All: The topic of this thread is the passing of a significant public figure. Discussion should be primarily focused on thoughtful reflections on the life of that person, and his influence on the institution he represented and the broader world. Generic commentary about the institution, religion in general, or other public figures or issues, is likely off topic.*
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Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Pope Francis caused quite a bit of controversy among Catholics. From his crackdown on the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass) to his often unscripted, pastoral tone on issues like sexuality, economics, and interfaith dialogue, he unsettled many and yet drew others closer to the Church. With his passing, we’re left to process a papacy that disrupted in the deepest sense of the word.
As a Catholic, I often found myself both inspired and unsettled by him. His theology wasn’t always systematic, but it was deeply Ignatian, rooted in discernment, encounter, and movement toward the margins. Francis often chose gestures over definitions, and presence over proclamations. That doesn't always scale well in a Church that spans continents, cultures, and centuries.
His legacy will be debated. But I think what made him so compelling, especially to someone who lives in the modern world but tries to be formed by ancient faith is that he forced us to confront the tension between tradition and aggiornamento not as an abstract debate, but as something lived.
He reminded me that the Church isn’t a museum, nor is it a startup. It’s something stranger.. the best I can described it is a body that somehow survives by dying daily.
- Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.
Looking back on his papacy, I agree that we was very divisive in some aspects but also, being the pope has to be one of the hardest jobs on the planet, he's basically a world leader.
At the "world leader" level it's impossible to do a job in a way where everyone will think it's a good job, you're always going to piss off one group or another with practically any action in any direction.
IMO he took on one of the hardest tasks at the church which is "modernization". The way I look at it is the church is so old that it constantly needs modernization. But that comes at a steep cost as while you are attracting new parishioners, many of your older ones will scoff at the changes. And because of the church's age, this is something that must be done over and over and over again.
A teacher of mine often reminds me that in many cultures—like Japanese and Native American traditions—the role of having an enemy is viewed with a certain respect. Enemies help define us. They challenge us, sharpen us, and push us to grow. Western culture tends to abhor the idea of having enemies, but sometimes, having them simply means you’ve stood for something meaningful—something worth noticing.
It seems Pope Francis had his share of critics—those who opposed his beliefs or feared his vision. And yet, he stood firm and made people think. In that sense, perhaps even his enemies affirmed the impact he was making.
The Vatican published an interesting document on AI [1], which attributes a number of quotes to Pope Francis:
* As Pope Francis noted, the machine “makes a technical choice among several possibilities based either on well-defined criteria or on statistical inferences. Human beings, however, not only choose, but in their hearts are capable of deciding."
* In light of this, the use of AI, as Pope Francis said, must be “accompanied by an ethic inspired by a vision of the common good, an ethic of freedom, responsibility, and fraternity, capable of fostering the full development of people in relation to others and to the whole of creation.”
* As Pope Francis observes, “in this age of artificial intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary to save our humanity.”
* As Pope Francis observes, “the very use of the word ‘intelligence’” in connection with AI “can prove misleading”
In 2021, during a visit to the Greek island of Mytilene, Pope Francis delivered one of the finest speeches I've ever read:
> This great basin of water, the cradle of so many civilizations, now looks like a mirror of death. Let us not let our sea (mare nostrum) be transformed into a desolate sea of death (mare mortuum). Let us not allow this place of encounter to become a theatre of conflict. Let us not permit this “sea of memories” to be transformed into a “sea of forgetfulness”. Please brothers and sisters, let us stop this shipwreck of civilization!
> We are in the age of walls and barbed wire. To be sure, we can appreciate people’s fears and insecurities, the difficulties and dangers involved, and the general sense of fatigue and frustration, exacerbated by the economic and pandemic crises. Yet problems are not resolved and coexistence improved by building walls higher, but by joining forces to care for others according to the concrete possibilities of each and in respect for the law, always giving primacy to the inalienable value of the life of every human being
Technically yes, but they're used interchangeably nowdays. Plus, the official transcript mentions "Mytilene" so I wanted to follow that. Although I use Lesvos myself.
With no opinion one way or another on the pope.. In the modern world this is a weird criteria to judge people on. I assume like every modern politician, he doesn't write his own speeches. A quite google search seems to confirm it
Who cares? He said it. The words are his responsibility. If his speech had advocated for grinding orphans into a nutritious paste, we wouldn’t be defending him on the basis that he didn’t write those words. He chose to read them and give them his official backing.
> My suspicion is that Pope Francis may have more to do with crafting his own speeches than did previous pontiffs, because Pope Francis’ talks strike me as more spontaneous, conversational, and unfiltered.
Anyway, a public figure is still giving the direction and “plot points” to their speech writer.
I will never forget his sympathy for the motives of the terrorists who massacred staff at Charlie Hebdo:
“If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch,” Francis said while pretending to throw a punch in his direction.
He added: “It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”[0]
Why not? The concept of proportionality between an “offense” and a response that characterizes the liberal worldview was entirely missing here. If one chooses to take offense about some deeply held personal view, whatever it is, then fine; but let your response be proportional.
The music of Beethoven is sacred to me, let’s say, but I’m not prepared to murder you if you mock it, or miss a note in performance.
The pope’s threat of physical intervention himself seems at odds with the teachings of his own faith, too, as I understand them. Turn the other cheek, and all. But that would be for adherents to say for sure.
Remember, a judge let Neil Armstrong off for punching a moon landing denier in the face due to persistent taunting.
That being said, as an American, the culture of mocking and gracefully learning from being mocked runs deep in my blood. I don't know if others share that same worldview.
> as an American [...] I don't know if others share that same worldview.
I'm far from American, but have the same "blood", but I think it has nothing to do with being American/Swedish/Spanish/whatever, some people have different personalities, upbringings and strengths/weaknesses simply.
Americans aren't "tougher-skinned" by default or anything, at least I didn't get that experience from interacting with Americans.
> That being said, as an American, the culture of mocking and gracefully learning from being mocked runs deep in my blood. I don't know if others share that same worldview.
I think there's an implied "and not expect a response" there.
If you insult unhinged people (and people who kill over a mere 'offense' to their religion are unhinged), don't be surprised when you receive an unhinged response back.
I didn’t hear from him any call-to-arms to defend Christianity from those who keep making fun of it left and right. Be it other religious faiths or quasi-religious political movements. His actions seemed the opposite tbh.
That’s reprehensible, but also refreshingly open-minded. It shows an awareness that other religions deserve an equal footing to his own. I prefer this over the nuts who decry Sharia law while wanting to implement a Christian equivalent.
Any Christian fundamentalist who advocates for its religion to become law is a bad Christian who never understood the lesson behind "Render unto Caesar...".
Now, contrast with Islamic teachings. Not every Muslim will advocate for Sharia, but there is a non-negligible part of them (leadership included) who think that not advocating for Sharia is a sin.
