Habemus Papam!

[amateur51]

Yes. it was a cunning and devious Jesuit plot funded by a right-wing South American Junta with a vicious record in persecuting seagulls, and, as the seagull was thought also to be female, Vatican TV's concentration on its legs was clearly sexist, and Professor Dawkins is now calling for the new Pope's immediate arrest, The Guardian reliably reports ...

Almost as postposterous a narrative as some of the stuff you read in the holy bibble

[ahinton]

One thing that I could not help but notice in such of the coverage that I heard (and it wasn't particularly easy to avoid it) was the widely divergent estimates (albeit each presented as though fact) for the number of Catholics in the world; I heard 1bn, 1.3bn and 1.2bn and there may well have been others. How anyone can be certain I have no idea, but all of these figures sound very far-fetched to me, not least given the sheer numbers of the total population of China, India, the Far East, the Middle East and Russia where the Catholic population must be pretty small.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

apologies for link now fixed or try this

[ahinton]

Almost as postposterous a narrative as some of the stuff you read in the holy bibble

as in
The things that you're libble
To read in the bibble
It ain't necessarily so...
One thing that the Gershwins remind us of in that source is that the Bible apparently seeks to persuade its readers that a certain Methuselah lived even longer than did Elliott Carter; never mind, at least he gave his name to a 6l (8 standard bottle) wine bottle...

[Pikaia]

One thing that I could not help but notice in such of the coverage that I heard (and it wasn't particularly easy to avoid it) was the widely divergent estimates (albeit each presented as though fact) for the number of Catholics in the world; I heard 1bn, 1.3bn and 1.2bn and there may well have been others. How anyone can be certain I have no idea, but all of these figures sound very far-fetched to me, not least given the sheer numbers of the total population of China, India, the Far East, the Middle East and Russia where the Catholic population must be pretty small.

The figures presumably include a high percentage of children, since they are largely from countries with a high birth rate. Plus non-practising members. Everyone they can get their hands on, in other words.

The Mormons keep a register of members, but if they lose track of someone then they are assumed to be a member until they hear that they are dead or until they reach the age of 110. That must help the statistics!

[Julien Sorel]

Yes. it was a cunning and devious Jesuit plot funded by a right-wing South American Junta with a vicious record in persecuting seagulls, and, as the seagull was thought also to be female, Vatican TV's concentration on its legs was clearly sexist, and Professor Dawkins is now calling for the new Pope's immediate arrest, The Guardian reliably reports ...

http://www.latinorebels.com/2013/03/13/pope-francis-i-and-argentinas-dirty-war/

[Julien Sorel]

http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/catholicchurch_2709.jsp

[ahinton]

The figures presumably include a high percentage of children, since they are largely from countries with a high birth rate. Plus non-practising members. Everyone they can get their hands on, in other words.

The Mormons keep a register of members, but if they lose track of someone then they are assumed to be a member until they hear that they are dead or until they reach the age of 110. That must help the statistics!

I do not doubt that these and other like factors contribute both to what must surely be excessive totals and to the vast divergences of which, of those that I heard, the largest represents a figure almost as high as half the entire UK population! Including children below a certain age is obviously misleading, since many are insufficiently mature to have minds of their won that can decide whether they wish to subscribe to this, that or the other religion, but even that's probably not the greatest anomaly here. When one considers the small number of practising Catholics (surely the only kind worth including in such statistics if they're to be at all meaningful) in the Middle East, Russia, China, India and south east Asia and then looks at Western countries where there are varying but hardly insignificant numbers of non-Catholic Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Buddhists et al in addition to agnostics and atheists, the suggestion that as many as 20% of the entire world's population are Catholics begins to look absurd; even those underdeveloped countries where Catholicism is said to hold sway do not have massive populations to compare with those of China, India and Russia alone. Statements such as "the world's 1.3bn Catholics" seem therefore not to stand up to scrutiny.

That said, the new Pope Francis has been described as a largely "conservative" figure within the Church and, although he might eventually encourage it to adopt a slightly more sensitive and sympathetic view of the use of contraception, the likelihood that he will lead it to give due consideration to the rôle of women both inside and outside it, to gay marriage, to sexual and psychological abuse within it, to the unnecessary and unhealthy imposition of celibacy upon priests, to the ban on priests marrying, to the recognition of legal divorce, to the acceptance of the fact that someone who decides to leave it is no longer a Catholic, &c. &c., sadly seems pretty much as remote as it was before.

By the way, might one describe the journalists who reported the event yesterday as part of the Paparazzi?

[scottycelt]

I honestly don't know why some members appear to think that providing links to subjective opinion proves anything at all but if we must here's another two!

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/pope-francis-profile-jorge-mario-bergoglio-a-humble-man-who-moved-out-of-a-palace-into-a-simple-apartment-cooks-his-own-meals-and-travels-by-bus-8533450.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/13/opinion/bellitto-pope-francis/index.html

It is also evident that the second Guardian link in #64 is quite different in tone from the original O'Shaughnessy rant of 2011. It (the second article ) is careful not to make specific accusations as it concedes the allegations are 'sketchy' and 'contested'

Quite ... I can well believe that!

[Julien Sorel]

It is also evident that the second Guardian link in #64 is quite different in tone from the original O'Shaughnessy rant of 2011. It (the second article ) is careful not to make specific accusations as it concedes the allegations are 'sketchy' and 'contested'

Quite ... I can well believe that!

