Pope Francis ‘sneaking out of Vatican at night to give money to poor on the streets of Rome’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517275/Pope-Francis-sneaking-Vatican-night-money-poor.html
What conclusion are we to draw from your story? Meanwhile…
I’m bit skeptical that Popes can sneak around outside their well guarded Chambers.
I could be wrong, and he is the Pope, so perhaps he can say to security - let me sneak out, God wants me to, and they freeze and do not follow him.
But if he is actually sneaking around his security, they are not pope-level security.
Well I was going to put it up on your “Pope is making it up” thread but you locked it. So out of spite I created another thread to put the story up on.
But if you ask. This Pope sure takes the cake. He’s fine with atheists and gays, and acts like he’s for the poor.
But why does he have to sneak out to give to the poor? This strikes me as showmanship.
Else if Pope Frank really wanted to help the poor he would empty all the coffers, riches, and beyond opulence, of the church, and give it ALL to the poor.
He didn’t sneak well if it is international news, but then, Popes aren’t chosen for their stealth (or?).
The sneaking is PR, I cynically Think. IOW he didn’t want credit for it, but he’s the kinda guy who does it, humbly.
But if I say this, I have now, in two different threads, criticizes the rich for taking credit, and here the powerful for (pretending to?) not take(ing) credit.
Oh, they can’t win the billionaires and Popes.
This love child is getting very close to the Pope:
The former public face of the discredited Legion of Christ order who left the priesthood after fathering a love child is getting married this weekend to his son’s mother.
Former clergyman Thomas Williams will walk down the aisle with the daughter of former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon - one of Pope Francis’ top advisers.
Williams, a moral theologian 
, author, lecturer and U.S. television personality, admitted last year that he had fathered a child several years earlier.
Is this thread going to be devoted to salacious gossip? Cuz if it is I know just the forum for it and it ain’t R&S.
Maybe maybe not. But put it anywhere you want. Put it in oblivion.
But still, this little scandal is putting priests getting married up there real close to Pope Francis.
I tend towards supporting Wilderness here. The Pope’s infallibility (or lack of it) is relevent to religion. How did a person like this get so Close to the Pope with such an important position despite the infallibility of the Pope? Now it’s not proof, but does humanize the office of the Pope in such a way that does not really fit with doctrine.
I Think salacious is an exaggeration. It’s not like V was posting images of people having sex or even Writing descirptions. I just did not find the post arousing.
It was information which likely most posters will not find scandalous, but is scandalous for the Church given its views.
Thanks Moreno. But images and descriptions aren’t needed. Salacious says it all. Sex rolls off the tongue when you say it. It’s a juicy word, like that.
Rorschach test
1st inkblot. What do you see?
Response: I see 2 elephants having sex.
2nd inkblot
I see 2 butterflies having sex…
3rd inkblot
I see 2 octopuses having sex.
You sure see sex all the time … you are perverted.
Me!? You’re the one drawing the dirty pictures …
And so Felix drew sex with the word salacious.
I agree. Not one of the the Pictures (or sentences) in that link you posted aroused me in the slightest. In fact I would be a Little concerned about anyone who was aroused by some part of that article. But salacious aroused me. I would make a poor Pope.
I’ve been assuming that the Papacy realizes the Church has to change A LOT or it will lose people. So the new Pope is PRing in a variety of ways, and was likely chosen to give the Church the feeling of a new direction. This doesn’t mean he or even his handlers are not sincere, but I doubt they would have been making the moves they are making if it weren’t for all the sex scandals, especially the pedophilia ones, and the general Changes in society. The Church has adapted Before and seems to be in flux again.
OK. Drop salacious. Now, is this thread going to be nothing more than gossip about the Pope’s relatives? What philosophical significance does that have?
Papal infallibility is supposed to be present when the pope speaks ex cathedra (literally, “from the chair”) meaning “when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, (the Bishop of Rome) defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.”
How is ex cathedra speaking related to this tabloid flap? Has Francis ever spoken ex cathedra?
Good question.
“the Pope is bound to cause further debating in now quoting one of his predecessors, Blessed John XXIII, “I am only infallible if I speak ex cathedra but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible.””
Pope renounces infallibility
http://liturgy.co.nz/pope-renounces-infallibility/14411
So this new Pope has lowered himself to the point of being very close to salacious … close to a love child.
And that is significant … and way more than just gossip.
Here’s an interesting spin on Pope Francis :
Pope Francis is the Catholic Church’s Obama – God help us
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/04/pope-francis-is-catholic-churchs-obama-god-help-us/
It is, also I don’t quite see how the news article you linked qualifies as gossip. It seemed acknowledged by all parties. The fact that it involved the daughter of an advisor to the Pope and a former head of an important part of the Church seems, to me, to reflect on the Church and the Papacy. Of course Popes have personally done things that are not simply wrong given their roles, but heinous by most standards.
as far as this…
foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/ … d-help-us/
It’s really quite frightening and sad that some people would Think the Church did not have things to apologize for.
the news article above is a problem…it seems like an editorial…
Yes, but just to be clear that’s not the article that was referred to as gossip. That was an article and not an editorial.
