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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   35156 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.

Apparently a progressive in general terms, albeit not a radical one by the standards of the church.

More or less a centrist. He was considered to have dragged the Pope Francis admin in a meaningfully centrist direction and the stats nerds who predicted his election put him smack dab in the middle of the cardinals by viewpoint. Center-left maybe, but the most centrist center left winger to have been technically center left, and probably more likely to govern by machine politics and procedure than with any ideological influence. There's a reason that the rumor of the ultraconservative faction swinging behind him early is being seriously entertained by the more informed observers.

He's against women being in the clergy, against homosexuality, and against nonbinary genders. Doesn't sound very progressive to me, actually a big step back from Francis.

There is, literally, a single cardinal who isn't against homosexuality and nonbinary genders. There are a slightly larger but still very small minority number that supports women clergy.

He also had universalist views on salvation from what I’ve read of him. His belief, AFAIK was that sincere Jews and Muslims didn’t need to become believers in Christianity to be saved. That’s pretty darn progressive/liberal thinking from a Christian perspective.

Even in the 14th century such questions were live, and it's still open as to how to interpret the virtuous non-Christian and their ultimate fate. What we are to be concerned about is (1) preach the Gospel so that all will have the chance for salvation and (2) worry about the state of your own soul, not the non-believer:

For you would say: ‘A man is born along
the shoreline of the Indus River; none
is there to speak or teach or write of Christ.

And he, as far as human reason sees,
in all he seeks and all he does is good:
there is no sin within his life or speech.

And that man dies unbaptized, without faith.
Where is this justice then that would condemn him?
Where is his sin if he does not believe?’

...After the Holy Ghost’s bright flames fell silent
while still within the sign that made the Romans
revered throughout the world, again the Eagle

began: “No one without belief in Christ
has ever risen to this kingdom—either
before or after He was crucified.

But there are many who now cry ‘Christ! Christ!’
who at the Final Judgment shall be far
less close to Him than one who knows not Christ;

the Ethiopian will shame such Christians
when the two companies are separated,
the one forever rich, the other poor.

Francis also believed all those things.

Francis' critics and fans outside the Church both seem to have a wildly exaggerated idea of how progressive he was. He was more tolerant (and I use the word advisedly) on certain social issues and was a vocal proponent of the religious humanitarianism* that is pretty standard for the Catholic Church, but he was still fairly socially conservative. He might have be liberal for the pope, but that isn't saying much.

*which, granted, puts him at odds with the... lifeboat capitalism of the contemporary American conservative movement

He has an X account which, unfortunately, seems to be aimed at dunking on the US republican party.

That twitter post mostly links to a longer article on the National Catholic Reporter.

It starts by quoting JD Vance:

"There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that."

Now, JD Vance is is a Catholic, and he is making a claim about a "Christian concept" which is vaguely reminiscent of Subsidiarity.

Now, I am not a fan of non-political organizations meddling in day-to-day political affairs, be it the American Mathematical Society or the RCC. But that does not mean that these organizations should keep quiet when they feel that their teachings are misrepresented. If Trump claims that 15 is a prime number, then I will not consider it undue meddling if the AMS releases a press statement which says that he is wrong. If JD Vance had called it a common-sense, Protestant, Jewish or Hindu concept, then I would consider the NCR reaction undue, like most cases of "my religion says what you do is bad". But a bishop disagreeing with a Catholic who explicitly invoked Christianity does not seem undue to me, never mind "dunking"

Because pope Francis famously didn’t like American conservatives and Prevost was known as a brown noser.

Oh yeah, the universal teaching of the historic Church has been all about anti-the Republican Party of the United States.

I'm being forcefully reminded why Americanism was declared a heresy.

What are you on about? Pope Francis was known for disliking and distrusting conservative Americans regardless of other factors even as the USCCB became more close to the Republican Party, not less.

I don’t doubt that pope Leo XIV’s criticisms of the Trump admin are genuine, but his decision to emphasize them rather than issues with democrats(abortion, some stuff with religious freedom/antidiscrimination and education policy, LGBT+, etc) was probably contingent. He’s literally a registered republican.

I am generally skeptical of “he was only pretending to be [x]” arguments.

He was also a registered Republican.

That just means he's a US bishop, they (and indeed the hierarchy in general) tend to be seen as "quasi-Communist" on economic matters and "rabid sexists/homophobes" on sexual liberation matters.

Well, yes, because Christianity is quasi- or proto- Communist.

Luke 12:48 has "from each according to his abilities", Acts 4:32-45 has "to each according to his needs".

Interestingly, the previous Leo was not exactly pro-Socialist...

To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.

His Bachelor's was also in Mathematics. I am liking this new pope more and more by the minute!

I find the lack of info a bit strange. Presumably, he was in the top ten candidates, so I would have expected newspapers to have a full dossier on him. Just because the Catholics might not care much for his politics in this moment, it does not mean that the rest of the world should adopt the same standards.

The Guardian has mostly his biographic data. BBC has a bit of commentary:

As 80% of the cardinals who took part in the conclave were appointed by Francis, it is not all that surprising that someone like Prevost was elected, even if he was only recently appointed.

