... on Papacy

On the video

How to Become Pope
CGP Grey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF8I_r9XT7A

Mitchell Dale

I'm actually rather amazed at how much the system accommodates corruption. All you need is one bad pope and bam, every cardinal chosen from now on is a hand-picked crony and any potential bishops that are genuinely pious and might oppose your corrupt rule are vetoed out of any real power. Then you have an unbreakable cycle of corrupt cardinals electing corrupt popes who appoint corrupt cardinals.

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Graup

Mitchell Dale Luckily that cycle can be broken and has been, source: history. The current pope thinks the poverty part of the church is very important while there surely have been many popes who were just like 'Fuck it, I'm gonna build a giant cathedral+palace for myself and make sinners pay for it!' (Which partly led to a hippie called Martin Luther starting a new church the members of which still aren't considered Christians by the Catholic Church, even though he just wanted to get some reformation to a horribly corrupt system. What he did was about as crazy considering church standards as what Franziskus is doing right now, just that one of them is a pope and the other got excluded from Church).

But yeah, at least you can't just buy yourself into being a bishop any more ...

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CantusTropus

That's not true, actually. Well, it should be, because the Pope ought to be morally good (otherwise he'd be a very bad inspiration, and a bad shepherd). But it can happen, and it has (vis the Renaissance Popes). And YET, by and large, things keep ticking over and things don't fall apart. Why, you might wonder?

Well, even just looking at purely human affairs, there's Papal Infallibility. A LOT of people misunderstand this (the specter of past Protestant propaganda trying to portray the Pope as some kind of brainwashing dictator doesn't help in this regard) - papal infallibility is limited. A Pope can only pronounce infallible statements on matters of faith and/or morals; he cannot contradict the Deposit of Faith (he cannot, for instance, revise the Bible), and he cannot contradict another infallible statement. You personally happen to be pro-abortion and want to change Church teaching on the issue? Too bad! You can't, not even if you're Pope.

Catholics also believe that the Holy Spirit assists the Pope in making infallible decisions, and given that the Holy Spirit is 1)Omniscient & 2)Infinitely Good, the Holy Spirit will never do anything out of malice or ignorance.

Lastly, an old self-depreciating joke Catholics often use goes roughly like this: "The Church must be protected by Divine Providence, because such a dysfunctional organisation run by such flawed people could never have possibly survived for so long otherwise."

Not infallible in the sense of being morally perfect or even morally decent (necessarily). Infallible in the sense of being able to authoritatively define issues of faith and morals, yes.

That's Evangelical Protestantism. Catholicism doesn't believe that (or at least, not quite that). They ofc believe that Christ wants everyone to be saved, but they do not believe that (or at least, are not required to believe) that absolutely everyone without exception will be saved.

sleeptyper

[Not his first, I missed several previous to this one

but this one is important]

Poverty, heh... If you walk into a catholic church, does it look like simple and undecorated - like Jesus taught people to be - or does it look like riches exaggerated beyond reason?

Politics? Jesus refused to be crowned earthly king for jews. Churches everywhere have been keen to get into politics and influence matters for their own benefit.

Finnish evangelical protestant church is currently torn with the question about wedding gay couples. Crowd demands it and almost half of bishops would allow it.

Ironically, all this has been predicted in the Bible itself. 2. Peter 2:1-3 says: "However, there also came to be false prophets among the people, as there will also be false teachers among you. These will quietly bring in destructive sects, and they will even disown the owner who bought them, bringing speedy destruction upon themselves. 2 Furthermore, many will follow their brazen conduct, and because of them the way of the truth will be spoken of abusively. 3 Also, they will greedily exploit you with counterfeit words. But their judgment, decided long ago, is not moving slowly, and their destruction is not sleeping."

If you want to learn what the Bible truly teaches, i suggest that you pay attention the next time your doorbell rings (or visit www.jw.org). :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"All you need is one bad pope and bam, every cardinal chosen from now on is a hand-picked crony and any potential bishops that are genuinely pious and might oppose your corrupt rule are vetoed out of any real power. Then you have an unbreakable cycle of corrupt cardinals electing corrupt popes who appoint corrupt cardinals."