Moreno–IMO your papal infallibility argument has been debunked. Now, please explain how the Pope is ethically responsible for what these people did?
It’s true, papal infallibility is technically not present except in specific circumstances, ones not relevent to the article he linked. (though one might wonder what sort of creature he is if he can be infallible on certain subjects, but fallible in the rest of his Life. IOW I Think this, as you Point out fully allowable infallibility in the rest of his Life, reflects oddly on his infallibility when interpreting the Bible, setting doctrine, etc., ex cathedra. Of course he is chosen at least in part, one would Think, for his expertise, but that is, generally, not something garantees infallibility. Let me give you an example. If you saw a surgeon, who you knew was going to operate on your loved one on Monday, playing hysterically bad tennis or overheard her in line at the supermarket making some errors of common sense, it might concern you. And no surgeon is proclaimed to being infallible in the operating room.)
As for the rest, I did not say he was ethically responsible for their actions. My Point was more how can an infallible leader have an organization that would include such a person, and Close official Connections to the family of the person who committed adultery with the man in question. You have accurately pointed out that the Pope is not supposed to be infallible except in certain specific instances. Fine, good Point. It is still relevent, however, to the Papacy that an important post was held by someone who committed adultery and the Pope had important Connections to the family of the bride. And given the way the Church and the Pope are viewed by millions of worshipers - I mean, people travel thousands of miles to get their Babies touched by the Pope - the fact that his own house needs cleaning and he can miss stuff around him to me is relevent to a discussion of the Pope. It doesn’t prove the Papacy is false, but it is an awkward fit with the way many, perhaps most, of the followers view the Pope.
Further, you called it gossip. It was not gossip. It was a factual article and as far as I can tell, no facts are denied by any of the participants.
If we are talking about a political party and that party has hired people in important positions and those people violate the very morals that party EXTREMELY EFFECTIVELY criticizes people for, it would be fair game to mention this in relation to a political party, even to the Point of reflecting poorly on the leader of that party. And leaders of parties are generally not thought of as infallible in any way. Given the kind of Power the Catholic Church has over its members - where the Pope’s Word is considered the Word of God and something like adultery might set you up for being tortured for all time, the fact that members of the Pope’s administration and his advisor’s family commit adultery reflects on the Papacy. I do not Think the article is damning, but it is relevent to consideration of the Pope and the Papacy. If you are going to consider someone occasionally the perfect voice of God, encourage people to Think you have magical Powers - or at the very least do not discourage people from thinking this - and you are going to say it is a fact that God said, did, does this and will do this and that, including moral issues related to the behavior in the article, knowing that millions of people will, for example, view what you label sinners in a certain way, then you can expect to have your household viewed with great scrutiny.
And this is not a one shot deal. Popes have directly been involved in sinful activity. It is part of a history where the conception of the Pope is called into question due to the non-specialness of the popes themselves.
The same can be said for the behavior of priests issue, though perhaps less directly relevent to the Pope, it does relate to the Church. even if the Church had not systematically mismanaged and tried to hide the sexual abuse of Children by priests, nevertheless the behavior of the sexually abusing priets reflects on the Church. These are people they chose as representatives of God, who supposedly had special Powers and purity.
It’s not that other members of the Church are responsible for the actions of those priests, but rather the holy nature of the Church is called into question. (the behavior of the Church Went beyond this but I am trying to make the distinction between their culpability, which is nto the issue I am raising, and the way sins by priests reflect on the Church and on their Bishops. As it turned out in the case of sexual abusing priests, the Church was culpbable after the fact and for setting it up for there to be repeats. That is not the case in regard to this issue.)
One way to view this is: Hey, you’re just a bunch of humans like everyone else. The Pope, the Bishops, the whole thing. To the extent that the Church represents itself as more than this, which it does, and the Pope and the Bishops and priests also, they are going to be brought down to Earth each time a scandal is Close to the center.
Bro Felix look past the gossip layer. This happened right under the nose of The Holy Father.
Not under Pope Francis, but under Benedict XVI. Has anyone wondered if this is a Vatican plant? That they planted this story to the news media (Mail Online, one of the most viewed of online news outlets), to lift the RCC image from the recent past pedophile and gay scandals, to a heterosexual scandal.
And the best way to get it, and attract more attention was that it’s salacious (onomatopoeia).
So maybe the Vatican secretly got this gossip going.
But picture this : Mary Ann Glendon, Ambassador to the Holy See, and one of Pope Francis’ top advisers, has in inside to the Vatican, “is one of the highest-ranking women at the Vatican as president of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences,” and, “She is also one of five people on Francis’ commission to reform the scandal-marred Vatican bank.”
Her daughter is hanging in the environment, mixing it up even by working in the order, for the now father of her love child.
And this happen right under the nose of the then Holy Father.
What will make or break this as just gossip story, salacious and all, will be if Pope Francis chimes in on it … and either condemns Williams, or excuses it.
And given Francis’ track record, that’s a crap shoot.