Lily
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Died early this morning, RIP.
He died within hours of meeting with JD Vance.Died early this morning, RIP.
The Devil has his powers.He died within hours of meeting with JD Vance.
Per the NYT:
Pope Francis, who rose from modest means in Argentina to become the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff, who clashed bitterly with traditionalists in his push for a more inclusive Roman Catholic Church, and who spoke out tirelessly for migrants, the marginalized and the health of the planet, died on Monday at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. He was 88.
The pope’s death was announced by the Vatican in a statement on X, a day after Francis appeared in his wheelchair to bless the faithful in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.
Throughout his 12-year papacy, Francis was a change agent, having inherited a Vatican in disarray in 2013 after the stunning resignation of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, a standard-bearer of Roman Catholic conservatism.
Francis steadily steered the church in another direction, restocking its leadership with a diverse array of bishops who shared his pastoral, welcoming approach as he sought to open up the church. Many rank-and-file Catholics approved, believing that the church had become inward-looking and distant from ordinary people.
Francis reached out to migrants, the poor and the destitute, to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy members, and to alienated gay Catholics. He traveled to often-forgotten and far-flung countries and sought to improve relations with an antagonistic Chinese government, Muslim clerics and leaders from across the fragmented Christian world.
After some early stumbles, he took strong steps to address a clerical sex abuse crisis that had become an existential threat to the church. He adopted new rules to hold top religious leaders, including bishops, accountable if they committed sexual abuse or covered it up, though he did not impose the level of transparency or civil reporting obligations that many advocates demanded.
In his final years, slowed by a bad knee, intestinal surgery and respiratory ailments that sapped his breath and voice, Francis used a cane and then a wheelchair, seemingly a diminished figure. But that was a misleading impression. He continued to travel widely, focusing on exploited and war-torn parts of Africa, where he excoriated modern-day colonizers and sought peace in South Sudan.
His insistence on shaking up the status quo earned him no shortage of enemies. He demoted conservatives in Vatican offices, restricted the use of the old Latin Mass dear to traditionalists, opened influential meetings of bishops to laypeople, including women, allowed priests to bless same-sex couples and made clear that transgender people could be godparents and that their children could be baptized.
He also refused to endorse calls to deny communion to Catholic politicians supportive of abortion rights, including when he was president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., who said Francis had called him a “good Catholic.”
His avuncular charm and easy smile belied his reputation inside the Vatican as a steely — his opponents said ruthless — administrator as he brought greater transparency to church finances and overhauled the Vatican’s bureaucracy.
The traditional Italian power bases of the Vatican grew frustrated with his purposefully unpredictable governing style, which relied on a small group of confidants, many of them Jesuits like himself, and his own gut.
Conservative Catholics accused him of diluting church teachings and never stopped rallying against him. Simmering dissent periodically exploded into view in almost medieval fashion, with talk of schisms and heresy.
But Francis also disappointed many liberals, who hoped that he might introduce progressive policies. His openness to frank discussion gave oxygen to debates about long-taboo subjects, including priestly celibacy, communion for divorced and remarried people, and greater roles for women in the church. While he opened doors to talking about such issues, he tended to balk at making major decisions.
“We are often chained like Peter in the prison of habit,” he said of the church in 2022 in a speech in St. Peter’s Basilica. “Scared by change and tied to the chain of our customs.”
More: (paywall)
I suppose he was trying to improve the Catholic Church's image by trying to project a more universal & kinder image of the Institution.Died early this morning, RIP.
I suppose he was trying to improve the Catholic Church's image by trying to project a more universal & kinder image of the Institution.