There are corruption and corruption.

If the corruption touches FAITH, the breaking of the circle is recognising that the pretended current "Pope" has deviated from the faith of his predecessors, is no Pope, see is vacant, cardinals are invited to distance themselves from him and elect a real Pope and judged as being accomplice if not.

Also, cardinals have longer carreers than Popes, meaning a one corrupt Pope would not be in a position to make all cardinals of his choice. The ones previous to his time would still be around.

"(Which partly led to a hippie called Martin Luther starting a new church the members of which still aren't considered Christians by the Catholic Church, even though he just wanted to get some reformation to a horribly corrupt system. What he did was about as crazy considering church standards as what Franziskus is doing right now, just that one of them is a pope and the other got excluded from Church)."

Martin Luther can be described as a lot of things.

A genius and a crank are two of them.

But hippie is NOT one of them.

I am an ex-Lutheran, a Catholic, I know some about the guy.

When he told German princes to slaughter rebellious farmers with no mercy, which he did, you don't want to call him a hippie.

And, other big no, the Catholic system was NOT terribly corrupt.

Except, someone said "it must have been if men like Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Knox could have become priests" (back then). Well, perhaps there were years in which Luther, Calvin and Knox looked nearly as Catholics ...

"That's not true, actually. Well, it should be, because the Pope ought to be morally good (otherwise he'd be a very bad inspiration, and a bad shepherd)."

A Pope is not there to be an inspiration mainly. I accept Pope Michael as Pope. I can feel with people who don't find him inspiring. But he is not (as far as I could ascertain) a bad man.

Tokun

Eh, no shrewd corrupt person would let things get that far, you want to keep up appearances and make sure a good number of your appointments are respectable and presentable (you need someone to do outreach). If you don't, you quickly lose authority and then people outside your cabal (and outside of the clergy at times) get involved and pressure you into making changes. And people change (especially old men in fear of their fast approaching death and subsequent damnation) so the balance between corrupt/genuine can tip at certain times.

But the system is designed to be conservative and cronyist. The ideal they're going for here is the passing on of untarnished tradition of church and faith, there's little room for innovation. Change is bad as a general rule and only to be undertaken when it's truly inevitable. The system ensures stability, that's why it lasted for so long.

Lex Luthor

Mitchell Dale, yes, take a good look at the current Pope.

Gusty17

That, my dear friend, happened over and over again since the kidnapping of the papacy in Avignon, and maybe a little earlier, but still from that point onwards, many countries had a lot of interests in the selection of a new Pope...even today!

nicolapodgornik

Mitchell Dale yeah that's what happened for...... 800 years! welcome to italy!!!

Kahmoj

Mitchell Dale That's what it has been for the 1000+ years this has been happening.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

People who say corrupt pope has elected (via cardinals) corrupt pope for 800 or 1000 years, what are you talking about?

What do you mean by the word corrupt, in the context?

General Dix

Mitchell Dale Does it really matter though?? What real power does the Pope even have?

Kahmoj

General Dix One billion mother fuckers, some willing to kill.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Kahmoj, did you just describe one billion Catholics as mother fuckers?

As for "willing to kill", we do believe soldiers and people involved in just defence do have that right on occasions.

Carlos Eduardo Aguiar

redhandsbluefaces This is false, that's actually close to paganism then Christianity, please study more

King King

Mitchell Dale bro the vatican has been the epicenter of corruption for hundreds of years need and example try Rodrigo Borgia the most famous corrupt pope

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"the vatican has been the epicenter of corruption for hundreds of years"

I don't think so.

"need and example"

Do you have a good one? My best ones would be from the last decades.