I think that article lost a bit of nuance somewhere. The Pope was specifically defending the right of Muslims to protest peacefully against deliberate insults to their religion:
> Francis spoke about the Paris attacks while on his way to the Philippines, where around 1,500 Muslims protested yesterday against the depictions of the Prophet in the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo. [0]
He also explicitly condemned violence:
> Francis insisted that it was an “aberration” to kill in the name of God and said religion can never be used to justify violence. [0]
So, he wasn't justifying the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office.
> According to Archbishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic Ceremonies, the late Pope Francis had requested that the funeral rites be simplified and focused on expressing the faith of the Church in the Risen Body of Christ.
Always struck me as a simple man and that likely contributed to people liking him more when compared to his predecessors. RIP.
His persona as being simple focus is just PR, no different than puff pieces about bill gates driving a Prius, or Warren buffet living in the first house that be bought.
He was, but John Paul II was traditionally conservative. I think Francis resonated with more people–Christian or not–because he emphasized compassion, humility, and social justice.
He spoke more openly about issues like poverty, climate change, and inclusion–his encyclical LAUDATO SI’ is a great read–, and he often used language and gestures that the "common man" could relate to.
Perhaps the way he dressed so simply–with the plain white cassock–also emphasized his overall approach: less focus on grandeur, more on service.
John Paul II is widely credited with helping Poland overthrow communism. While he won't change the world overnight, there are millions of people even in Russia who respect the Roman Catholic pope, even if they aren't Roman Catholics themselves.
> telling Ukraine to "have the courage of the white flag".
If an aggressor attacks your country, it takes courage to surrender. Churchill was a coward it seems. He could have surrendered to the Germans and saved so many lives on both sides.
Pope Francis was the only Pope that resonated with me. I was really shocked that at how human his words were. The moment he came on the scene he seemed genuine and honest. I hope they find more like him.
Hopefully not. Although I’m against Catholic Church for historical reasons, I respect JPII for his anti-communist stance. And Ratzinger was an interesting figure I can respect. Meanwhile Francis… hopefully he can kiss Putin ass soon.
There was an interview on NPR this morning with a high-level Jesuit in the Americas (former leader of the order in Canada and USA, IIRC).
He put it well... Pope Francis was always a pastor at heart. And he put the needs of the person in front of him ahead of strict doctrine. The interviewee likened it to triage in a field hospital - address the soul in front of you, worry about doctrine later (suture the wound, worry about cholesterol later).
I think it's interesting that PJII was very popular with Catholics and possibly less so with non-Christian. Despite or because being more conservative? He was also a very good man and humble.
JPII was a long running Pope. I would guess most people wouldn't know how conservative or not he was, or even what means in the context of the Catholic Church. He was the first Pope many of us knew, and the Pope who was with many of us the longest. He is probably most well known for the pope mobile.
JPII was also elected in a very different world. And he played a big moral role in taking down iron curtain and getting Eastern Europe back Europe.
Meanwhile Francis was quite the opposite. Especially as seen in the light of Russian aggression against Ukraine. For much of Eastern Europe that was like 180 turn. At least here both church goers and not seem to despise Francis while JPII has a warm place in the hearts both factions. Maybe it was different far away where Russia ain’t a hot topic.
His global appeal was real, but his decision to give Opus Dei and similar conservative Catholic networks special status under the Vatican had serious consequences.
Elevating Escrivá to sainthood and creating a personal prelature for Opus Dei handed them unmatched moral authority—authority they used to push back on women’s autonomy, justify discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and quietly influence politics from Spain to Latin America.
Popularity doesn’t erase the impact of empowering hard‑right movements that have harmed lives across the globe.
Part of that though was that he was Polish, at a time when Poland and other Eastern European countries were Communist dictatorships. He represented in part a kind of "insurgency" against them.
The first non-Italian pope since the 1500s.
For comparison, note the 1968 movie The Shoes of the Fisherman, in which a priest from Russia unexpectedly becomes pope and provokes great political change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shoes_of_the_Fisherman_(fi...
Since I see a lot of people commenting on this topic, I would like to offer a different perspective.
Pope JPII was for my southern European social democratic Catholic family much more polarizing than Pope Francis. Pope Francis had politics that are mainstream and not at all controversial in my part of the world. Whereas JPII was perceived as the guy who was buddies with Reagan and Bush and a general supporter of American foreign policy. To what extent that was a fair assessment, I do not want to comment, since he did try to speak against the invasion of Iraq.
None the less, it is not true that Pope Francis is more popular with non-Catholics (Reagan, Bush and most of the US were not Catholic and big supporters of JPII). It was also JPII that started the interfaith dialogue. It is also not true that Pope Francis is unpopular with Catholics.
There are Catholics all across the globe with vastly different opinions on all kinds of issues.
JP2 was liked by catholics (the reasons are interesting and complicated enough that would warrant a long discussion). But Francis was generally well-liked even by the irreligious.
It’s important to note that The Two Popes was a drama, and not a true factual story.
It fictionalizes and sensationalizes some details; and that’s ok because its purpose is to make you feel exactly the way you feel about it.
Pope Francis was a wonderful steward of Christianity and espoused the virtues that anyone would want to see in their religious leaders: humility, grace, an openness to listen and a strong voice against even prelates in his own church that are xenophobic or nationalistic. He wanted us to welcome all and to live as the bible said Jesus did.
The fear I have is that each swing of the pendulum goes in two directions. He was far more “liberal” than the conservative Catholic prelates of the USCCB, and I fear his actions — including rightfully limiting the Latin mass, will force the church to swing in the other direction and give in to the illiberal forces that divide us.
Indeed; and when the Second Vatican Council decided Mass should be said in the vernacular, the obligation of the Church was to follow. Instead, the conservatives of the church ('conservative' here means those that emphasize adhering to tradition and are adverse to change) created a rift by eschewing this change and even heightening the importance of the Latin Mass, creating the impression that a mass spoken in the local language was somehow less of a mass.
If you’re Catholic, suggesting that a mass spoken in one language over another is somehow "less" takes away from the most important idea of the Mass: reenacting Christ’s Last supper commandment and the institution of the Holy Eucharist for what amounts to word games.
This divisive description of the mass increased over the decades, to the point that it threatened to cause a schism. As such it was the Holy Father’s duty to resolve the issue.
There are still groups(at least I'm aware of them in Poland, I've met people who are part of them) who believe exactly this, that the second Vatican Sobor was a mistake and the "real" mass is only the one conducted in Latin.
I am a (non-catholic) Christian and I loved Pope Francis, for all the hate he won from traditionalists. He really seemed Christ-like, in his deep concern for the marginalized and poor. He never ceased to emphasize Jesus' saving power and good news. May he rest in peace and may he be with our Lord.
