...Eh?

[guardians_song]

I'm thinking that the reporter is taking an optimistic interpretation, but...

Responding to a list of questions published in the paper by Mr Scalfari, who is not a Roman Catholic, Francis wrote: “You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.

“Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.”

This is... interesting...

Let's see how quickly the Vatican frantically "clarifies" his statement.
(Anyone else notice that the Vatican keeps running a lot of hasty damage "clarification" on what this Pope says? From an outsider's perspective, it's intriguing to wonder what conflicts are taking place at the top...)

Comments

[lliira]

He keeps saying stuff like this. And honestly, I don't care. He can say he thinks I'll burn in hellfire for all eternity so long as he keeps the Vatican's nose out of my ovaries in THIS life, stops his church from participating in and condoning sexual abuse, and generally stays out of secular matters like same sex marriage.

[guardians_song]

Fair enough. I'm figuring that, if he continues along these lines, the Church's secular antics will decrease as well. Catholics are a large voting bloc, so... their leader being more tolerant/reasonable may affect things down the line.

[lliira]

I think Catholics already vote more liberally than the rest of the country. The majority of Catholics in the U.S. back same-sex marriage and birth control. Personally, no Catholic I've known has ever followed what the pope says, though there's likely some self-selection in there. Also, I remember when there was a pope who followed and even helped develop Vatican II (Pope John Paul II seemed to be the eternal pope for most of my life), and he said stuff like this a lot. He also oversaw the start of what is called the war against women in the U.S., a war against condoms in AIDS-ravaged countries in Africa, tons of sexual abuse, and generally a highly conservative agenda. The current pope oversaw some horrible things against gay people in Argentina and he called it a "war of God" and "when Bergoglio served as head of the Argentine conference of bishops for several years, he was a die-hard opponent of abortion, and argued against sex-education laws that permit free access to contraceptives and allow Argentines to determine their gender based on their self-identity instead of their biology." (Quote from Huffington Post article on the subject.)

This pope talks like a politician, and is dwelling on whether or not people will go to hell. That's fine; that's his job. But I have yet to see him say anything of substance, let alone "women have souls equal to those of men and therefore should be ordained", "gay people have souls equal to those of straight people and should be allowed to marry", "we should stop fighting against birth control as we are killing people by doing so", "this whole abusing people sexually thing that we are rightfully famous for these days maybe should stop".