New Pope Selected

Freshly Exhumed sends this quote from CBC: "Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina has been selected as Pope of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. He will be known as Pope Francis. He is the first Pope from the Americas. The 76-year-old was the runner-up to Benedict XVI during the last conclave. He is well-known for his humility and espouses church teachings on homosexuality, abortion and contraception. He has no Vatican experience."

Comments

Re:viva Argentina and Bergolio!!!

[RLiegh]

the first non-european pope

Whoa -slow down there, cowboy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African_popes

Re:OMG the Last Pope EVAR!!!!!!!1

[Chris Mattern]

The pope has always been the Bishop of Rome. It's difficult to deny that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome. Whether that makes him the first Pope can be a matter for debate, however. Part of it is how inerrant you believe the Bible really is: there's reason to believe that the "Upon this rock I shall build my church" verse in the Bible was inserted by those wishing to bolster the Papacy's claims.

Re:Humility?

[silanea]

Here in Germany the Catholic and Protestant Churches run many hospitals, kindergartens and other welfare services which are funded not by the churches but entirely by the public, yet they impose rules on their employees based on their respective faith, ie. people have lost their jobs for getting a divorce, remarrying, outing themselves as homosexuals etc. The churches make a shitload of money through this system, and because they can publicly claim that they run soandso many percent of welfare services they get to influence public policy and politics. This all works so well because as religious organisations the churches get preferred treatment with regard to taxation, exemption from labour regulations and union rates etc. so they can undercut the private-sector competition. And since they are so good at it there are areas where the churches have a quasi-monopoly in welfare services, leaving workers dependent on them. And as long as the Conservatives are in office this will not change, since the churches offer them, well, let us call it PR support in exchange for keeping their special status intact.

So many people in social industries essentially are forced to live by religious rules without actually being a member of those religions just to be able to get a job. And we all get to pay for it.