Pope Francis

[LM K]

Keep in mind that one of the events that led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine was the formation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_ ... of_Ukraine

The church was united at the unification council in Kyiv on 15 December 2018 as a condition for recognition of it by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and was granted the tomos of autocephaly (decree of ecclesial independence) by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Istanbul on 5 January 2019. The unification council voted to unite all the existing Ukrainian Orthodox major jurisdictions: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) as well as a part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (a branch of the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, which claims jurisdiction over Ukraine). The Unification Council elected Epiphanius Dumenko – previously the Metropolitan of Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi and Bila Tserkva (UOC-KP) – as its primate, the Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine.

According to the statute that the OCU adopted at the unification council, "Orthodox Christians of Ukrainian provenance in the Orthodox diaspora" should henceforth be subject to the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Article 4 of the Statute).[15][16] This provision is also enshrined in the OCU's tomos of autocephaly.[17][18][19] In March 2019 Metropolitan Epiphanius said that the transfer of parishes of the dissolved Kyiv Patriarchate to the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate had already begun.[20] The creation and subsequent recognition of the OCU by other autocephalous Orthodox Churches have met staunch opposition and attempts at subversion on the part of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) as well as the government of Russia.[21]

Again, where is the warmongering?

Did evangelical Christians support the Iraq and Afghan wars. Absolutely. This doesn't mean that denominations were facilitating and encouraging war behind closed doors with politicians.

This simply means that ... Omg, religious tensions are part of war.

It's beyond absurd to assert that Catholics want this war. Why? It strengthens the divide between the two Churches.

[LM K]

Official statement.

Patriarch Kirill's address to the hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church
Patriarch Kirill's address to the hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Russian Orthodox ChurchVersion for print
24 February 2022 year 18:00
On February 24, 2022, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia issued an address to the hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and all faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church. The statement reads as follows:

Your Beatitude! Your Eminences and Graces! Dear fathers, brothers, and sisters!

I take the suffering of people caused by the events taking place with deep and heartfelt pain.

As the Patriarch of All Russia and the primate of a Church whose flock is located in Russia, Ukraine, and other countries, I deeply empathize with everyone affected by this tragedy.

I call on all parties to the conflict to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties.

I appeal to the bishops, pastors, monastics, and laity to provide all possible assistance to all victims, including refugees and people left homeless and without means of livelihood.

The Russian and Ukrainian peoples have a common centuries-old history dating back to the Baptism of Rus’ by Prince St. Vladimir the Equal-to-the-Apostles. I believe that this God-given affinity will help overcome the divisions and disagreements that have arisen that have led to the current conflict.

I call on the entire fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church to offer a special, fervent prayer for the speedy restoration of peace.

May the All-merciful Lord, through the intercession of our Most Pure Lady the Theotokos and all the saints, preserve the Russian, Ukrainian, and other peoples who are spiritually united by our Church!

+KIRILL

PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA

http://www.patriarchia.ru/en/db/text/5903803.html

Thank you, raison.

Let the conspiracies begin.

[W. Kevin Vicklund]

It's beyond absurd to assert that Catholics want this war. Why? It strengthens the divide between the two Churches.

Well, it's a good thing nobody actually made that assertion, isn't it?

[neeneko]

That's just offensive.

To who exactly?

My family is a mix of Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox. Russia has always had a tight and old fashioned mixing between political and religious power, it is one of the reasons white nationalists like the place so much. This is a pretty old concern and has really been ramping up over the years.

[neeneko]

Uh, yeah. That completely supports your ridiculous claim that the Church wants, and facilitates, the war on Ukraine.

It's beyond absurd to assert that Catholics want this war. Why? It strengthens the divide between the two Churches.

Well, it's a good thing nobody actually made that assertion, isn't it?

Wait, I am confused. What which is being asserted here?

My claim is that the Russian Orthodox Church is in support of the conflict. Both the Roman Catholic and Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople have been pretty clear against the invasion and the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

I completely agree that I have seen nothing to suggest any of the Catholic denominations are in favor of or otherwise supporting the invasion.

[raison de arizona]

Saint Vladimir: Is there a religious angle to the invasion of Ukraine?
One of the theories doing round with Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that Putin wants to revive the grandeur of the Great Russian Empire or the Soviet Union the least. Another theory taking roots is Putin's quest to re-establish the Russian Orthodox Church.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has shocked the world with his anticipated yet daredevil decision to invade a sovereign nation with a powerful military alliance acting as its ally. And it's routine to have theories abound when such shocks are unleashed on intelligentsia. One of the theories doing round with Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that Putin wants to revive the grandeur of the Great Russian Empire or the Soviet Union the least. Another theory taking roots is Putin's quest to re-establish the Russian Orthodox Church.

