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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   23675 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025

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Congratulations United States, you are Pope!

Edit: Sorry if that is too short but I am currently watching the livestream from Europe and am totally baffled.

Yeah I have no idea what to infer from any of this. I haven’t listened but read something noting that he wasn’t using English in his address, opting for Spanish and Italian. Is that to mitigate the crime of being an American?

He spoke of “building bridges,” apparently, which of course means nothing. I’m not Catholic so I have no idea how to interpret the facts as they are.

"building bridges"

One of the Pope's formal titles is Pontifex Maximus, which literally translates as "supreme bridge builder," and along with the Keys of St. Peter bridges feature heavily as motifs in papal proclamations, bulls, teachings, etc. So generally very on-theme for a new Pope.

Cool, I'm happy for Catholics that the pope is committed to being pope-like, but anyone unfamiliar with the faith could be forgiven for only being able to take away a fully generic message of "We in the church should do our best to be decent people" from his address.

The whole purpose of the church is to show us what that means and how to do it, which of course comes with perilous controversies because we have many other philosophies trying to do the same and coming to different conclusions.

I get it, this is his first address, and the pope is severely constrained by millennia of history that he can't really riff on. But that's what I meant by it of course meaning nothing.

It's Rome, he's gonna have to speak Italian because there would be riots in the street if the new pope spoke anything else, no matter where he comes from 😀 Spanish is probably a nod to his missionary work and to continuity with Francis. Wait for his first Urbi et Orbi for Christmas to hear him go through all the languages he does speak, or if he will continue Francis' break with giving the blessing in different languages.

He spoke of “building bridges,”

'Pontiff' derives from 'pontifex', Latin for 'bridge-builder'.

I love this post. No extraneous text, just a direct injection of educational information. Obvious in hindsight, but I'd never have thought about it if you hadn't spelled it out. I am better off for this post, in some minuscule way.

He's lived in Peru most of his recent years.

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