even though the full extent of the changes hasn't hit home yet.

Million dollar estates, coddling child fuckers, taking the most conservative stances on too many issues, and forgetting about the poor and needy - they still have a long way to go.

After all, THEY speak to god! Can you prove they don't? Haha! Checkmate, atheist!

I want y'all to know how comforted I am that Cincinnati's Archbishop asked a half million of his parishioners to pray for the defeat of gay marriage, that "intrinsic evil"...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113739584

Yet even that doesn't top what Francis has said about LGBTs, though it's quite obvious there are quite a few folks on DU who either don't give a damn or don't want to hear it. Now ask me if I give two figs if he drives an old car.

The Republican Party knew it had an image problem after the Gingrich era - people viewed them (rightly) as harsh, judgmental, vindictive, etc. So you saw the major branding of Gee-Dumbya as being a "compassionate conservative", the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with, etc. Don't change what's wrong with your party, just put on a happy face. Same deal with the wonderpope.

The same machine that pushed GeeW to front their image also knew it was those behind GeeW, like Rumsfeld and Cheney, who really ran the show, much as the USCCB does for the church. While Francis poses for photo ops, his bishops are thoroughly engaged in fighting reproductive choice, gay marriage, gay adoption and non-discrimination legislation, dodging child abuse investigations, et al. Doesn't matter to me if Francis carries his own luggage when his bishops and archbishops lend their public support to the horrid persecution of LGBTs in African nations. Couldn't care less if he eats fish & chips in the cafeteria whilst women & kids in the Philippines starve because the church strongarmed the government into denying these same women the contraception that could have lifted so many out of poverty. For every photo of Francis kissing a disabled person I think of all the disabled persons who are discriminated against by the church, as if folks didn't know that only one order accepts people with disabilities. For every souvenir moment I am reminded of immigration rights groups who've had their funding withdrawn because they refused to denounce LGBTs, all the teachers and music directors and pantry workers who will be fired for being gay, all the children who will not find loving parents because Catholic adoption agencies would rather shut their doors than consider gays as prospective parents. All the pretty pictures in the world can't camouflage that reality. If folks really want to know what's going on, just follow the bishops.

...neither bishop has to marry another man.... even tho' they apparently think they must now.