While at the very same time they insist they have virtually no responsibility towards the poor and the sick!

think many, if not most, of the Right-Wing leaders are atheists -- and very cynical atheists
at that. They will make use of religion any way they please for more votes and profit.

equally with men? When will they be allowed to hold power in the Vatican, I wonder? When will you stop telling women what to do with their own bodies?

Remember Pope Paul VI was in office only 6 weeks, and died mysteriously. Some Catholics
think it was possible that there was foul play. In the Church there also are Conservatives who
hate any and all Progressives. Pope Paul also hit the ground running. He, too, was all for reform,
and was thoroughly hated by some of the ultra-Conservatives.

I also think that there are some things that no pope can simply just change. For example, the Church
believes that a new soul is created by God at the moment of conception. Abortion means killing the
fetus before it has the chance to be baptized. So that soul can never go to heaven, but will always be
in limbo. That's one of the reasons for the Church's strict views on abortion. It would probably take
a whole Ecumenical Council for the Church to change something like that. There have been very few
of these in the entire 2000-year Church history. The last one was called by Pope John XXIII in the
1960s. He was already an old man when he became pope. He had only 4 years, whereas Paul VI was
possibly in his early sixties.

I must say that I am not up-to-date on Catholic teachings. I 've missed out on more recent happenings.

are supporting and encouraging? How much time does that self important old creep need?
Why don't you, as a fan of Francis, care that he is silent in the face of genocide?

two years in the making and Francis' Bishops in Uganda are openly supporting and celebrating this law, urging their people to turn in their gay children.
How much time do you think such bigotry should be allowed to harm others? Why is even one day acceptable to you?

head. There is an avalanche of wrongs that he has to correct, some of them dating
back 2000 years. How to correct them - and correct them properly, and which ones
to correct sooner than others - might not always be a simple thing to decide. It's
probably overwhelming. Also, he is already 77. Not exactly a spring-chicken.

He could take a break from an anti choice photo op to say he is opposed to slaughtering minority groups in the name of his Church. Instead he is supporting a genocide, and frankly he is making his supporters look like monsters. To claim 'inequality' is your agenda while that group is actually attacking minority members is laughable.

I think you meant John Paul I rather than Paul VI.

(Paul VI was in charge for about 15 years; John Paul I was there for about a month.)

To pay for his shingdig. His words ring hollow despite the accuracy of the message.

of 8 people knowledgeable in economics, some of whom are not clerics, and one
of them is a woman. This has never happened in the history of the Church in the
past. Like I said above: Give him time. He's been in office only one year.

And there is no point in blaming him for something that had been done by other
people in the Church for centuries. He is doing what he can to correct the
wrongs.

from a young man who is in hiding in his own country, he speaks about the horrific rhetoric of the RCC leadership and like millions of others, he calls on the corrupt and bigoted Francis to do the right thing:
"The Bishop of Jinja Diocese – Bishop Rt. Rev. Fr. Charles Wamika, in today’s Easter Message delivered at St. Chalres Lwanga Catholic Church, praised the Members of Parliament for taking a stand to see to it that the Anti-homosexuality bill passed into law, he went ahead and called on the faithful to vote for President Museveni in 2016 general elections for signing the bill into law.

He reminded the Christians that, it has been a law and he sent blessings to all Christians who have been working so hard to make Jinja a land free of gay persons. He said throughout human history the catholic church has fought evil and blood has been shed, he called on all the Christians to do whatever they can in their own means to clean this city.

I am surprised that a well educated bishop, well traveled and studied in different western countries uses his position to justify killing. He asked parents with gay suspected children to handle them over to authorities and their reward is in heaven. This is too much hatred. I wonder if we will hear from the Pope on this. If not, I lose all hope.”
http://oblogdeeoblogda.me/2014/04/20/ugandan-catholic-easter-message-calls-for-genocide-of-gays/

bishop having studied and traveled in the west, aren't you also surprised that the president
of North Korea, who had spent a part of his childhood in Swiss school/s, turned out to be a
sadistic and murderous dictator? Such things are by no means rare. They do happen.

