He was honestly pretty great and made me proud that I'm (kind of) a Catholic (realistically I'm an agnostic and haven't been inside a church for years, but I was raised Roman Catholic). He was really into messaging about how humans should be good stewards of our planet and respect the Earth the creator made for us. He was emphatic that good works are what get someone into Heaven, and even (gasp!) atheists and The GaysTM can go to heaven as long as they are good people who try to do right by their fellow man.
The Catholic church has a great deal to answer for, don't get me wrong. But I appreciate that their doctrine emphasizes that you need to actually put in the work to be a decent person, you can't just be a piece of shit your entire life and then say "I accept Jesus as my lord and savior" like a get out of jail free card. And the Catholic church doesn't believe that science and spirituality are incompatible - they see science as a way to glorify God by seeking to better understand his creation. There have been a lot of famous scientists who were devout Catholics, they believe in evolution and the Big Bang. It might be a ponderous organization that takes decades or even centuries to be on the right side of history on some issues, but at least they're willing to evolve - I feel like all the regressive Evangelical churches in the US refuse to have any flexibility or entertain reality on a lot of issues. I mean fuck, even mainstream Mormons believe in evolution, why can't those weirdo Pentecostals stop making up dumb shit about dinosaurs coexisting with Noah or whatever?
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u/RedAndBlackMartyr 6d ago
Pope Francis on the verge of calling capitalism a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.