Catholics are smelling of roses recently compared to the genocide supporting neocon Christians.
Yeah there’s a bit of good and evil in everyone & everything. Except Trump. He’s just pure evil.
For anyone saying he should because the curch is rich. It doesn’t matter. Its good he is aware and bringing the worlds problems to so many. You can be a hypocrite and still tell the truth.
Wow, one of the best albums ever.
He said, wearing gold-embroidered robes, living in a palace of gold and marble.
But he’s still right.
I wonder if the jeebus ever had anything to say about the wealthy.
And something about it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to go to heaven.
I don’t have a super favorable view on the church but all the people complaining thst the church is a huge display of health in terms of real estate without realizing that most of the crazy expensive things you can find that are related to the church were built 600 years ago or are even older. You are forgetting that the church back in the day was THE state that dominated a huge chunk of the center of modern day Italy. The social and political climate was completely different, the public discourse was different etc.
You’re also forgetting that the church provides for so much services all throughout the world, from healthcare to education and all at really competitive prices because usually everything they do is not even for profit. What are you suggesting for the church to do? To sell everything to billionaires and to states that are drowning in debt and don’t even have the expertise to manage such a complex network of stuff so that they can either tear down everything to open malls and parking lots of trying to find a way to profit over it as much as possible? The church, especially in really disadvantaged areas, is many times the ONLY provider of healthcare and education for the poor and parishes and oratories are in many areas the only healthy socialization space in a world that is getting extremely gentrified and that’s lacking places where people can connect and build community. You can even enter parishes and participate to their social and volunteering activities without even being a Catholic
Do I think that there’s a huge chunk of pedophiles in the church? YES. Do I think we need more transparency in the Vatican financial statements? 100%. But just like administrations over time change, so does the church. It’s good that such an influential person is trying his best to make the conscience of millions of people wake up
Leo?
The right will be very mad about this
Which I really don’t understand. I mean didn’t the Pope say quite specifically and direct, that he wasn’t talk about the US, when he warned about “the whims of the rich and powerful”?
Can we please not have the pedophile CEO of a bigot and homophobic cult on the frontpage?
Uhmm…people give the Catholic Church hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The church is richer than some countries. I mean, I understand what he was trying to get at, but he might not be the best person to point that out.
Last year the Catholic Church reportedly generated €1.23B ($1.45B) in income. Which is more than the GDP of 10-13 poorest countries in the world, depending on which source you use.
Donations accounted for €237M ($279M) and are the Church’s largest source of income.
It also had a budget deficit lately, until last year. Overall it’s pretty rich, but not nearly as rich as a lot of companies are and as some people would think.
It should also be noted that Pope Leo has been pope for less than a year, which isn’t exactly a whole lot of time to completely reform the Church and rid it of corruption. Assuming that’s at all possible, since the Catholic Church has been corrupt pretty much since the moment it was founded. I’m not saying he will ever do that or that he even wants to. However, so far he’s been a lot better than last few popes, so let’s give him some time.
Sources:
you use the platform you have
It’s built up over hundreds and hundreds of years, now the church doesn’t have the spending power it once had and it is drowning in debt. I wish they won’t ever sell their real estate or I think that private billionaires will turn them into fucking amusement parks
ngl a vatican water park would be sick af. Holy water lazy river, yes please.
a baptism dunk tank would be fun
If only Jesus would have been as explicit about his feelings on religious profiteering as he was about his attitude towards abortion, gays, and gun rights.
“Slaves? Rape? Don’t worry about it, not worth mentioning. So… do you have a foreskin?” ~Jesus
Legitimately not sure you’re joking, so I’m just going to drop this in case you aren’t: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_of_the_Temple
Underrated comment.
It had been like 20 minutes before you replied
They do more for humanity through charity work than individual billionaires though.
There is no amount of charity they could do to make up for all the harm they’ve caused raping and murdering children for hundreds of years.
I hear you. But right now, at this point in time, the Catholic church ranks higher than billionaires for me.
As someone who’s done pro-bono and charity work for several religious organizations … the Catholics, Muslim and Jewish dioceses or denominations were always by the books. The Christian-based ones though? Every single one was shady, pulled in as much money for their family as possible and a few would even pull me to the side to ask about fudging numbers with their software.
The Christian and Baptist churches were mostly criminal, if not just in a moral stance, they were outright criminal. The precedent at least had checks and balances while the latter … everyone is in on it.
They learned from the best! The Catholics are no longer so obviously gold-crazy as they once were (for centuries!), they have so much wealth it is hardly a concern for them at this point, untold billions, 170 million acres of land, and so much more than we will ever know.