I'm sure you can believe it. If Pope Francis 1st popped out of a lunchtime and randomly machine gunned passers by in Rome you'd describe it as subjective opinion.

The Guardian report was amended at some stage this morning. Perhaps they received a 'phone call holding out the prospect of legal action? Or maybe just the boys with baseball bats would come round? Remember Cardinal O'Brien? He was threatening The Independent with legal action virtually up to the moment of his public statement of ... contrition.

The Catholic Church has an awful well attested record of supporting fascist regimes in South and Central America. As it came to accords with Mussolini and Hitler, as it supported Franco. In South and Central America young idealistic Priests who supported Liberation theology were persecuted / disappeared. Ratzinger, of course, was prominent in the ideological war against Liberation theology. So what if Bergoglio cooks his own dinner? Perhaps he's afraid someone will poison him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8YNFhAKuqo

[scottycelt]

I'm sure you can believe it. If Pope Francis 1st popped out of a lunchtime and randomly machine gunned passers by in Rome you'd describe it as subjective opinion.

The Guardian report was amended at some stage this morning. Perhaps they received a 'phone call holding out the prospect of legal action? Or maybe just the boys with baseball bats would come round? Remember Cardinal O'Brien? He was threatening The Independent with legal action virtually up to the moment of his public statement of ... contrition.

The Catholic Church has an awful well attested record of supporting fascist regimes in South and Central America. As it came to accords with Mussolini and Hitler, as it supported Franco. In South and Central America young idealistic Priests who supported Liberation theology were persecuted / disappeared. Ratzinger, of course, was prominent in the ideological war against Liberation theology. So what if Bergoglio cooks his own dinner? Perhaps he's afraid someone will poison him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8YNFhAKuqo

You're not related to that other 'JS', John Skelton, by any chance.... ?

So you're a Marxist. We are supposed to be discussing the new Pope, not trotting out all the old Leftist propaganda or forever discussing Cardinal O'Brien.

An independent British FT journalist who lived in Argentina for many years said on Sky News today that there is no evidence that the new Pope (who was then a relatively minor cleric) was 'guilty' of any of the allegations now being made. He was widely believed to have saved the lives of at least two 'liberation theology' priests from the Junta. I cannot produce clear evidence for that anymore than you can provide clear evidence for the allegations against him.

As an aside, and for your own information, the previous Pope was a leading exponent of 'liberation theology' in his earlier days before moving solidly to Catholic orthodoxy.

The journalist on Sky News maintained that the allegations made against the Pope originated from sources close to the current secular government with which he has clashed many times on the usual issues like 'gay marriage'. He said he was not 'an apologist for the Catholic Church' but merely stating the facts as he knew them. He called the allegations 'wild', and without any real foundation, and therefore doubted their authenticity.

Sounds familiar ...

[gurnemanz]

And Papa Francisco is a Jesuit ...

"Francisco" has a better resonance to it for me than the Anglicised "Francis". Presumably this is what he calls himself. We have an Italian friend called Francesco and we don't turn him into Francis.

[Julien Sorel]

So you're a Marxist.

I was executed in July 1831. Marx was 13 at the time. How can I be a Marxist?

An independent British FT journalist who lived in Argentina for many years said on Sky News today that there is no evidence that the new Pope (who was then a relatively minor cleric) was 'guilty' of any of the allegations now being made. He was widely believed to have saved the lives of at least two 'liberation theology' priests from the Junta. I cannot produce clear evidence for that anymore than you can provide clear evidence for the allegations against him.

As an aside, and for your own information, the previous Pope was a leading exponent of 'liberation theology' in his earlier days before moving solidly to Catholic orthodoxy.

The journalist on Sky News maintained that the allegations made against the Pope originated from sources close to the current secular government with which he has clashed many times on the usual issues like 'gay marriage'. He said he was not 'an apologist for the Catholic Church' but merely stating the facts as he knew them. He called the allegations 'wild', and without any real foundation, and therefore doubted their authenticity.

Sounds familiar ...

Yes, it all sounds very familiar. Collaboration with fascists is rewritten as clandestinely saving lives, and as with the sex abuse scandal the initial response is to say that these are calumnies spread by secular this and that designed to discredit the Church etc. Completely familiar. I suppose it's quite Green of them. Just recycle the old excuses.

Here's Ratzinger http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/co...ration_en.html in 1984.

[Julien Sorel]

The journalist on Sky News maintained that the allegations made against the Pope originated from sources close to the current secular government with which he has clashed many times on the usual issues like 'gay marriage'. He said he was not 'an apologist for the Catholic Church' but merely stating the facts as he knew them. He called the allegations 'wild', and without any real foundation, and therefore doubted their authenticity.Sounds familiar ...

"In 1998 Rupert [Murdoch] received a papal knighthood, thanks largely to his $10m donation to Los Angeles Cathedral ...."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/jul/15/catholicism-pope-benedict-xvi

Pass the sick bag.

[Anna]

"Francisco" has a better resonance to it for me than the Anglicised "Francis". Presumably this is what he calls himself. We have an Italian friend called Francesco and we don't turn him into Francis.

But is it after Francis of Assisi or Francis Xavier, the founder of the Jesuits?
Anyway, I think he's got off to a good start, taking the minibus this morning rather than an offical car, doing a walkabout with schoolchildren and commuters, his first audience with the head of Vatican Radio and the Press Office, an audience with journalists on Saturday and putting off an audience with the ex-Pope.
As to allegations and rumours - there seems no definite proof either way as far as I can see but as usual, the usual suspects, trot out their usual accusations.