It’s kind of a backhanded compliment — atheists are a little better than crooks! — but I guess it’s moving him in the right direction.
Christians who exploit people, lead a double life and get involved in “dirty business,” scandalize the church, Pope Francis said in a sermon Thursday in Rome. In fact, it might be better just to be an atheist.
“And so many Christians are like this, and these people scandalize others. How many times have we heard — all of us, around the neighborhood and elsewhere — ‘but to be a Catholic like that, it’s better to be an atheist.’ It is that, scandal. You destroy. You beat down,” Francis said, according to Vatican Radio.
I’m charitable, too. I’m willing to admit that many Catholics are, in fact, better than child-rapers.
I’ll be honest. I didn’t interpret the Pope’s statement as positively as you did. I didn’t think the Pope was saying noncriminal Catholics > atheists > criminal Catholics.
I interpreted it as “If you’re going to be a criminal, please drop out of the Catholic church. That way you tarnish their name, not ours.”
Now if the sermon wasn’t given in English, I’m willing to consider that some of the nuance was lost in the translation.
I suspect it’s impossible to be a political machinator good enough to win the papacy, and still believe in god. So I’ll claim him as an atheist or close enough.
I saw his words reported elsewhere as being aimed at the rich and powerful but, of course, they’re not. He’s just complaining about the obviously corrupt swamp-dwellers not the subtle ones who pay their dues on time.
I interpreted the gist this way: after mentioning a long string of unvirtuous behaviors practiced by ‘hypocrite’ Catholics, they might as well be atheists. Them’s fightin’ woids.
” I’m willing to admit that many Catholics are, in fact, better than child-rapers.”
I’m not. Every single adult catholic with a sound mind who remains in the church willingly supports and perpetuates an entire cabal of organized child-rapists. That makes them no better than child-rapists in my book.
wellll… [you know what follows, yet i’ll say it anyway]
the priests I knew during my childhood’s attempted indoctrination, were all very accepting of science and evolution, as just how HE does the things he does that it was just human storytellers, who wrote the Bible, condensed into “miracles” from lack of deep understanding. They all told us during CCD that the Bible was just stories that the writers were struggling to understand the events and just filled in the gaps with “miracle”.
That, I know,is not a very big sample set to draw any conclusions from. I guess I was just fortunate to not encounter any the preverts [sic] who are ensconced in the hierarchy. Despite my atheism and abandoning the RCC, there is nothing in the Book that condones pederasty. It’s all power abuse, nothing in the religion itself condones it.
*sigh*
Gaius Baltar,
Useless hyperbole.
I’m sure you know your stuff when it comes to computer security, but on almost any other topic you’re capable of truly gobsmacking stupidity.
As PZ says, it’s a backhanded complement. The Pope’s point of refernce is that Atheists are immoral, and that Catholics who don’t do as they’re told are worse.
Better to be a good Heathen than a bad Chrisrian.
Fuck off, Popey
I think that the Pope basically is saying don’t claim to be a good Catholic (Christian) while being a crook. At least an atheist is not spouting holy verse while robbing widows and orphans.
Clearly he is ignoring the fact that many atheists have as good or better ethics than some religious nut but at least they don’t quote scripture while stealing.
We can disagree with his use of atheist but I suspect that the idea is that if you are a “whitened sepulcher” he has no use for you.
So considering his intended audience, I say “Good for you Pope”.
“And some of them, I assume, are good people…”
This is what I thought Pope Frank was actually saying:
There once was a POTUS named Drumpfh
who brayed “lock her up” on the stumpfh
he changed his direction
right after the election
and now he is blaming the umpfh.
s/
Archangelo Spumoni.
Born in 1605 and flourished around 1700 per Professor Peter Schickele, discoverer of PDQ Bach. Spumoni was married twice, both times to women named Vera, making it clear that “La Primavera” was a reference to his first wife.
jrkrideau:
The church generally does accept that heathens can be good people. They’re just not going to heaven.
Yeah well. As an Aussie, the only people condemning marriage equality over here are the kiddy fiddlers. They really, _really_ like people having children.
I think futurechemist @1 has the most plausible reading.
—
Alt-X @13, I’m all for Pope-bashing, but that comment is not about this post, is it?
(Not that I concur with the first clause of your comment, mind)
Marcus @2,
I think you belittle people’s ability to doublethink.
(Meslier was exceptional)
Holy shit! Did the pope dude just figure out that 99.99% of his hypocritical flock are scandalizing others and are no better than atheists? You reap what you sow, and by demeaning atheists, you prove the point,-asshole!
Write up an executive order to nuke the pope.
Fore!
And who can forget Pope Fluffy’s consoling thoughts shortly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre? “Don’t diss my mama or I’ll slapa your face.” I’ll give him a D- for effort, though.