He will be seen as a figure who favoured the continuity of Francis' reforms in the Catholic Church.

Prevost is believed to have shared Francis' views on migrants, the poor and the environment.

Although he is an American, and will be fully aware of the divisions within the Catholic Church, his Latin American background also represents continuity after a Pope who came from Argentina.

During his time as archbishop in Peru he has not escaped the sexual abuse scandals that have clouded the Church, however his diocese fervently denied he had been involved in any attempted cover-up.

So he might be American, but probably is not MAGA-adjacent.

Presumably, he was in the top ten candidates

As the saying goes, those who go into the conclave as papabile come out still cardinals. I didn't see his name on those lists in the media about Top Sixteen Picks For Pope, which doesn't surprise me. I'm genuinely surprised by this election. I would never have bet on the First North American Pope. And it happened during Trump's administration too - Making America Even Greater by the day! 😁

Most of those lists were dumb agglomerations of candidates secular journalists thought they could write an interesting thinkpiece about. We'll have a better idea of how the rounds of voting went and who was a runner up as more cardinals leak over the next few days, but initial impressions are that the church specific journalists had a reasonably accurate idea of the frontrunners for the first few rounds, they just didn't know who Dolan would whip for, and didn't expect the uberconservatives to break for a known pragmatic centrist instead of throwing all in on a more ideologically acceptable longshot. That those happened to be the same person enabled Prevost's victory.

I didn't see his name on those lists in the media about Top Sixteen Picks For Pope, which doesn't surprise me.

Were Francis or Benedict on those lists? I may not be recalling well now, but I seem to recall "wait, who now?" as the response to some of the papal announcements in my lifetime despite lots of commentary on likely candidates.

Ratzinger was the overwhelming consensus in 2005. Bergoglio was genuinely surprising to secular media but informed watchers would have had him as papabile.

I think Benedict had 3:1 odds at one point. Francis was a bit less likely, but he had been noted in the previous election as having some support, so it wasn't out of the blue.

He was chosen by the previous pope to oversee selection of new bishops. So he is almost certainly very reliable and that it took only 3 days to elect the pope means the progressive faction has things well in hand.

Prevost had actually been frustrating to the progressives for his unwillingness to put a political thumb on the scale in selecting bishops; the largely meritocratic process continued essentially unchanged through the Francis pontificate despite the progressive clamor to ‘select candidates who share pope Francis’ vision’.

Yeah, after initially freaking out people who care a lot are saying he might not be that bad. He's also allegedly not opposed to TLM which was (inexplicably) contentious.

TLM which was (inexplicably) contentious.

I think there were several reasons at work:

(1) We've got the Novus Ordo now, we have changed the liturgy, stop trying to hold back time and work within the new framework in your local parish (the majority moderate set)
(2) Are these guys more of those crazy schismatics? Because they're sounding an awful lot like those crazy schismatics (due to some of the commentary around/by the trads being very similar to the Rad-Trads who were a bit too adjacent to the "we defied the Pope way back when for not being sufficiently orthodox, now funnily enough we're ordaining lesbian priestesses ourselves" splinters)
(3) Will we never have progress? Just when we thought we were finally going to catch up to the Protestants and get with the times and dump all those dusty old doctrines, these hold-outs are making us look bad! (the very liberal/Spirit of Vatican II crowd)

The typical bishop who has the Latin mass as a live issue likes the Latin mass because he never has to worry about it and gets at least something from fairly low investments. There are exceptions but TLM restriction was not popular with the world's bishops or with the junior clergy. Many were upset at orders to be the bad guy, just didn't understand why they were supposed to be cracking down, resented Vatican micromanagement on the issue, and thought that the benefits of a permissive attitude towards the Latin mass outweighed the completely negligible costs. Summorum Pontificum was the majority moderate opinion.

Thé latin mass went from a minor issue to a big one when cardinal roche started stepping on toes trying to restrict it. Many, many centrist or even liberal bishops saw the Latin mass as a fringe group which paid its rent for very little in return and resented the Vatican attempting to crack down on it. Especially in the rust belt American bishops felt mistreated by the Francis pontificate over the issue- putting a Latin mass in the parish with surrounds too dangerous for people to live in was a common trick for keeping these often historic parishes open and paying their tithe.

Prevost is believed to have shared Francis' views on migrants, the poor and the environment

Real snoozefest issues in this profile. I want to know if he has ever celebrated mass ad orientem. How does he feel about Latin and gregorian chant?

There are photos of him in a fiddleback chasuble, and what we’ve seen this far indicates he likes at least some Latin and chant.

He's an Augustinian, they don't have the kind of radical reputation that the Jesuits do. So he could be more tolerant on that than you'd expect.

https://x.com/tradcathdixie/status/1920542560436605010

"Former rector of the Major sem here says he saw Prevost in Rome privately saying the TLM in his private chapel at the congregation of Bishops, 3 or 4 yrs ago." He wouldn't lie. He has been around quite some time. He had the only indult to say the TLM at the USCCB office in Baltimore back in the 90s.

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