Also not a Roman Catholic, but there were some good things about Pope Francis that I could appreciate, particularly his very Augustinian take on reason and the restlessness of the heart found in his lecture from the launch of the Spanish edition of Msgr. Luigi Giussani's book "The Religious Sense."
> He riled many of his flock and hierarchy when he said that "even atheists can be redeemed".
Which is "interesting", considering how much of the New Testament is about redemption and reaching out to outsiders. Aren’t we all supposed to be God’s creation, and wasn’t Jesus supposed to teach us about salvation, redemption and forgiveness?
(And by "interesting", I mean that it is yet another of example cognitive dissonance amongst fundamentalists. If anyone can be redeemed, it implies that atheists can, as well.)
> I will always applaud a person who retreats — even just a little — from dogma and fanaticism.
Indeed. He was not perfect but he was better than most. I hope the next one won’t be a catholic version of patriarch Kirill.
The man declared Putin's war to be a literal crusade against the West:
> From a spiritual and moral point of view, the special military operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people, defending the single spiritual space of Holy Rus', fulfill the mission of the "Restrainer", protecting the world from the onslaught of globalism and the victory of the West that has fallen into Satanism.
> After the end of the SVO, the entire territory of modern Ukraine must enter the zone of exclusive influence of Russia. The possibility of the existence on this territory of a Russophobic political regime hostile to Russia and its people, as well as a political regime controlled from an external center hostile to Russia, must be completely excluded.
Read up on him more. He's essentially former KGB that was originally assigned to keep an eye on the token remnants of the church in Soviet Russia. He's now saying the war against Ukraine is "holy and justified", signing up to fight is "guaranteed to wipe away your sins", etc. He's designed to manipulate a segment of the population. He's Putin's method to "religiously justify" whatever Putin wants.
> Which is "interesting", considering how much of the New Testament is about redemption and reaching out to outsiders. Aren’t we all supposed to be God’s creation, and wasn’t Jesus supposed to teach us about salvation, redemption and forgiveness?
As religion has shrunk in participation in most of the west, it has become hugely susceptible to manipulation. My wife (now atheist, but grew up evangelical) often has to correct me when I make snide remarks about Christianity. Recently I made some comment about hypocrisy amongst Christians for supporting a multiply-divorced man who bragged about groping women for president (who has probably never read the bible), to say nothing of the people around him. She quickly snapped back at me that "they actually see themselves in it, have you not noticed all the sex scandals that happen in so many churches?" and then went on to list the "questionable" relationships in her own youth group. (I am NOT saying all Christians are like this, but religion is often used to cover up or excuse misdeeds).
It is not unique to Christianity or even Islam, though. You're seeing a lot of religion being used to justify many terrible things, including many smaller ones in Africa and Asia that have been used to justify atrocities and genocide.
Same here. Although I grew up a Catholic and am now an atheist, my father counselled me that there were few institutions in the world that look after the downtrodden. The Catholic church has often not done that, but under Francis moved more towards that goal than any other time in recent history.
Rerum Novarum was the basis of catholic social teaching since, so...
But yes, one thing is statements another is actions, regarding the latter the Latin Church's actions have often not been in keeping with their lofty writings.
He felt like a throwback to me, in a good way. He reminded me of a time when Christians weren't so afraid of being subsumed by the secular progressive mainstream, when they could still see love and forgiveness as the core of their faith.
I'm not religious either, but was educated in a Jesuit school. He brought a well needed breath of fresh air to the church. He was a pope for our times. Let's see if the church will be able to make another strong selection to replace him.
On the other hand, lots of christians liked him because he was progressive (more than his predecessor, anyway). Catholics are not all fundamentalists and in general don’t have much in common with the catholics bishops in the US, who are for the most part downright medieval.
Plenty(well, some) Catholics in Poland had an issue with him for the exact same reason - just way too progressive for them. Although I do think that American Catholics are particularly.....fervent in their beliefs.
Where do you live? How much of your money and land are you willing to surrender to me? I think there's a real argument that it's the right thing to do.
No, Ukraine should not surrender because if they surrender now the same argument can be made next time - and with Russia there will always be a next time. This is an existential fight for Ukraine and Ukrainians.
Assuming that you are arguing in good faith you should read up on some basic game theory. The outcome of this fight is not just about this war but about establishing the incentives of all future potential attempts at aggression by Russia (and other expansionist countries).
Wars, even righteous ones, are not very Christian. It’s a bit disjointed to expect any religious leader to endorse death in the name of justice. Or maybe you believe Ukraine can win? You would not be alone in that. I too hope that’s what happens, but I’m afraid they may not overtake Russia in the coming years, and might ultimately suffer a worse fate by dragging out the loss. It’s a real risk.
thats my point on it too. Ukraine can't win, so its options are fight until everyone is dead or surrender and work out some kind of peace.
Russia is currently mostly cut off from the globe because of American sanctions, which means they really have no impetus to stop. The pope could say "russia should stop invading ukraine" every singly day and they would have zero reason to listen to him.
Last year, an interviewer asked Francis how he envisages hell. His response stayed with me: “It’s difficult to imagine it. What I would say is not a dogma of faith, but my personal thought: I like to think hell is empty; I hope it is.”
The bible only has sparse and often contradictory references to hell - so it's very difficult to state "what the Bible says about hell" as if there's a unified picture laid out.
I've heard descriptions of hell of everything from the classic "fire and torture" we all know, to it being a total and complete detachment from god (in a disappointed and kicked out of the house by your parents kind of way). It's similar to descriptions of Satin. Everything from the horns and pitchfork all the way down to a "beautiful fallen angel" that he technically was explained to be in the bible.
I've always just assumed the descriptions that work to keep people fearful of leaving the religion as whatever is used at the time (saying this as somebody who is agnostic).
Yes - I think it caught my attention because it was such a mystery. It was a welcome thing to hear from one of the most powerful people in the world, but it came like a bolt from the blue. As far as I know, he never revisited the topic.
its not biblical but its very catholic, its optimistic. I've heard it from other catholics, its just a hope that at the end of everyones life they accepted jesus and made it into heaven.
I would argue that reading random quotes without context can be misleading. Unless of course you believe in a univocal, consistent and divinely inspired bible - which is a fairly extreme position to take.
It's not that simple, because there are multiple concepts and Hebrew and Greek words that were translated as "hell". And many of those passages don't mention hell at all, but are just interpreted as such by readers.
“I like to think Hell is empty” might be a hopeful statement, as in he hopes nobody ever actually goes to Hell but that everyone, no matter how evil, repents in their dying moments and accepts the path of truth.
It is impossible to reconcile the idea of an omnipotent god that is simultaneously good and permits people to be tortured for eternity.