Baptists, Assembly of God, et al? They have a lot of catching up to do, so they are still obsessed with fleecing everyone for every dime that they can.
Sadly, they are all tax free in many places, so the poor are still being robbed to pay for their “faiths”
A lot of this is just due to the Reformation I imagine. If you want to become a corrupt greedy preacher, why do so in a church that requires their priests to take a vow of poverty? Pre-Reformation, those who wanted to grift joined the Church and found various excuses to get around vows of poverty. But in many Protestant churches, there is no vow of poverty to have to work around.
This is like Jeffrey Dahmer bemoaning murderers, like Donald Trump complaining about the rich, like Mark Zuckerberg bitching about social networks
The Catholic church is filthy rich, unbelievably wealthy, and sitting on generations of stolen wealth.
They own 170 million acres of blood-soaked land across the world, more than any other organization on the planet.
Sadly, they are still tax-free in much of the world. God knows what they are really up to
So what should they do? Selling all that real estate to billionaires so that they can test down thousands of years of history and replace it with malls and parking lots? Also, the church represented different stuff in different moments of history, it wasn’t all that bad
Yeah these people are ignoring the part where Jesus said give away all your belongings unless you think you should keep them because you’ve had them for a long time.
I don’t get your point
So? One can be part of the issue whilst addressing it. He’s an influential person, would you rather have him not say anything about it?
So? He’s a piece of shit, and his church is evil incarnate.
How about he starts paying taxes like the rest of Earth? You may be fine with thieving rapists sharing their opinion about other thieving rapists, that’s your right.
And it’s my right to point out what they are and what they do.
This is the most TikTok/Instagram politics comment I’ve ever read on here blud. The world is not black and white. If you live in America why don’t you sell everything and go back to the UK since it is all stolen land?
https://www.bishop-accountability.org/2025/01/more-than-5-billion-spent/
This is who you are defending. Disgusting
And I’m native, so why don’t you stop fantasizing about me, and while we’re at it, maybe, just maybe, stop defending pedophiles
You really lack the ability to understand that not all priests are pedophiles bro. Your logic is like “All killers drink water, therefore water is a problem and must be abolished”. The non sequitur is huge! About the link you sent, of course they will have spend money on a lawyer, but that’s because 1. a process is needed to find out if an allegation is actually true and 2. Everyone has the right to defend themselves in court because, again, a process and an investigation are needed to find out the truth. The worst dictatorship is the one where alleged criminals don’t have rights even during trial and before getting a sentence.
Also, thanks to Pope Francis, if a priest is a pedophile, it will have to get processed by the state and not by the Vatican. The times when pedos in the church just got sentenced to 5 years isolated into monastery have ended in most countries in the world
This is who I am defending. You can use a translator
You’re not wrong, I just want to ask - pay taxes to whom?
It depends on their location.
In USA, they don’t pay property taxes, with more benefits than any secular non-profits.
Property taxes are how many states fund their schools, infrastructure, and more.
It would certainly seem less disingenuous
But if he proclaimed the opposite, it would be worse.
True, but things will never change if nobody is allowed to speak up
So?
I’m speaking up. Things will never change if nobody is allowed to speak up, right?
He’s fucking vile.
You’re not speaking up. You’re trying to silence the guy who’s speaking up. You’re also just posting something on a niche forum with maybe a few hundred like-minded people at best viewing your comment. In what world is that speaking up?
Also, I haven’t seen him do a lot of vile stuff yet, so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.
You’re not speaking up.
Wrong!
You’re trying to silence the guy who’s speaking up.
Ridiculous. One person on Lemmy can’t silence the Pope by responding to his latest press release. I know what my motivation is… and believe me, it’s not “trying to silence the Pope”.
You’re also just posting something on a niche forum with maybe a few hundred like-minded people at best viewing your comment. In what world is that speaking up?
You can speak up with only ONE person viewing/listening to your comment. How do you not know this?
Also, I haven’t seen him do a lot of vile stuff yet, so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.
His organization is evil and revolting with centuries of horrifying history, and truly unspeakable acts to this day. But, you can suck up to whatever billionaire organizations that you’d like to, don’t let me dissuade you. I like watching your efforts to defend a massive, multinational organization that has robbed communities for many generations.
It’s funny
Ok Donald. Nice straw man arguments. Is that all you got? K, here we go:
I never said you succeeded in silencing him, but you sure are trying.
No, speaking up is sticking your neck out. Preaching to the choir is just complaining.
