VATICAN CITY (CNS) – People who act shocked that a priest would bless a gay couple but have no problem with him blessing a crooked businessman are hypocrites, Pope Francis said.

“The most serious sins are those that are disguised with a more ‘angelic’ appearance. No one is scandalized if I give a blessing to an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people, which is a very serious sin. Whereas they are scandalized if I give it to a homosexual – this is hypocrisy,” he told the Italian magazine Credere.

The interview was scheduled for publication Feb. 8, but Vatican News reported on some of its content the day before when the magazine issued a press release about the interview.

  • deweydecibel@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I mean…yeah? Did you think progress was going to come from the outside? Someone’s gotta make an effort to steer the ship the right way.

          • Jojo@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            There’d be a schism, with the people who are currently getting upset instead just up and leaving. That might seem like a good thing, at first, but if the goal is to get everyone to heaven, you’re not really achieving it if half the people are leaving.

            I mean, you could say that you’re not achieving it either way, but that’s the thinking anyhow.

              • Jojo@lemm.ee
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                9 months ago

                Regardless, I’m fairly sure he would disagree with you, and I was discussing his motivations.

                  • Jojo@lemm.ee
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                    9 months ago

                    I try to be more generous than that when considering other people’s motivations, even those whose actions I find despicable.

                    It obviously doesn’t excuse despicable actions, but it does give the opportunity to recognize when people are trying to be better.

    • TheAlbacor@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Progress won’t come from any Christianity (and likely almost any religion, but I don’t know others well enough to comment). They will either need to denounce the book as being bullshit and decide to progress or they will continue to hold society behind.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It’s worth mentioning that during the dark ages, it was actually monks who preserved history and scientific knowledge, and advanced it. Even afterwards, Mendelian genetics was discovered by Gregor Mendel, a friar and abbot.

        On top of that though, a lot of scientific knowledge and mathematics was preserved and cultivated by Islamic empires concurrent to the dark ages. They were in the middle of a golden age and progressed those fields further.

        The problem isn’t so much religion in itself, but evangelicals and literalists who put it above everything else. Zealots ruin it all.

        • TheAlbacor@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Yeah, the Catholic Church guarded access to education, preventing the rest of the commoners from learning how poorly they translated the Bible to maintain control of the people. It’s too bad the Protestant movement didn’t destroy the Catholic Church.

      • PixellatedDave@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        You really need to see what progress has come through Christianity to see how absurd your statement is LOL.

        • TheAlbacor@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          You mean despite of Christianity.

          The book is bigger than at its base. Our society cannot progress without removing it from a focal point.

          • Jojo@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            The Catholic Church has sponsored plenty of progressive endeavors, both in the fields of science and otherwise. Which is to say nothing of the numerous Catholic people who have done progressive things and would place their faith as their reason for doing so. So there is a lot of progress that has been made because of the church.

            That being said, there have also been far too many times where the church deliberately resisted important progress and/or attempted to undo it, hence progress despite the church.

            I don’t know where the balance lies on that, but I do think it’s worth acknowledging both and even moreso acknowledging attempts from within to ensure more of the former and less of the latter.

            • Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de
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              9 months ago

              Yes, for several hundred years, monks were the largest literate social group in Europe. Libraries and the invention of book printing would never have become so large without monasteries and the church.

              In those times, science wasn’t per se in opposition to the church, that is a relatively modern approach.

              • Jojo@lemm.ee
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                9 months ago

                Numerous times, they just didn’t call it a crusade. Wars and genocide aren’t unique to Christians, or even to religion.

                And actually, come to think of it, yes, wasn’t the third crusade organized by secular parties (kings and such) and not the Pope? If that makes it because of Christianity, then the Iraq war was because of WMDs…