Perhaps he chose the “god is good” over the “god, despite being able, will not prevent billions of reasonable and decent people from suffering eternally” fork in the road. You can’t logically choose both, and if you’re the pope, you probably had better have a belief in the goodness of god.
God bless him. Religion aside, his encyclicas covering more earthly subjects (Fratelli Tuti, Laudato Si) are really worth to be read. Download and read them as PDF in the language of your choice, no matter what your religious views are.
Thank you for sharing a text that I would not have seen/read otherwise.
The salient parts that support your view:
---
There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and respect for the views of others.
Nor is peace possible without true disarmament! The requirement that every people provide for its own defence must not turn into a race to rearmament. The light of Easter impels us to break down the barriers that create division and are fraught with grave political and economic consequences. It impels us to care for one another, to increase our mutual solidarity, and to work for the integral development of each human person.
I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage initiatives that promote development. These are the “weapons” of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death!
May the principle of humanity never fail to be the hallmark of our daily actions. In the face of the cruelty of conflicts that involve defenceless civilians and attack schools, hospitals and humanitarian workers, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that it is not targets that are struck, but persons, each possessed of a soul and human dignity.
> I express my closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel, and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. The growing climate of anti-Semitism throughout the world is worrisome. Yet at the same time, I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation. I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!
that fragment references Easter theology. at a fundamental level love is stronger than everything, including the unsurpassable frontier, death. nothing could kill Jesus, not slander, not hatred, not envy, not even the cross.
and btw, in that little collection of booklets we call the Bible, the story doesn't end all flowery and pink either. Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed, early disciples are martyred in troves and everybody is aware the story of that Jesus guy and Mary and Mary Magdalene and Junia and all the others just has begun.
and it's clear it has to be written by us...
so regarding the recent world events yes PP Francis was heavily displeased (he talks about several of them in the very text we respond to here) but the Jesus thing gives us confidence and hope and justification to actively do something about it and to nudge the world into being a better place, for all of us.
that's how I think PP Francis meant what he said. and it's definitively how I see it.
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but it sounded like he was referring to something broader, especially given the explicit political references he made later.
... He's referring to "Christ is risen". That's way more broad (conceptually) and very in-character for the Pope, compared to some transient current events.
Francis stood for values over positions and ranks, which was a real revolution.
I sincerely hope the new pope will be as human, humble and pushing for renewal as Francis.
I think that after such a pope, people won't be satisfied with just another symbolic figure with empty gestures, hard conservative views and no real substance.
Are you pointing to another pope with "another symbolic figure with empty gestures"? Would be clearer to name him then! Having read a bit of the previous pope Benedict XVI I liked a lot what he did/wrote
That was a likable pope, non-christians and even non religious people tend to like the guy. I also enjoyed the memes about his lookalike in Game of Thrones. Rest in peace.
Pope Francis was truly inimitable. A Pope to remember, and one of a kind.
How to describe such a unique pontiff? Coming from "the end of the world," as he said, he truly represented a peculiar voice.
He stands alone as the greatest international symbol of our age, an embodiment of its most salient characteristics. A man whose presence will remain indelible in our minds, and who really made his presence known in the Church.
His fierce defense of his ideas, no matter what, marked the Church of our time forever. Catholics will never forget him. Traditional Catholics, in particular, will always vividly remember his legacy.
I wonder whether we will have another Jesuit Pope. Jesuits are supposed to be generally very education focused, more progressive (especially w.r.t science) and stand less on ceremony. I know nothing about how the College of Cardinals work, but if they're anything like other political voting bodies, one of two outcomes are possible: a swing to the Right (and toward tradition), recognizing the current balance of power in the world, or a swing even further Left of Francis, again recognizing the current trend but as a counterweight.
Francis spent the last couple of years creating new cardinals to stack the College in what - he hoped - was a more progressive direction.
But the College has a mind of its own, and there is going to be some furious horse trading happening behind the scenes to steer the result in one direction or the other.
I would like to know more. My impression is that most Christian institutions have long ago disentangled from scientific debate - providing interpretative value rather than alternative science. This is part of a larger trend to focus their scope and mission in modern life. Have the last few popes made comments on scientific issues?
Catholics don’t generally adopt the anti-science stuff. Their dogma around life has some walls around some areas of medicine.
I know several priests who are scientists or teachers/professors.
Evangelicals have a simpler dogma where the individual minister or church has more sway (hence the joke about the man on a desert island with a hut, a church, and a church he doesn’t go to). It’s a more populist form of worship, which has ups and downs.
Indeed, that is exactly what it is. Mainstream catholics don’t really have a problem with science in general, but with moral consequences of some application of science. Broadly speaking, they are not saying that science is fake, more that there are some things we should not do.
A conversation with a Jesuit for example can be enlightening because they have intellectual and moral arguments, it’s not just castles built on the shifting foundations of a Bible verse.
This leads to different approaches compared to a lot of American Protestants. They don’t seek to undermine science.
Ironically, Catholicism as an institution has a better track record of supporting science than many Protestant sects. Much of the "alternative science" comes from the Baptists and Evangelicals.
Not sure if this is accurate. I was once a member of an astronomy club and its patron was a Catholic priest who was very much into the subject. And he wasn't even a Jesuit.
The Jesuits do indeed have a long tradition of research on the basis of a belief that understanding how the universe works gives a greater understanding of God's creation.
As such, they've traditionally been more open, and a disproportionately high proportion of Jesuits have been scientists. At one point about 1/3 of all members of the Jesuit order were scientists.
"The pope's astronomer"[1] is a jesuit, and the Jesuits have a long tradition in astronomy, with the result of numerous lunar craters (e.g. McNally) and several asteroids named after Jesuits. More than once, Jesuits have also tangled with the question of extraterrestial life, e.g.[2a] - a question fraught by the question it would raise about what it would mean for belief [2b].
Wikipedia also has a long list of Catholic clergy scientists[3]. When reading it, it's worth considering that if anything they had more influence as teachers (e.g. Descartes, Mersenne were both educated at Jesuit colleges), and that the order ranged from low thousands to a few tens of thousands during the centuries the list covers.
With respect to the last few popes, the most notable recent intervention is Pope Francis making clear that he saw the theories of evolution and the Big Bang as real[4]. But already in 1950, even the deeply conservative Pope Pius XII, while expressing hope that evolution would prove to be a passing fad, made clear that catholic doctrine officially did not conflict with evolution. John Paul II formally acquitted Galileo, and stated that "truth cannot contradict truth", when talking about evolution vs. catholic doctrine. [5]
i think that is intendeded; it's not a movie about catholicism but about politics and human nature. What I meant is that it shows the internal workings of the papal election and the conflicts within the catholic church that may be unknown to laypeople.
On second thought I think you’re right. The layperson can become more aware of religious politics, because there is so little exposure.
I hope the next step is for people to understand that religious problems are actually people problems. And similar themes and tendencies appear in modern secular contexts.