And I’m not defending, let alone sucking up to any billionaire organisation. If anything, you are, by trying to silence the guy speaking up against them. Perhaps the only wise decision you could make after this clusterfuck of a comment of yours is to stop your pathetic attempt to frame me and stop embarrassing yourself.
Preach
I did not take Pope Leo for a comrade. ✊
So once again the pope doesn’t name names. He has the power to make statements against Trump and his shit, but dances around the issues instead.
because even the church is susceptible to legal action.
this was an official decree from the church. you can’t just openly accuse individuals because you want to, that’s how you get sued.
just because you can kick one person’s ass doesn’t mean you go around looking for a fight from everyone.
And then the Trump administration would have to prove him false. Wonder how well that would for them. If you are afraid of being sued then you are basically being told to shut up, but sometimes you shouldn’t shut up and must speak to the facts and name those that break laws. With him putting his head in the sand just proves that his is afraid. Which he needs to put on his big boy pants and speak against leaders that start wars and name names. We have enough people with power not doing shit. We don’t need yet another person with power to dance around the issues.
And then the Trump administration would have to prove him false.
which costs time and money. the outcome not which the church fails to directly benefit from.
not to mention Trump is a know legal pest that drags legal proceedings out decades just to fuck with people and make them spend money.
Yep nobody cares. Whatever happened to majority of people wanting to make the world better for the next generation, instead now people have to “directly benefit” to want to push toward a brighter future. It is all transactional.
instead now people have to “directly benefit” to want to push toward a brighter future
again, you’re confusing people with an organization.
organizations never do anything unless they can directly benefit from it.
He makes a good point.
At the same time, how much has religion defrauded the common people?
Enemy of my enemy and all that. With the state of things the way they are, you bet I take what I can get.
Yeah… Leo likes to throw bricks but lives in a glass house of billions and pedophiles and misogyny. Maybe clean up his own act before preaching.
Alright blud I’m sure that the current pope built it himself with his own money and the vatican is not definitely a few hundreds of years old and built in an extremely different socioeconomic environment where the church WAS the state and not just a religious institution.
That being said, right, I got it! Let’s sell all of this beauty to neoliberal states and billionaires so that they can turn them into malls and parking lots!
Yeah. I visited the Vatican on vacation and my only thought while inside St Peter’s was “Damn this place is so fucking expensive.”
I’m not even sure how anyone can get any sort of piety happening with that ridiculous amount of wealth on display.
And they still want women to die in childbirth and have no rights within their church.
How many pedophile priests have been caught to date? 6,000 just in the USA. This makes Epstein Island not even a rounding error.
Why not take on both using the same message.
Let’s not gatekeep influential people acting in the positive interests of others just because they have problems of their own to work on
What is he doing to address the problems in the vatican?
He’s making distracting comments. Very Trumpish.
Rather it be the catholic church doing the defrauding than the regime. At least the church has a (spotted) history of helping people. I mean they shined brightly during the black death, and they are a source of comfort for some people in the final moments. That, in of itself, is noble and something worthy despite a spotty record.
Compare that with the regime’s looting the coffers with nothing remotely comparable.
Spotted is an understatement. Pedophilic rings and Mafia dealings forever.
As opposed to those billionaires, who do all that, but without the charity to help the social-pill go down.
Sounds like the US government atm
And rich pedophiles, at that.
I’m almost starting to think that pedophillia may be a symptom of being ultra rich.
Like, you’re that level of status, and you want to tuck a beautiful woman, they can just send out a text and have a harem of legal-age beautiful women delivered in 30 minutes or less.
When you’re a star, they let you.
But where’s the fun in that?
I imagine having lines of beautiful women waiting to bed you may get somewhat tiring after a while. They need some forbidden fruit.
This guy is a badass. He is an individual. He is not the Catholic church, but is an individual person within that church. It’s extremely bigoted to say “none of it matters” because of what other members of the Catholic church have done. It’s like telling a Catholic person, you refuse to be their friend or listen to what they have to say because of what their church has done
Just like Trump, the Pope knows that he has to attack those like him to protect himself and his organization.
Unlike Trump, this Pope is clever and much more manipulative.
People refuse to be friends with Republicans because of what they do, so of course it’s perfectly fine to refuse to be friends with Catholics because of what their church has done (and continues to do).
Do you extend this to religions and their adherents generally?
I mean, you’re right but people do that all the time. I’m not Catholic, but I was raised Catholic and people love to dismiss me as a human being all the time for the fact I attended church when I was a pre-teen, as if this makes me automatically a pedophile apologist or something… but the people who think this way are insane and there is no way to reason with them.
