As culled from recent newspaper articles
... of which have often completely distorted what the Pope actually says.
10 – Climate change should have been part of the 10 commandments
Laughable
1. As far as the Pope's recent encycle, global warming or “climate change” is just part of the first of five major sections dealing with ecological problems that the pontiff sees. Of the 40,500 words in the official English translation of the document, the word
warming occurs nine times and the phrase
climate change occurs twelve times.
2. While the Pope references
“a very solid scientific consensus” regarding the idea of global warming, he doesn't pinpoint it to human activity like a Liberal alarmist does. He refers to human responsibility to address
“at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it", suggesting that there may be other causes as well. He goes on to name some: Volcanic activity, Variations in the earth orbit and axis, and the solar cycle.
9 – You still go to hell if you have an abortion, no matter how often you bike to work to save the planet
Quote?
8 – Women still can’t be priests, bishops, cardinals or anything else important. They’re still being punished for that apple thing.
*Yawn
There's a full explanation of why women aren't eligable to be preists. Jesus only chose men as his apostles, even though he highly valued women moreso than any other at the time of His life on earth.
Catholic theologians don't really know why Jesus chose only men as his Apostles... any more than they can explain the purposes of the incarnation or the Eucharist. All they can do is maintain the Word of God, not reinvent the priesthood according to our new-age, super-hipster customs and expectations.
7 – ISIS should stop what they’re doing, and find Jesus
Probably a good idea.
6 – Mexicans have every right to march into any country they want, any time
5 – But not the middle east refugees trying to reach Italy
Quote?
4 – Evolution might be true after all. Or it might not.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. The Catholic church's position is that the world isn't 6,000 years old. God may have very well created us through Evolution.
3 – Catholics shouldn’t “breed like rabbits”. But no birth control allowed. Practice abstinence, please
While in today's sexualized secular culture it seems like madness, abstinence historically isn't that much of an expectation at all. Are we humans incapable of controlling our urges?
2 – Governments have an obligation to take from the rich and give to the poor. But the catholic church is holding onto its $10 billion in assets for now.
That's a blatant lie.
I mean, the Church has over a billion members. So if each one gave only a dollar, it would be one of the richest organizations in the world.
The Pope's ring is doubtless a very expensive piece of jewellery. But it wouldn't fund Third World national debts for more than a few seconds.
Much of the alleged wealth can't be given away. For example, the art treasures. If these were sold, there would be no further income from the Vatican museum, and hence no charity donations would be possible. The things the Vatican owns aren't the personal property of anyone. John Paul II, for example, left almost no personal property of any kind in his will, as he had little to leave at all. He had few personal possessions, received no salary for doing his job. He owned barely a thing. Certainly no cars, tvs, stereos, houses, nothing like that.
The things the Church has are, mostly, priceless works of art and architecture, part of the world's cultural heritage, not just the private playthings of the churchmen. The Sistine Chapel, for example, belongs to all, rich and poor, Catholic and non-Catholic, who come to see it. More good is being done, and more money being raised for the poor, by keeping the chapel as is and charging a modest fee to people to see it, than would ever result from trying to sell the place.
As for helping the poor, no organization on the planet spends more on the poor than the Catholic Church, and it's not remotely close. You might look up the figures to see how much the Vatican actually gave to charity last year. It's a lot more than your co-workers did.
1 – No solution yet to governments which create a permanent underclass through crappy schools and rampant narcotics on sale, however.
Not sure what you're referring to here.