Experts including Christian priests are writing columns unearthing the 'root cause' and 'real' motivation of Putin's attempt to capture Ukraine, a country with about 4.5 crore people, by the force of tanks, fighter planes and missiles. These experts find a link between Vladimir Putin and his namesake Vladimir I.

Bunch of history and supposition here: https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis ... 2022-02-25

[Suranis]

I've opened a thread on the Russian Orthodox Church and its role in the invashion (if any) Here https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1302. Its a bit off topic for this thread.

[RTH10260]

‘I Feel Shame’: Pope Apologizes to Indigenous People of Canada
Pope Francis also promised to visit Canada as part of a process of healing and reconciliation over the church’s involvement in an abusive system of residential schools.

By Elisabetta Povoledo and Ian Austen
April 1, 2022
Updated 12:31 p.m. ET

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis apologized on Friday for the Roman Catholic Church’s involvement in a system of Canadian boarding schools that abused Indigenous children for 100 years, and said he would travel to Canada as part of a process of healing and reconciliation.

His apology comes after Canada was jolted last year by the discovery of signs of the remains of hundreds of people in unmarked graves, most of them children, on the grounds of the former schools.

“I feel shame — sorrow and shame — for the role” that Catholics played “in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture and even your spiritual values,” Francis said.

Francis spoke during an audience at the Apostolic Palace with 62 delegates from Canada’s three largest Indigenous groups, who had traveled to the Vatican in the hope that he would apologize to survivors in Canada. This was the first apology to the Indigenous people of Canada from a pope and was a reversal of Francis’s earlier position.



https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/01/worl ... anada.html

[Suranis]

https://www.globalsistersreport.org/new ... rozen-time

Pope warns UISG against congregational renewal that is 'frozen in time'
May 5, 2022
by Chris Herlinger, Gail DeGeorge



Pope Francis greets Claretian Missionary Sr. Jolanta Kafka, president of the International Union of Superiors General, during a May 5 audience with participants in the plenary assembly of the union at the Vatican. (CNS/Vatican Media)

Rome — Pope Francis told more than 520 leaders of women religious congregations that the process of synodality is a way to affirm the original intentions of the founders of religious congregations while meeting the needs of a rapidly changing world.

In an informal hour long discussion May 5 in which Francis welcomed questions from leaders attending the plenary of the International Union of Superiors General, the pope warned against congregational renewal that is "frozen in time," that looks to the past and does not look forward.

"The church does not want frozen nuns. That's useless," he said to applause. "The challenge is that consecrated life has to be integrated into a church — not a frozen church, but a real church."

At several points, the pope compared religious congregations to trees, saying they must grow while always requiring sturdy roots, and urged the sisters to continually look at what inspired and stirred their original founders.

"What was their original inspiration?" Francis said in a theme he repeated several times. "What was the essential part?"

At the same time, Francis compared religious congregations to families and said, "You can't modernize anything without the family spirit."

Francis, meeting the women religious at the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican, spoke while seated and entered the hall in a wheelchair, a sign of the pope's ongoing problems with a torn ligament in his right knee. It was the first time the pope has used a wheelchair publicly at the Vatican, Catholic News Service reported.



Pope Francis is pushed in a wheelchair by his aide, Sandro Mariotti, as he greets participants May 5 in the plenary assembly of the women's International Union of Superiors General at the Vatican. (CNS/Vatican Media)

But the pope seemed otherwise in good health. He opted to forgo reading from nine pages of prepared remarks and instead took questions from the religious leaders on a host of topics, including the war in Ukraine.

[raison de arizona]

I don't put much faith in her, but

[AndyinPA]

Who is she working for now? I guess I could look it up.

[pipistrelle]

I don't put much faith in her, but

Answered in the replies.

Rudolf Gehrig
@RudolfGehrig
I will now reveal a dark Vatican secret: The 10th World Meeting of Families is taking place in Rome this week, and believers (including bishops and cardinals) are also expected here - „highly unusual“!

[neonzx]

[Suranis]

The Holy Father has more important things on his mind than Megan Kelly.

288679628_334192415560680_1885534801748179477_n.jpg (53.3 KiB) Viewed 3660 times

[RTH10260]

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1802103 ... ing-things

[RTH10260]

Pope Francis: The pontiff's 'pilgrimage of penance' to Canada

By Nadine Yousif
BBC News, Toronto

The Pope is making a historic visit to offer a formal apology on Canadian soil for the harms done by Catholic-run residential schools across the country.

