Based on the info, he at least doesn't seem too bad. There were certainly worse choices.
The 2 main things that stuck out to me...stance on homosexuality and abortions..though those are the norms of his religion, so I can't really hate on him for that
He seems to be quite peaceful with his Brother religions (Judaism and the Islamic community)..so that's a plus
He is pretty old so might not last that long.
As opposed to all those young, fit, and healthy popes that there have been?
As opposed to all those young, fit, and healthy popes that there have been?
Pope Benedict the 9th was around was uh... pope-ified? Papaled? Mitred? What ever the verb is, he was around 20 or so when he became a pope. Also, his wiki page is quite the entertaining read.
On another note, Popes have a much higher life expectancy (averaging around 80 years or so, 1700 to present) than other well-to-do males during that time period. There is a really good reason for this, but I'm curious to see if any of you AG-ers are clever enough to figure it out (its actually not that tricky).
On a more relevant note: I wonder what stance Francis will take on the increasingly staggering number of scandals the Catholic Church is wrapped up in? Will he go down in history as a reformer, or will he just try to sweep everything under the carpet?
You may be a different denomination, but what we were debating is whether or not Catholicism is part of the Christian religion, which dozens of citations at the bottom of the link state it is.
I saw the title of this thread and I thought to myself (being a Catholic) "oh no! This is going to be bad..." but some people seem to know a tiny bit about him. He is a Jesuit so he is the first Pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit, and the first something else.... can't remember. ok well he is an exceedingly humble man, he took the bus to work, he cooked for himself, and I believe he took care of someone else for at least a while. He took the name Francis because he is like St. Francis d'Assisi (think I spelt that right). Anyways I am sure someone will have an objection to me or my comments. Feel free to object at will.
Ok now I have read the thread... WHAT ARE YOU THINKING??????? of course Catholics are Christians, we believe in Christ therefore are, by definition, Christians. Also to adress the title of the thread he is the first "Francis" but he is just Pope Francis until there is another Francis then he will be Francis I.
1. Made me laugh that Christians can't agree on anything. 2. Made me realize how little I care for the new pope.
Mr Francis is nothing new in my eyes because all popes have done the same thing (make the church better than it was before). If we are going to talk about something, I say it should be what the guy needs to change about his church's message to get more followers, not this guy's personal history.
