Pope Francis Says Homosexuality Is Not a Crime | Hacker News Reader

Pope Francis Says Homosexuality Is Not a Crime

nytimes.com

14 pointskaraokeyoga23 comments

A weird example of the article and page title not matching up, with the page title adding "but is a sin" to the end of the article title. Would love to hear the editing notes over that decision.

I think there's "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and "judge not lest ye be judged" going down here. While the Big Guy in the Old Testament had a real temper, the one in the New Testament wasn't really into judging or vindictiveness. Unfortunately, people seem to forget this change or ignore the newer message.

Sounds ironic when a secular institution, with so many atrocities on its curriculum, have media attention on these (and any other) topics.

https://archive.md/bUWwJ

It's not a crime, but a sin (according to the Old Testament).

… and also according to Pope Francis (from the article).

... who's infallible in the Catholic Church.

The pope is only infallible when he's speaking ex cathedra, not just generally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility

Thank you! I didn't know this subtle difference.

They address this a bit in the article:

> Francis said there needed to be a distinction between sin and a crime when it came to homosexuality. The Catholic Church considers homosexual acts “intrinsically disordered” and a sin, but believes that people in the L.G.B.T.Q. community should be welcomed with respect and sensitivity.

I'm not a Catholic, but I thought Jesus was pretty explicit that the [state and the religion are separate. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar)

The interesting part of this article, IMO, is that Pope Francis believes it's also the church's responsibility to undo laws against homosexuality.

This is the biggest difference between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church - the Roman one (the Eastern Orthodox Church is also a Catholic Church!) always meddles with Caesar!

You will be judged by God for your sins, and by the people for your crimes.

The Pope is correct that homosexuality is not a crime and thus must not to be judged as such by the people.

Most sins are not crimes, so, where's the news?

It's not about judging individuals. As the old saying goes, "Hate the sin, not the sinner! No Christian should hate a sinner, but not Christian should also agree to endorse or promote sin.

This is personnel policy, kind of. Choose an alternative and you are no longer constrained by this policy.

Across the arc of time, morality has come from secular philosophy, dragging religions forward.

a bit Whiggish, don't you think?

I don’t think there’s an inevitable progression and improvement, but we do know that the progression, improvement, justice that there is generally comes from outside religion.

The interesting thing to me is that if morality is constantly improving, then we'll all be terrible people to the future no matter what.

We will be judged by future generations to be uncivilized, primitive. Unenlightened.

We suck now compared to how we'll be in the future.

I see this less about the pope specifically, or homosexuality specifically. It's more a signal of the general trend towards liberalism at the top of the Catholic church.

Six Catholics in robes on SCOTUS would like a word with you, your Holiness.

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