Starting from his chosen name, since Franciscans and Jesuits have not been very close historically (although the founder of the latter was inspired by St. Francis).
From what I read, it's exactly as you say: people expect either a reaction swing to conservativism or a a big swing towards modernity. Pope Francis was old and could not do much, but he tried to set a path for the latter, afaiu.
Fully agree. It's going to get interesting - by numbers, the Church is shrinking in its core lands of Europe, and it's growing in Africa, South America and Asia, but that isn't even closely reflected in political realities and the amount and importance of cardinals.
this italian (venetian) reggae band has been predicting it since 97, this song regains minor popularity in italy every time there is a new pope election
It always seems weird and ignorant for people to be labeling Catholic bishops as “left-wing” or “right-wing” or “liberal/progressive” or “conservative”.
Those are all political terms for politicians and their platforms or parties. They do not translate to Catholic doctrines or teachings. Y’all are simply parroting what the lamestream media wants to impose, a political veneer on non-politicians who are shepherds, pastors, teachers.
There very much is such a thing as a "progressive" and "conservative" wing in Catholicism, and the Vatican is well known to be very much a viper's nest. It's naive to imply that all those clergymen are simply "shepherds, pastors, teachers".
Catholic bishops and clergy like to meddle in politics.
In the US, reactionaries are dumping lots on money on the church, and many bishops have embraced right wing politics, stupidly aligning with evangelicals who deeply despise Catholicism in the process.
Some of the moves made are comically dumb. The archbishop of New York decided to make a big show about denying communion to the notoriously vindictive former governor of the state. That governor subsequently changed the look back period for civil sex abuse lawsuits, which has bankrupted or is in the process of bankrupting dioceses as they are forced to own up to their failures to protect children.
Under his watch he did not move the church to fully acknowledge or deal with the historical and widespread abuses the organization he led was involved with. He had opportunity to be the leader to bring the organization around and he did not. Let's all hope his replacement will.
I don’t think anyone who would be ready to completely do a 180 with the Catholic Church will be the pope soon (or ever, given how the system works). He has, however, nudged that ship in the right direction and with what he has done and with his appointees. Let’s just hope it continues with whoever replaces him.
Pope Francis has done much to transform the Catholic church into a more progressive and inclusive institution. If not for his papacy, it was somewhat likely that the church would drift too far from Millennial values to keep its former relevance.
Hopefully, the next pope will also champion unity, inclusivity, and peace, and oppose religious dogmatism. This will define the future of Christianity. Many challenges remain for the institution.
There's been much talk of the Church finally electing a black Pope from sub-Saharan Africa. The irony is that, if they are inclusive enough to do so, the selected Pope will almost certainly be more hard-line and doctrinaire than any of his recent predecessors on issues like homosexuality. Here's one of the contenders:
Of the current widely accepted papabili, Peter Turkson is from Sub-Saharan Africa. He is softly pro-LGBT, and he seeks to harmonize the progressive homosexuality views with traditional African culture[0]. I don't think Robert Sarah is considered papabile, possibly owing to his message of hate for homosexuality. Overall, it's inconsistent with the recent message of the church, and it is hard to imagine that progressive Catholics would accept it.
Interesting that they identify mostly progressives as papabile. If they're right, Francis did an excellent job behind the scenes to set up the Church to do in the future what he could not in the present.
> May the principle of humanity never fail to be the hallmark of our daily actions. In the face of the cruelty of conflicts that involve defenceless civilians and attack schools, hospitals and humanitarian workers, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that it is not targets that are struck, but persons, each possessed of a soul and human dignity.
"Think of those souls!" reads to me cynically close to "don't think of those who ordered and executed those strikes". Almost like a deliberate distraction. When you turn forgiveness into a carte blanche for serial sin, you're doing Christianity wrong.
I interpret it very differently from you. Modern warfare is directing drones at 'targets' based on 'intelligence' with little regard for the collateral damage. We see it daily in the news in various conflicts: children killed in strikes with the excuse being that bad guys were also in the vicinity - zero regard for the innocents. It' a reminder that just because you don't have to see the destruction you cause (thanks to modern technology) innocents are still being killed by your actions and you shouldn't forget that (and maybe should reconsider your actions).
I do agree that narratives and morals matter. That said is hard for me to reconcile this statement with the late pope's stance on the Ukraine war. His narrative about this was that it is a regrettable conflict between brother nations and that the sides should somehow resolve their disagreement. He didn't once admit that Russia is the aggressor and is one sidedly pushing for war, not to speak about condemning the aggressor.
I understand that a leader of an organization that acts on historic time scale might be reluctant to take sides in contemporary conflicts. Nevertheless always washing your hands in every conflict is not morality, it is cowardice. It enables evil and is in direct conflict with "narratives and morals matter".
> I understand that a leader of an organization that acts on historic time scale might be reluctant to take sides in contemporary conflicts.
Even from this Historical optic, it doesn't make much sense in my opinion - it's not like Ukrainians didn't suffer at the hands of Russians/USSR in the past.
> Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, at the age of 88 at his residence in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta.
> Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, the Vatican has announced. - Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected to lead the Catholic Church in March 2013 after Pope Benedict XVI stood down.
He wasn’t an intellectual giant like his predecessor and I disagreed with some of his positions, but at the end of the day I do think that he was a good man. May he rest in peace.
I wonder if a Pope's funeral can serve as an occasion for backdoor diplomacy - the world needs a lot of that.
If the next Pope is young and energetic, he may want to use his first few days making a mark in history by putting people from different side of different conflicts.
Paraxodically, he may have more chance putting the Israelis and Palestinian around a table (or at least provide the optics for a deal that would be discussed in the usual boring transactional way.)
On the other hand, one has to wonder what a populist pope would do (interfere in elections ? Make a u turn on climate, migrants, etc... ? Go back to hardcore conservatism ? Or fall into irrelevance ?)
In my early 20s I was part of secular and socialist Jewish research centre. Franciskus was just voted as the new pope, and my first assignment was to write an opinion paper about him, and forecast his future actions. I don't think anyone, including myself, expected that I'll end up with a positive report — religion was almost always a negative thing, and Catholic Christianity even more so. However, I concluded that his action seem to show that he cares more for people rather than for specific rules or biblical quotes. That he is flexible and open to changing things. In retrospect, I think the whole world benefited from his openness. I wish we could say that about other influential religious leaders.
So Pope Francis departs for a meeting with his boss perhaps?
Jokes aside, he seemed like a genuinely decent human being and enough of a humanist to cast aside some of the drier absurdities surrounding the bureaucracy of Catholic Church administration, and ideology.
Even as someone who's deep in the skeptically agnostic camp on any questions about supreme creators (after all even a firm atheist can't be absolutely sure there is no genuine God) I had more respect for the apparent practical concern for humanity of this pope, particularly compared to the more typical nature of historical pontiffs.