Pope Francis, 85, has called the visit a "pilgrimage of penance", and has said he hopes it will help heal the wrongs done to indigenous people in Canada by the Roman Catholic Church.

His itinerary includes stops in the provinces of Alberta and Quebec and the northern territory of Nunavut.

Absent from the Pope's visit, however, is a stop in British Columbia, where the discovery last summer of evidence of some 200 unmarked graves on the grounds of a former residential school led to nationwide calls for reconciliation.

The Pope will be in Canada until Friday.

Why is the Pope visiting?

Canada has grappled with the path to reconciliation - repairing the relationship between indigenous people, non-indigenous people and the government - in recent years.

In 2015, abuses suffered by residential school survivors were highlighted in a landmark report by Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

The government-funded schools were part of a policy meant to assimilate indigenous children and destroy indigenous cultures and languages.

Some 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were taken from their families during this period and placed in these schools.

The Roman Catholic Church operated up to 70% of residential schools. There were more than 130 such schools scattered across the country, the last closing in 1996.

The TRC report highlighted the stories of school survivors. Many were subjected to abuse, illness and malnutrition and the TRC called the residential schools system a central element of a policy of "cultural genocide".

One of the report's "Calls to action" was a request for the Pope to apologise for the Catholic Church's role in running the schools.




https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62216559

[Suranis]

The Roman Catholic Church operated up to 70% of residential schools

The report said 60%. Which is "up to 70%" I suppose.

[Suranis]

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/p ... 65916.html

Pope sacks entire leadership of worldwide Catholic charity over bullying and humiliation allegations

Pope Francis on Tuesday fired the entire leadership of the Roman Catholic Church's worldwide charity arm following accusations of bullying and humiliation of employees, and appointed a commissioner to run it.

The surprise move involved the executives of Caritas Internationalis (CI), a Vatican-based confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social services organisations working in more than 200 countries.

The sackings of the executive level of CI, which has more than a million staff and volunteers around the world, were announced in a papal decree released by the Vatican press office.

A separate statement from the Vatican's development department, which oversees CI, said a review of the workplace environment this year by external management and psychological experts found malaise and bad management practices at its headquarters.

Current and former staffers told of cases of verbal abuse, favouritism, and general human resources mismanagement that had led some staff to leave. CI is based in a Vatican-owned building in Rome.

"No evidence emerged of financial mismanagement or sexual impropriety, but other important themes and areas for urgent attention emerged from the panel's work," the statement from the development office said.

"Real deficiencies were noted in management and procedures, seriously prejudicing team spirit and staff morale," it said.

It said that while "financial matters have been well-handled and fundraising goals regularly achieved", management norms and procedures had to be improved.

A CI spokesperson referred all questions to the statement.

Among those affected by the decree was Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who was nominally president of Caritas but was not involved in the day-to-day operations. His main job at the Vatican is head of the Church's missionary arm.

The president's position is traditionally held by a cardinal.

Tagle, a Filipino who is often considered a possible future pope, will step down as president but remain in a new role to help the commissioner keep up relations with national Caritas offices and prepare for election of a new leadership next year.

[RTH10260]

Cardinal, pope ignite new debates on sex and the Eucharist

Terry Mattingly
Thu, February 23, 2023 at 11:07 AM GMT+1

When popes talk about sex, it tends to make headlines.

This was certainly true when Pope Francis told the Associated Press last month, "Being homosexual isn't a crime." He said the Catholic Church opposes criminalizing homosexuality and that "We are all children of God, and God loves us as we are." The pope then noted that homosexual activity is "not a crime. Yes, but it's a sin."

The pope immediately responded to questions from Outreach.faith, a website serving LGBTQ Catholics. Francis explained: "I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin. … This is to speak of 'the matter' of sin, but we know well that Catholic morality not only takes into consideration the matter, but also evaluates freedom and intention; and this, for every kind of sin."

The timing was striking since the AP interview ran on Jan. 25 – one day after the Jesuit magazine America published a controversial essay by Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego, whom Pope Francis selected as a cardinal last year.

"It is a demonic mystery of the human soul why so many men and women have a profound and visceral animus toward members of the LGBT communities," concluded McElroy. "The church's primary witness in the face of this bigotry must be one of embrace rather than distance or condemnation. The distinction between orientation and activity cannot be the principal focus for such a pastoral embrace because it inevitably suggests dividing the LGBT community into those who refrain from sexual activity and those who do not."