About the bishop: the people he had met in the West quite likely were mostly of the same
opinion about LGBTs as he. There are plenty of them over here, too.

who is surprised the Bishop is such a bag of hate. You should read the links.
I do not see anyone on DU defending North Korean policy, but I sure as hell see you guys defend and dismiss what is happening in Uganda.

trying to correct all the wrongs that have been committed by a 2000-year-old church.
And some people would like to see all of them addressed - immediately, if not sooner!
Frankly, I'd like to see that, too. But I just know it ain't gonna happen!

serve at his pleasure. Your priorities make me sick.

Church around the world. I imagine that he hasn't got the luxury of time to read
about everything himself. He also has to depend a great deal on what his aides
tell him. He's got a lot to do - too much to do would be a more accurate description.
I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't even heard of this problem yet. What makes
you so sure that he already has?

You wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't even know about this problem and that's why he hasn't spoken out? There are times when I don't even know how to muster a reply -- and this is one of them.

of the population of the earth.

Another thought came to me. Politics. The Catholic Church is beginning to expand rapidly in Africa. If the pope
does know about the persecutions of the LGBT going on there, he could be moving very carefully so as not to offset this recent gain made in Africa. If so, it is a cowardly thing to do. Evil is evil, and should be stopped. I am just guessing, of course. I just don't know if politics is playing a role. Let me point out that it was Francis who was the first pope to begin trying to soften the stiff attitude of the Catholic Church towards LGBT. Wasn't he the one who said, "Who am I to criticize........?" It doesn't make sense for him, of all
people, not to come to the defense of LGBTs being persecuted in Africa.

I'd like to know more of what's really going on before I make any judgment.

Well, allow me to let you into one of the great truths: The world does not revolve around you.

He has *personally* excommunicated several priests who dared to speak out against the oppression of women and LGBT people. He also *personally* spent time with a Bishop in Spain to encourage him to give a strong sermon against allowing gay people to adopt.

And then there are all those North American and African Bishops who, if the apologists are to be believed, must've gone completely rogue with their efforts to harm gay people.

At some point, Catholics and everyone else are going to have to open their eyes and realize that Pope Prettywords is just working the crowd with his PR schtick. The words he has spoken were intentionally vague; the actions have served to further the oppression of women and LGBT people.

And he has done *nothing* to actually fix the problem of the child raping priests and the Church's protection of the same.

Instead he focuses on the message of helping the poor. Funny, with all the hospitals the Church has bought lately in order to have control over women's health and end-of-life medical decisions, I don't see them offering free health care to the poor. Likewise I see them running soup kitchens and shelters, but only under very lucrative US Government "faith based initiative" contracts...

with vicious and bigoted laws and acts of violence? How dare this man even use the word 'equality' when he his himself culpable for a pogrom against a minority group.
Here is what the OP and others seem to find unworthy of comment:

Catholic Bishop praises genocide of LGBT in Uganda

April 21, 2014 By Michael Stone

The Right Reverend Charles Wamika, Bishop of the Diocese of Jinja, praised the Ugandan Parliament for the Anti-Homosexuality Act that provides life in prison for LGBT people.

The anti-gay legislation represents an ongoing, de facto genocide of the LGBT community in Uganda.

Without compassion, and with a malignancy only religious superstition can sustain, Bishop Wamika encouraged parents to turn over their gay and lesbian children to government authorities for re-education and imprisonment.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2014/04/catholic-bishop-praises-genocide-of-lgbt-in-uganda/

Are you claiming that legal discrimination and oppression of minority groups is not a form of inequality? Are you saying it is ok to put gay people to death or in prison for life because that is not about income? How do you think the people in hiding are doing economically?
'Ann Frank' story, that's very sad, but what does it have to do with income?'.

being done in Uganda by Francis' Bishops and followers there. They don't even have the decency to say they do not support the pogrom, much less to speak out against it, instead they attempt to distract from the evil being done to innocent people by their beloved hierarchy.

On Tue Apr 29, 2014, 08:45 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

Francis fans are defined by their inability to so much as acknowledge the horrific things
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=790267

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You know Steve, I'm trying to get the people here to wake up, because if they don't they are going to feel terrible when all of this plays out. What they should be doing is pressuring Francis and all of that organization to help halt this genocide. If they don't they will live out their days in burdensome guilt.

...I'm sure he would.

loving this new Pope and I'm not even Christian!



-p

...of course, if it was the topic of abortion, Limbaugh would be trying to canonize the Pope. But, he was pretty much saying that the Pope has no idea what he is talking about in attacking trickle down.