RIP, I have given Francis my prayers for his soul and his close ones and everyone who saw him as a leader and a holy figure. God can use anything for the good <3
With most figureheads there will be words or actions with which you disagree. But his rejection of the 'riches' that came with the job, especially in the early days will hopefully outlast him.
I'm curious how devout Catholics will perceive it when the leader of their Church dies on their holiest day, which commemorates the resurrection of Christ. Will they going to see it as a symbol, a sign, or perhaps some kind of deeper message?
The way I see it, expecting holy days to somehow be "safe" ignores the basis on which the Church was built.
Martyrs were mauled by lions regardless of their work in spreading the word of God. Jesus himself died just like the common thieves next to him. The Catholic Church is built by people, and people sometimes die.
When I think about it being the Pope is quite a position, probably the most unique in our world?
You have to be:
- A head of state, meaning taking positions though UN votes, etc.
- A "CEO", there is a lot of "business" decision to be taken to run the Vatican and the Church. I mean the Vatican can be seen as a giant museum (no offense) with a lot of people flowing in everyday so that need to be managed.
- But first he is a religious, spiritual leader and has to steer its evolution.
- Many also still see him steering an entire civilisation. Whether you are a Catholic or not, he is at the center of something.
And for political side - in Poland, he was seen as way too leftist/liberal for the conservatives in Church, and too pro-Russian for the liberals in it - he had not condemned Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This was a very interesting thing to witness. It seemed to indicate that politics is more powerful than religion, even in a country as religious as Poland.
I found this surprising and genuinely thought-provoking.
I had been talking with my conservative colleagues - they were deeply unhappy with him on stance of migration, LGBT issues, or even very recent - his talk with Vance, whom they support (American politics are just so big that it has effect on us even across the ocean).
Then, from religious point of view - they didn't really like his ecumenism approach, to them it was borderline of heresy.
I was born in, and currently live in Poland. It truly blows my mind that any Polish person could side with a foreign political party that openly sides with moscow over Ukraine and even Poland. Political alignment is truly the strongest drug for many people.
While I support Ukraine and would like to see a stronger, more unified front from the collective West, making this the only question that matters in Polish politics seems wrong. My 2c.
Also, while I think that barring a fringe part of society, everyone would agree, the fun part is, how do you get to people to agree who's pro-Russian or not ;) Of course, this is for local parties, but go to /r/Poland and /r/Polska and ask them, what parties are pro-Russian. Then to Wykop, both Mikroblog and frontpage, and see the reactions.
Anecdotally, my uncle just dropped by to thank me for the Easter flowers I had left at their place. He is pretty conservative, had always railed against this pope, and just called him a really good man. So at least today, religion and forgiveness won his heart.
At one point Francis said "The Patriarch cannot become Putin’s altar boy", in reference to Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church [1]. Maybe Francis recognised that working to get Kirill to temper his support for Putin would be more effective than his own public condemnation, which might allow propagandists to whip up a Western vs. Orthodox religious frenzy to unify Russians behind Putin?
The concept of Liberal in the US is different from liberal in Europe. In Europe "liberal" means supporter of low taxes, small govertment. The concept in the US has to do with sexual liberation and sexual freedom more than economic marxism.
Francis was not sexually liberal. He was marxist. He believed in liberation theology.
As someone who knew personally the man from a spiritual exercises' house in Spain(obviously when he was not yet Pope), I never liked the guy.
He was the friend of dictators. Loved so much Raul Castro, and Maduro, never criticised them, but criticised the affluence of western democracies. His business was the poor and he loved poor makers.
His support for Putin and not denouncing the takeover of absolute power was jarring for someone in his position.
You can be a leftist religious leader, but you have to report abuses when you see them, specially if the abuses are made by your friends. Of course you will lose them if you do.
Francis was too weak in character to oppose them. But as a Pope, that is your job.
Why is this posted on HN, even twice? It’s not like other news sources won’t announce this. The pope had its good and bad sides, but in the end we should remind ourselves he’s just a human being. It’s OK for HN to inform about people here, but shouldn’t they be somehow related to any topics HN touches? The popes was just a guy who somehow got popular because of some quite successful religion - but I’d personally prefer keep religion out of HN.
It's conventional for there to be a thread on HN when a major pubic figure dies. If you look at the list of obituary posts on HN [1], several of the biggest were for politicians, royals, and others unrelated to computer science and technology.
It's in keeping with the convention that stories that have "significant new information" are on topic for HN, and that includes major mainstream news stories when they first break.
This isn't a headline service or newswire. It's a place for discussion too. He was the head of a large institution that has a lot of influence. And the views of the institution on emergent technologies is very much relevant. Those views are greatly shaped by the one at the top for their stint. This post isn't about religion.
- The pope was not only a very important religious and political leader but also wrote and spoke about the relationship between humans and technology [1, 2]
- I joined Hacker News due to its links but stayed for the community of smart and thoughtful people (and the great moderation). Oftentimes, a HN submission acts as a seed crystal for "off-topic" discussions that people want to talk about. As the people that make up this community get older, and as the times change, the topics we discuss change, too. At some level, technology always has political, moral, ideological implications. For me, HN is one of the best places to discuss these.
I concur. I believe that political and religious discussions are better suited for other platforms rather than HN. I am not particularly interested in the Pope, if I were, I could find coverage of the topic on mainstream news sources. There’s nothing interesting here from a technical or startup perspective.
I understand the intention behind keeping the thread respectful, especially in the context of someone’s death. That said, I find it difficult to fully separate reflections on Pope Francis from reflections on the institution he led. The papacy is not just a personal role—it is deeply representative of the Catholic Church as an institution, with all the historical and present-day weight that carries.
It also stands out to me that similar moderation reminders don't usually appear in threads about other public figures. That gives the impression that this topic is being treated as more sensitive or "untouchable" than others, and I think it's fair to question why that is.
I'm all for thoughtful conversation, but part of that includes being able to engage critically with the institutions and roles that public figures embody—even in moments like this.
It may be unusual for this kind of reminder to be posted on an obituary thread, but it's not so unusual for it to be posted on a thread about a religious topic. There's nothing to read into this other than we all know that religion is a topic that elicits strong reactions in people and is one of the most frequent topics of bitter argument, and that's just the thing we're trying to avoid on HN.
It's fine to talk about the larger institution he led; please just keep to the HN guidelines, which apply equally to all threads on HN, and which, in particular, ask us to be thoughtful and substantive, and to avoid generic tangents.
(I've edited my top comment, to clarify what I think should be deemed on/off topic.)
> similar moderation reminders don't usually appear in threads about other public figures.
Friend, this is not true. "dang" himself has often exhorted posters in this same manner and language when a notable death may attract inconsiderate commentary.