"try Rodrigo Borgia the most famous corrupt pope"

Er, a corrupt priest in the sense of not staying as chaste as his celibacy required, but apart from trying to force his son Cesare Borgia to become bishop of Carpentras, I don't see how his Papal acts show much corruption?

nicolapodgornik

Hans-Georg Lundahl you are so dumb man. can't even argue with you, if he is not a corrupt pope, i could easily say hitler was a Saint and you would agrrr -_-

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am not saying Alexander VI was a good MAN, I am saying he was a generally good POPE.

He knew his faults and mostly had the sense to keep these OFF his actions as a POPE.

You can argue John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a bad president, if you like, but at least you would be ill advised to do it because he was a bad man in his sex life, often cheating on his wife.

I argue Clinton was a lousy president, but not because of Monica Lewinski (and Alexander VI never did any such evil thing as those of which Clinton so rightly said "that is not sex").

King King

Hans-Georg Lundahl he bribed his way to becoming pope and he increased the amount of cardinals so he could fill the college with cardinals loyal to him so his rule wouldent be challenged and im not talking about modern day,the vaticans power is so useless compared to what it was its pointless to be corrupt

Hans-Georg Lundahl

OK, suppose JFK had paid the campaigns for his election by bootlegging money from his father and suppose lobotomising his sister was part of the father's way of campaigning for him.

That would have made JFK a very corrupt man, but it is not in itself an argument against any single act he made as a president.

Alexander VI filled the college of cardinals with cardinals loyal to him, by augmenting the number.

I did not know that. I don't have any clue what difference it would have made, certainly it was not cementing Roman Catholicism as a product of his own corruption, since the cardinals who were already there were anyway not Protestants.

The one difference it did make, if true, was probably just this, it gave him more ecclesiastic charges to give to his friends and close ones, precisely as he tried to abuse the diocese of Carpantras, which was foiled by the fact his son Cesare Borgia didn't want to be bishop. For the Church as a whole? A bad moral example, that is all, if true.

With people like "John XXIII", "Paul VI", "John Paul II" I have heard a similar charge on one of them, and on precisely "Paul VI" I have heard another charge too, he deprived cardinals above a certain age of vote (above 80, I think). With these guys I know very well what difference it could and arguably did make, they could marginalise conservatives and fill the college of cardinals (if still speakable of as such, arguably not so) with Modernists.

sleeptyper, "Poverty, heh... If you walk into a catholic church, does it look like simple and undecorated - like Jesus taught people to be - or does it look like riches exaggerated beyond reason?"

I have heard of Jesus driving out cattle sellers and money changers from Temple, but not of His trearing down decorations from it.

"Politics? Jesus refused to be crowned earthly king for jews. Churches everywhere have been keen to get into politics and influence matters for their own benefit."

Sure, but some OT High Priests did also get involved in his ancestor King David. Whose kingdom certainly was visibly on earth a political kingdom.

"Finnish evangelical protestant church is currently torn with the question about wedding gay couples. Crowd demands it and almost half of bishops would allow it."

You might note they broke with Papacy a little less than 500 years ago.

"Ironically, all this has been predicted in the Bible itself. 2. Peter 2:1-3 says: "However, there also came to be false prophets among the people, as there will also be false teachers among you."

You are very right that this has predicted the Protestant Reformation!

MiguelPmp

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Our local Catholic Church isn't decorated much except for a statue, lights, cloth, electric fan, and chairs. Actually most I've been to.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Did you note I was quoting sleeptyper's words before answering them?

On your admission, your Church is a victim of Liturgic Reform of Vatican II.

I have been to the Cathedral of Tulle, where Monsignor Lefèbvre had been Archbishop. People there were very kind, he must have given them good advise on alms, and his successors must have kept it up.

But the Cathedral was, apart from strictly architectural elements, like pillars and vaults, as you describe.

I can't recall seeing any statue apart from Crucifix, though that may be my bad memory (12 years ago I was there, minus some months) and certainly not many icons or other religious paintings.

It was as if a Protestant, more Calvinist than Lutheran, had been given authority over the Church buildings.