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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Pope Francis is a good guy leading an utterly corrupt institution. In the US there are many voices about the 'deep state' trying hard to subvert Trump (in my opinion a good thing). Within the Catholic Church the same phenomenon at work is doing everything it can to halt progress and to stay firmly stuck in the past.

Francis probably won't live long enough to cement his legacy in such a way that it can not be undone. I have mixed feelings about this, on the one hand I'd like for the Church to take a more modern approach to their interaction with their subjects because they are causing a tremendous amount of grief in people's lives.

At the same time I can't wait to see their end (most likely not within my lifetime) and the harder the line they draw the more people will come to their senses and abandon this group of lying, disconnected old men.

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Pope Francis is a good guy leading an utterly corrupt institution

How does a "good guy" reach the top of a "corrupt institution", passing all the gates along the way, presumably guarded by utterly corrupt people?

Because the majority of his electors (the College of Cardinals) are also good guys.

(The article places conservative dissenters at the recent synods at 1/4 - 1/3.)

Curiously that 25-34% range is the same as the support enjoyed by populist political groups in many European countries, and also the same as Trump's approval rating in the US.

It seems like there's a conservative third of populations that increasingly seeks to isolate itself from the mainstream (or political center, or whatever you want to call it).

Because they are so corrupt that they can't agree which one of them should be the boss, so they choose an idealist as a compromise, in hope they will control him.

This is a pretty simplistic view. "Good guy" is a non-telling statement. If you are leading an institution that enforces certain values for millenia, believing they are eternal, that not following them would lead you to permanent eternal suffering, and then you suddenly backtrack on them, or at least make the impression that you are contradicting what your predecessors lived by, it's inevitable there will be a problem. If you first enforced strict rules in dealing with transgressors and suddenly are more lenient to things historically considered abominations, won't people you lead that followed previous teachings, disadvantaging them profoundly, feel betrayed? That's absolutely logical and obviously risks your whole organization falls apart. Try telling some Muslim they can drink alcohol freely or some Jew they don't need to be circumcised. Or tell a mathematician that ZFC axioms are wrong and all of math cannot be trusted, and watch the reaction :-D

The Catholic church used to teach that all non-catholics would be damned to "permanent eternal suffering". They have "backtracked" on this and there has not been any resultant problems.

Yes, and there was a plenty of backlash from that as well. It's simply if you say that God is absolutely rational, driven by eternal logic that cannot contradict itself, and you suddenly claim something else, you get a fork in your organization. If you look at history as one GitHub repo, you can say that Judaism began as a fork/synthesis of more ancient religions, then there was a Christianity fork, that itself forked multiple times, with first major fork when it split into Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, then Catholic forked into Protestant, then Protestant forked in thousands of different denominations. Most of them are profoundly disagreeing with each other about some small difference, and many of these small differences caused wars as their practical implications accumulated over the years. You can observe the same with all major religions or philosophical systems, and forking is especially popular in Buddhist culture. Islam on the other hand deals with inconsistencies by favoring later issued Surahs over earlier ones. Unfortunately, later Surahs are those militant ones while earlier the more peaceful ones.

Frankly, this somehow plays into the argument we are in a simulation and religions are optimization procedures to figure out which ideas will prevail in the end, driven by external actors.

I am not a theologist, but I believe the Catholic Church does not affirm that their doctrine is the direct word of God. It is the summary of the study of ancient written word that told stories about key religious persons and events that themselves affirmed things about God.

The doctrine is open to review. What they are conservative about is implying their predecessors had wrong views.

But all that is just the facade, in practice they are not keen to losing power and prestige, which Pope Francis precisely calls them out for.

> Try telling some Muslim they can drink alcohol freely or some Jew they don't need to be circumcised.

And you think my views are pretty simplistic?

Heh, guilty of that as well :D

Your comment is full of misunderstanding and sprinkled with hate. How can you say 'utterly corrupt institution'? Yes there are corrupt individuals, and perhaps, even corrupt sects. However, EVERY organization the massive size of the RCC has this and it is caused by the human fault, NOT the church itself (read about Peter). You most definitely will not see it's end in your lifetime as the RCC has lasted 2000 years and will last much longer. 'Halt progress and stay firmly stuck in the past'.. How can you say this? Do you have ANY experience or facts? As a Catholic, I can tell you the church is CONSTANTLY looking to appeal to modern society. However, it does this in an articulated fashion. Just because society has taken a stance on given topics doesn't mean those stances are good for mankind. This is why the church leadership reviews stances in full detail. To move past the hype and determine true effect on the person affected. That is the goal of the church. To help each person achieve TRUE happiness and peace. Yes, most of the RCC members are imperfect. Myself included. However, all of us in the RCC are striving to be better people and to help others do the same.

I'm not a believer, but you do have to wonder what the role of a church is. Is it to keep with their dogma as originally laid down, or to adapt that to current cultural norms that change over time?

Arguments can be made for either side. People are free to leave churches who hold views they disagree with.

And that's the the issue at hand. Francis wants a larger, more merciful Church while his predecessor, Benedict, was on record preferring a smaller more conservative Church. We'll see how it goes - large, old institutions move slowly.

Maybe they need to "fork" the church.

Yesterday was the 500th anniversary of a previous fork. Presumably forking nowadays wouldn't lead to another Thirty Years' War.

It's usually called a schism rather than a fork.

Good old Martin Luther and the Diet of Worms.

This has already happened, several times.

Why do people consistently get convinced by two or three news paper articles that someone is good because the report is good? You cannot become leader of a corrupt organisation without being corrupt yourself. There's simply not enough wiggle room at the top, where everybody wants to get to. He is probably not the least corrupt but the best at being corrupt without being discovered.

And if you see how he leads this "war" that the article is about you can see he has the skills. The reason he's not living in luxury may be something like that he loves power more than money.

> In the US there are many voices about the 'deep state' trying hard to subvert Trump (in my opinion a good thing).

The deep state is no longer attempting to subvert Trump. A soft coup has been performed for purposes of stability, Trump is now being directly managed by the deep state. He'll give them what they want, so long as he can be handled he gets to stay. The Mueller investigation is now a lame duck, it's for show, nothing will come of it other than a few meaningless trophies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-generals-have-tr...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/military-leaders-con...

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