See the search link provided by tomhow in this branch of the same discussion:
"Pope for our times" should be seen a contradiction in terms.
We should well be past the point as a species where we care what decrepit old wizards on golden thrones have to say about anything, much less morality.
Yes, we should, but despite our current state, the pontiff can still generate momentum for progressive global policies, and in that regard, Pope Francis was a breath of fresh air.
Not every "prominent elder" deserves respect. Certainly not on the basis that men in a smoke filled room elected them the infallible avatar of a God that most people don't even believe in. People are in awe of this latest Pope because his morals were essentially normal and not medieval. The Pope was just a guy in a robe.
The world would be much better off if we listened to scientists and scholars - people who at least earned the authority with which they speak - the way we listen to priests.
Francis would have been the first to call himself just a guy in a robe. I’m an atheist and don’t find it difficult to listen to people of all faiths put forward moral philosophy, and I can identify parts that I agree with even if I might disagree that there is any supernatural basis for them. There’s a wide world of thought available that is simply outside the remit of science, and there is a lot to be gained from listening to people who have spent their lives dedicated to that domain, even if some of it is wrong, and even if none of it is founded in peer-reviewed academic papers.
I'm not even a tin-hatter and that is immediately where my mind went when I saw the headline. Vance and his ilk are so incredibly near-sighted that it would bolster them to think they could plot such a thing and play it off as a coincidence.
We know with absolute certainty that he died soon after Easter. Literally tens of thousands of people saw with their own eyes that he was alive yesterday (and billions saw it on TV). Exactly when he died between the end of his public appearance and the announcement is hard to know, but also ultimately irrelevant. This would be the biggest topic of discussion in Europe, Africa, and the Americas at the very least regardless of when it happened. And, if there were some goal to increase news coverage in Asia, where there are relatively fewer Christians as a percentage of the population, the announcement (9:45 in Italy) was somewhat late in the middle of the day, at least for China (about 14:45 in China, when everyone is at work and not watching news, either on TV or social media).
What "public relations games" are they playing? He was out in public yesterday afternoon. And they announced the death a few hours after it happened. The death of a Pope will get maximum media coverage regardless of the time or day it happens - it's going to be headline news for weeks.
I believe you will find the majority of progressive Jews has said that Israel, and more specifically the government of Israel, does not speak for Jews worldwide. In fact many rabbis have written about the nauseating position of having Israel be considered a representative of all Jews by so many people
You used the word indistinguishable, the other person used "deep". You are factually wrong since the ratio of Hamas to Gazan casualties does not represent random targeting even by the worst estimates. You also ignore the possibility of Hamas eventually giving up or some other diplomatic solution being reached.
We are a highly technical community, we should be able to debug the situation and find edge cases rather than trivialize it.
> You used to word indistinguishable, the other person used "deep". You are factually wrong since the ratio of Hamas to Gazan casualties does not represent random targeting even by the worst estimates.
True, I apologize for the misrepresentation; but reasoning is the same. At some point Hamas is too deeply ingrained in Gazawi society for Israel to perfectly excise it.
Hamas is the civilian government of Gaza and therefore includes firefighters, doctors, policemen, teachers. Israel does count them as members of Hamas and relies on statistical methods to select targets (ie you are on the same WhatsApp group as a member of Hamas, therefore you are likely to be a member, see the "Lavender" target selection program).
For a point of comparison, after Nazi Germany collapsed the Western allies had German civil servants fill questionnaires to assess their level of involvement; of 3.6 millions surveyed, just 1% were charged as "main culprits" (Hauptschuldige), whereas a third were designated as "followers" (Mitläufer), who basically contributed to the regime's crimes but nontheless got to keep their jobs after the war. I'd argue the allies were way too lenient on Germany, but the current Israeli approach (kill them all) is too extreme and will not work because its objectives are unrealistic.
> You also ignore the possibility of Hamas eventually giving up or some other diplomatic solution being reached.
I sure hope peace will be reached but Israel is waging a war without clear conditions of victory, leaving only total destruction of the enemy as their strategic objective. Think of the US trying to eliminate all the communist Vietnamese by compiling kill counts.
My impression is the war will end either when Gaza is drained of all of its population, or Israel tires of the war and reduces its stated objectives (probably this would involve a shift in government).
> We are a highly technical community, we should be able to debug the situation and find edge cases rather than trivialize it.
We can't solve everything with tech principles. Even in our field, probably the biggest thing separating a senior from a junior is humility and ability to connect with other people.
> For a point of comparison, after Nazi Germany collapsed the Western allies had German civil servants fill questionnaires to assess their level of involvement; of 3.6 millions surveyed, just 1% were charged as "main culprits" (Hauptschuldige), whereas a third were designated as "followers" (Mitläufer), who basically contributed to the regime's crimes but nontheless got to keep their jobs after the war. I'd argue the allies were way too lenient on Germany, but the current Israeli approach (kill them all) is too extreme and will not work because its objectives are unrealistic.
You're comparing the Allies' actions after WWII concluded with Israel's actions in the midst of conflict.
Are you forgetting the Dresden firebombings?
Are you really suggesting that Israel will continue to "kill them all" if Hamas surrenders? That's not even what Israel is doing now, although they have the military capability to do so if they wished.
I'm comparing the stated goal of Israel (dehamasification) with denazification.
The allies' strategic bombing campaign was intended to destroy industry and infrastructure and was not aimed at any political group in particular, whereas Israel can and does target precise buildings associated with Hamas (see the "Lavender" program that provides bombing targets).
> That's not even what Israel is doing now
There's no real way to know since Israel does not allow journalists in Gaza, but the international court of justice found there was sufficient possibility that an investigation should be carried out. Are you so much better informed than them that you can be sure?
> therefore, Israel must eliminate all Gazawis itself to guarantee its security
Guess why they're keeping the Palestinians on a run: to ransack the entire place for weapons caches or Gaza Metro entrances. And that's not eliminating the Gazan population, by the way.
I don't like it very much myself, but honestly, I do not see any other way of making sure Hamas does not rise up again.
> Will Israel kill millions to avenge the deaths of thousands?
Again: it's not about revenge any more, it's about preventing the repeat of 2006-2023 aka constant terror from Qassam rockets and other terrorism.
I wonder what would have happened if the Americans had taken the same approach with the Iraqis and the Afganis. As someone said, if your enemy is carrying a baby, you don't punch him through the baby, you punch around it.
The staggering number of civilian casualties, deaths and literal executions that have been inflicted in the name of peace must give the acting populace a pause. In the name of humanity. The place is just rubble now. How much more security could one country want? No one else has done something like this since the first world war.
> Guess why they're keeping the Palestinians on a run: to ransack the entire place for weapons caches or Gaza Metro entrances.
