Pope or why he chose the name Francis I.  Let me please tell you.

There is a high correlation between poverty and Catholicism.  South America is both poor and Catholic. In Europe people became wealthier and less Catholic. The same is happening in America.  The most popular saint in South America is Saint Francis of Assisi.  Poor people continually pray to Saint Francis for help.

"Saint" Francis was a person who was born into a wealthy family and who rejected wealth to embrace poverty.  But he didn't embrace 'real' poverty.  He embraced the type of easy poverty religious figures around the world often embrace.  It's the type of institutionalized poverty that ensures that the church will make sure you are always safe and always well-fed every day.  Francis never went hungry a day in his life.

So this Argentinean guy was selected because 1) he's basically an Italian guy from Argentina (his father was an Italian immigrant to Argentina) and  2) Europe and America have begun to REJECT the Catholic Church because it has had too many scandals and poverty has been decreasing in both areas.  The Church's future lies in poor countries.

So we have an Italian guy from Argentina who has selected the name of a "Saint" whom poor people love, but who will not make significant changes to a church that desperately needs humanizing.  The old, conservative guys simply will not let go of power.  Now they are looking to the poor of South America to help keep them in business.

Habemus papem!  Yes, we have a new Pope.  Same as the old Pope. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!





Yes, I'm the person who created this amazing scandal :) http://nwww.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20100511000742