If I could speak directly to the new pope, I would say this.

Your holiness, I have so much hope for and good will toward you and your tenure. Although I am not a catholic, I felt bad for some of the trials and tribulations that the church experienced over the past decade or so. I know the church is full of people throughout its heirarchy who want to do good things, who want to do the right things.

I would ask you to think about how far you can move, first of all, in terms of acceptance of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Community. Many other denominations of Christianity have done so, some of them are marrying members of that community. Reformed Judaism and its member temples and synagogues are performing gay marriages. I think that is an important point on which you may want to meditate as so much justification for regarding the LGBT community as being sinful relies on what Christians consider the Old Testament. I think you should reach out to a few of the Rabbis who are performing those marriages to hear their philosophy of those marriages and relevant scripture.

The second thing I would ask is that you revisit the churches stand on birth control and there are two main reasons why. The first reason is very simply the pandemic known as HIV/AIDS. This disease has infected more than 34 million people wordwide and widespread use of condoms would have a big impact on that. The second reason should appeal to your sense of social justice. Breaking the poverty cycle in the US and many other places requires the ability to postpone having children until parents can adequately educate themselves and in other ways position themselves in such a way that they will be able to obtain employment that offers a decent wage. There is a lot of evidence that young pregnancy is a strong indicator and predictor of a life of poverty and despair.

Those would be my words if I could speak directly to the new Pope. Beyond the politics and policy, I wish him and his tenure well.

so kudos. One point though: you mentioned that the last pope, John Paul 2, connived against John Kerry in 2004 by ordering US priests to withhold communion. This turns out not to be so, though the GOP noise machine managed to leave the strong impression that it was.

What happened is that a few US bishops floated the idea, but it was rejected by the larger body, who decided to let individual bishops set such a policy if they felt a need to. One or two did, but Kerry's own bishop, Sean O'Malley, apparently did not:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_politicians,_abortion_and_communion_or_excommunication#John_Kerry

Also did you know that Bergoglio wrote a book with a rabbi? You might appreciate this thread in the interfaith forum:

Pope Francis I Speaks on Holocaust, Israel and Jews in Only Book - Pontiff's Unscripted Talk With Rabbi in 'Heaven and Earth' http://www.democraticunderground.com/1264139

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/20/world/americas/argentina-pope-civil-unions



I've been of the opinion as of late, that the church will accept "civil unions" or some type of "blessing", but not marriage between homosexuals before it accepts birth control. I know, I know... I think the church puts itself in a sort of discriminatory bind with its views on homosexuality. I think eventually it will be accepting of monogamous relationships between same sex couples.


When it comes to birth control, there are lots of Catholic single parents out there. I don't see any changes in attitude in the near future. As you know, about 50 years ago, having a child out of wedlock was socially not acceptable. Nowadays, it's accepted in the Catholic church, even though the church does not approve of sex outside of marriage. In a logical world, this doesn't quite make sense, but somehow the church has adapted by embracing single parenthood instead. So, I don't see the birth control issue changing in the near future...