The cardinal linked this "pastoral" approach to another hot-button issue: offering Holy Communion to Catholics who divorced and remarried outside the church. Previously, he had claimed that the "Eucharist is being weaponized and deployed as a tool in political warfare" by bishops attempting to withhold Communion from Catholic politicians who publicly promote abortion rights.




https://www.yahoo.com/news/cardinal-pop ... 36642.html

(original: Knox News | The Knoxville News-Sentinel)

[Suranis]

Because there is not a dedicated "Ukraine" topic.

https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-me ... e-francis/

Zelensky holds 40-minute talk with Pope Francis

President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to Pope Francis in the Vatican for 40 minutes on May 13 during the Ukrainian leader's state visit to Italy, marking the first time Zelensky has met with the Pope since 2020.

Pope Francis reportedly gifted Zelensky a small olive branch sculpture that symbolizes peace, while Zelensky gave the pontiff an icon of the Virgin Mary painted onto a piece of body armor.

Zelensky soon typed off a statement thanking Pope Francis for his personal attention to "the tragedy of millions of Ukrainians." He said the Pope acknowledged the abduction of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who have to be returned home.

Zelensky also asked the Pope to condemn Russia's war crimes, "as there cannot be equivalence between victim and aggressor." Finally, the president said Ukraine's peace formula is the only effective step by step plan to achieve peace and asked the Pope to join Ukraine in implementing it.

Pope Francis has previously said that the Vatican is ready to mediate for Ukraine and Russia but has shown signals that he doesn't see the invasion as a one-sided war of aggression. He said in March he believes the war is driven by multiple "empires" besides just Russia and stated his readiness to talk to Putin.

Yet Pope Francis also said that he's working on a secret mission to halt the war and return the children that Russia abducted from Ukraine.

Zelensky's visit to Rome also included visits with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella.

An Italian parliamentary intelligence oversight committee has said that Russia sought to conduct influence campaigns in Italy. The U.S. claimed that Russia spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence Italian elections, to try to reduce Europe's unity.

Right-wing politicians in Italy have made pro-Russian comments over the years, with Meloni sounding off positively about Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2018 election win. Former leader Silvio Berlusconi knew Putin well and hung out with him, while Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has supported Russia and opposed military aid to Ukraine.

However, the ruling party, Brothers of Italy, has condemned the invasion and promised to send arms to Ukraine.

[Suranis]

[RTH10260]

Catholic Belgian university ‘deplores’ comments by Pope Francis moments after speech
UCLouvain staff and students express ‘incomprehension and disapproval’ over pope’s views on role of women

Guardian staff and agencies
Sat 28 Sep 2024 22.23 EDT

Pope Francis has been sharply criticised by one of Belgium’s Catholic universities over his stance on the role of women in society, in a strongly worded press release issued just moments after the pontiff spoke at the college.

Professors and students at UCLouvain, where the 87-year-old pontiff had made a speech on Saturday afternoon, said they wanted to express their “incomprehension and disapproval” about the pope’s views.

“UCLouvain deplores the conservative positions expressed by Pope Francis on the role of women in society,” said the statement, in extraordinary language from a Catholic university about a pope.

Francis went to the university on Saturday to celebrate its upcoming 600th anniversary as part of a weekend trip he is making to Belgium. His speech largely called for global action on climate change, but he also responded to a letter to him from students and professors that had asked about the Catholic church’s teaching on women.

In the letter, which was read out loud to him, the students questioned him on the Church’s historical part in entrenching female subservience, the unfair division of labour and even disproportionate female poverty.

“Throughout the history of the Church, women have been made invisible,” the letter read. “What place, then, for women in the Church?”

Francis replied by saying the Church was female, noting that the Italian word for it, “chiesa”, is a feminine noun.

“A woman within the People of God is a daughter, a sister, a mother,” he said, adding “womanhood speaks to us of fruitful welcome, nurturing and life-giving dedication”.

He did not give any details about potential plans for reform.

The university statement called the pope’s position on women’s roles in society “deterministic and reductive”.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... ter-speech

[Suranis]

Er... if these people are thinking that women in the Catholic Church have been made invisible, they know fuck all about the Catholic Church and it's history. Simply cracking open a book would have told them otherwise. No wonder Pope Francis basically rolled his eyes at that nonsense. The university screaming "HOW DARE HE!!" at what amounts to a pretty reasonable response, amounting to "Actually, We don't," pretty much shows that they would have shouted "HOW DARE HE!!!" no matter what he said.