September 20, 2015

"When I share this pro-Francis enthusiasm with others (He ministers to the poor! He likes pizza! He’s an environmentalist! He used to be a bouncer!)..."

"... I find I’m far from unique in my affection. While no statistics exist to verify the phenomenon, it appears that, yes, the pope crush is a thing...."
Never mind the absurdity of hipster Christians as a concept (Christ died for my sins? Cool story, bro). If anything, Pope Francis is the anti-hipster, earnest and self-deprecating...

For him, for me, for so many of us who feel shunted aside in coverage of issues of faith, what religion represents is not control or a call to blind obedience or a cloak for corruption, but love and hope. Pope Francis, to us, is love and hope. Love for meaningful ties to tradition as well as hope for progress in the future....

29 comments:

chuck said...

The NY Times trying to be hip. It's like an overweight 80 year old walking down the beach in string bikini.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Very, very lightweight religion. Like People magazine lightweight. No one really cares about the Pope except as a cudgel to apply to someone else's head.

rehajm said...

The unusually broad appeal of the charismatic 266th pontiff

Broad appeal in a very shallow pool.

kcom said...

If progress includes palling(sp?) around with totalitarian dictators, instead of the people they imprison, then count me out.

buwaya said...

Missionary work often starts with a very shallow appeal.
Francis Xavier famously would walk down the Indian coast ringing a bell, unknown in those parts, to attract attention.

Hagar said...

The Peronista pope.

Hagar said...

and the sentiments expressed under the headline are those of Ms. Lily Burana, not AA.

buwaya said...

Catholic economic and social policy fits very well with a light-fascist economic and political regime. This goes back to Rerum Novarum, 1891, if not something that can be derived from the doctors of the church, which it probably can.

rehajm said...

If Bernie Sanders had a brother, he would look like Pope Francis.

The Bergall said...

Face palm..........

William said...

All religions seem to have a bias against banking, i.e. the buying and selling of money. There was never that same bias against the buying and selling of human beings. Mohammed, Maimonedes, St Thomas Aquinas all have writings for the ethical treatment of humans held in slavery without ever questioning the basic premise of that institution. About usury--or, as we call it today, extending credit, there was never any doubt that it was intrinsically evil.

cubanbob said...

William said...

All religions seem to have a bias against banking, i.e. the buying and selling of money. There was never that same bias against the buying and selling of human beings. Mohammed, Maimonedes, St Thomas Aquinas all have writings for the ethical treatment of humans held in slavery without ever questioning the basic premise of that institution. About usury--or, as we call it today, extending credit, there was never any doubt that it was intrinsically evil.
9/20/15, 12:37 PM "

That is a rather astute observation. Indeed, you are right.

Ron said...

Those 3 days in the tomb? JC was just chillaxin'!

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Blessed are the cheese makers.

Sebastian said...

Jonathan last has a good takedown in the Weekly Standard, with many of Francis' greatest hits.

CarlF said...

Some people believe a pope is infallible. Currently, we have an odd situation of having two popes, since Pope Benedict XVI is still alive. This seems to have an affect, since Pope Francis seems to be half-right all the time.

Doug said...

Just wait until all the cafeteria Catholics find out that Fab Frankie can't change doctrine to make it okay to kill babies or have gays marry. So much sadness!

Marc in Eugene said...

Whatever one knows or half-knows or only vaguely knows about the dogma of papal infallibility defined at the First Vatican Council, that's pretty amusing, CarlF.

Is Lily Burana being sincere in her profession of lightweight religion?

traditionalguy said...

Odd that a Argentine clerical class aristocrat despises The Collussus of the north like any good South American pol but sucks up to the Marxist police state murderers in the Hemisphere, and then suggests money still in the hands of free men living a free life is the problem for which the Sci-Fi Atmosphere impurity hoax is the perfect solution requiring confiscation of the free men's money in the name of politicized big lie non-science.

And now he is applying for the job to be the religious screen calling the evil Marxist murderers and enviro-thieves righteous. All he wants is a cut of the loot.

SukieTawdry said...

The left does understand that the Pope is Catholic, right? And that the chances of him embracing contraception, abortion, gay marriage, female priests, all the things the left equates with enlightenment, are nill??

Watching the left embrace this Pope but not his "Catholicness" has been the highlight of his papacy.

Dr.D said...

This pope is a marxist. He is a Jesuit, a member of the group that gave us "Liberation Theology," yet another communist cover story. On top of that, he is naive, stupid, and really rather insipid; the perfect pinko! His foolishness seems to know no bounds. It is small wonder that he and Oblama are such buds!

virgil xenophon said...

traditionalguy and Dr.D both score a direct hit bracketing the target. Fire for effect!

rhhardin said...

On my bicycle trip to the store at about 3:30pm I heard HV0A (morse code), a ham in the Vatican, which, judging from its being the alphabetically first possible Vatican callsign, must be the pope himself, or possibly the previous pope.

google is evil said...

The Pope is not an environmentalist. He favors more pollution, sadly.

OLDFART said...

Worst Pope ever.

Sydney said...

So, for her, he's Pope Hope and Change.

Sydney said...

It is true that Pope Francis punches all the positive buttons for the American Left. I doubt that it is done intentionally, since he's not North American and doesn't seem to have had much exposure to US culture at all, but if he did do it intentionally it was a brilliant PR coup. 1) Jesuit- favorite order of the American Left. 2) Took the name of Saint Francis- favorite saint of the American Left. 3) Wrote a climate-change encyclical.

That's all it takes. After that, everything they think about him and his views is just projection. Every good thing they think of themselves they project onto him.

Roger Sweeny said...

Pope Francis, to us, is love and hope.

So Pope Francis is the new Barack Obama?

Peter said...

"The NY Times trying to be hip. It's like an overweight 80 year old walking down the beach in string bikini."

And then think of a particularly grim and mean-faced 80 year old on that beach.

No, no, Hillary is not 80 years old!