Let's say Israel finds all caches and tunnels, while not disturbing the population of Gaza (besides blockade, forced displacement and destruction of their homes), and then lets the population back in. Israel cannot tell Hamas militants from civilians, so some measure of Hamas will survive the event -- indeed, it might even reinforce anti-Israeli sentiment. What then would stop these leftover Hamas members from rebuilding whatever smuggling routes and weapon caches they had?
> Again: it's not about revenge any more, it's about preventing the repeat of 2006-2023 aka constant terror from Qassam rockets and other terrorism.
According to OCHAOPT Israel suffered 138 casualties on its own territory (ie excluding Gaza and the West Bank) from Palestinian attacks from 2008 to the eve of October 7. Would you say the current Israeli response (which itself inflicts terror) has been proportionate? Where would you place the threshold where it would no longer be an acceptable response?
> What then would stop these leftover Hamas members from rebuilding whatever smuggling routes and weapon caches they had?
Disbanding UNRWA, for one, and replacing it with UNHCR which is responsible for every other refugee situation in the world. It's time for the end of the special treatment of Palestinians, and that includes getting rid of inheriting the refugee status.
Following that, there must be strict accountability on all aids and their eventual disbursement in Gaza and the West Bank. No more diversion of construction materials to Gaza Metro, no more diversion of food aid and then re-selling it.
The final important thing to do is stop funding Hamas, and that one falls squarely on Israel, where Netanyahu has covertly funded Hamas to keep Fatah in check. When there's no money to pay for smuggled Qassam parts, there won't be any more smuggled Qassam parts.
> Would you say the current Israeli response (which itself inflicts terror) has been proportionate?
Yes. Israelis had to live 17 years in terror of rockets from Gaza. There's no way calling this acceptable in any form. Hamas and those backing it knew that eventually, Israeli patience would end one day and there would be hell to pay for it.
The word massacre is loaded and does not represent the typical reality in Gaza. Most estimates place the ratio of combatant to civilian casualties within the range for armed conflicts, nevermind guerilla warfare settings.
> With all due respect, massacring civilians because “you have no other choice” is historically not an excuse holding up in courts.
The thing is, under the rules of war, protected installations (such as residential areas or even hospitals) lose their protection if they are being abused by a warring party for military operations. Otherwise, it would be an open invitation for anyone to do what Hamas did - force the other party between either risking getting shot at or violating rules of war.
No one forced Hamas to embed themselves among civilians. They did that on their own.
> protected installations (such as residential areas or even hospitals) lose their protection if they are being abused by a warring party for military operations
You should maybe research where key millitary apparatus of the Israeli state is located. The headquarters of the IDF for example.
I am familiar with IDF headquarters, they are located in a clearly marked base, you can see it on Google Maps. This is similar to French army's Hexagone Balard in Paris or the Italian and Dutch armies HQ for example, from a cursory search, ask your local LLM for more.
It's in a residential area. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy.
The whole area is heavily militarized, there are bases everywhere, citizens are automaticlaly enrolled into the IDF - every Israeli citizen in a certain age group can be considered a legitimate millitary target if you follow your logic.
The arguments you are using for attacking Palestinian infastructure and people are more than applicable to Israeli infastructure and population.
In international law people have the right to resist occupation through millitary means. In a small area under occupation then there is no means to create a millitary setup that matches what the 'good guys' consider to be legitimate.
If you want to be consistent then allow Palestinians to have a millitary, air space, airports, ports, navy, jets, nuclear weapons etc. And then you can fight them on equal terms.
> No one forced Hamas to embed themselves among civilians.
Of cource Israel forced them to. "Force" means to use violence to let someone do certain things, i.e. if they don't do those certain things, they get violence. And looking at the records of the past decades, whatever Hamas (among everyone else in Gaza) did or didn't, Israel did violence to them. So whatever Hamas do, it's forced by Israel, since if they don't, Israel does violence to them.
On the other hand, no one is forcing Israel to bomb civilians right now. No one will do violence to them if they stop bombing.
All that has been said under this thread, including the sibling comment to this one, could be true at the same time. I see dissenting stances where the opinions are not.
>that is mostly made of misheard slogans and made up discriminations
Aside from legitimate concern about the genocide in Gaza, there's also been a rise in good-old-fashioned antisemitism, especially among young people: https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/46-adults-worldw... . For instance: 40% of those under age 35 affirm that “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars” while it is 29% for those over 50, a remarkable 11 percentage point difference.
The argument that claims of antisemitism are exagerated is ridiculous, there are prominent figures with ties to the US government giving literal nazi salutes. That said, the reaction of the ADL to those figures leads me to question their integrity as well.
Did you really have to make this comment here on this post?
I think you intentionally wrote it to spark a fire as well.
"systematically massacring tens of thousands with the declared intent of ethnic cleansing"
You know yourself that so many people disagree with you about this and sees this as an outrageous claim.
It's very much not an outrageous claim, it is in fact the shared opinion of literally all non-partisan international organizations that have studied the conflict in any way - including the UN, the Red Cross, the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, Doctors without Borders, and many many many others. And it is not unrelated to Pope Francis or his death, as he spoke about the humanitarian tragedy in Palestine just yesterday, in his last public speech.
Bergoglio was a South American intellectual. He could recognize a proxy war when he saw one. That's why his account of the war was a tad more complex and articulated than that of the average liberal Anglo.
I'm not liberal Anglo(or any Anglo), so let me explain - Russia attacked Ukraine, because it thinks it's imperium. Russia kills Ukrainians and destroys their country for their sick ambitions.
Fact that other countries use the war for their own politics doesn't change it in the slightest.
That's a generalization that does not help the vision of the world he had. Putin is the villain. Spreading the bad image of Russian people in general is not really helping anything. Even if the polls in Russia might show support for the war, it's mostly because everybody in Russia if afraid of speaking their opinion in public.
Putin is a product of Russian culture. To deny discussions about failed, catastrophic nurture equals handing the debate via silence back to the racist and nature.
Ignoring the patterns by paying attention only to conflicts with the west / clichees involved gets your ideas bankrupt .
They're not afraid, they're disinterested in politics as long as it doesn't affect their day to day life, so food and fuel prices remaining manageable.
Putin is popular and has personal interest in remaining so, because otherwise Russian elites will find themselves a new Putin.
HN focuses on fostering thoughtful discussion by curious people on anything those folks find interesting. Technology naturally bubbles up, but it is far from the only thing on HN.
This focus on people is to me, is WAY better than theme-based filtering (compare with many subreddit cesspools).
Within the scope of the Catholic Church he was progressive. His speeches were often in opposition to rising nationalism. He spoke about inclusion for people who haven't traditionally been included by the Church. In comparison to Benedict he was much more friendly to the global left.
But he was also a Catholic. The Church remains a global enemy to LGBT rights and its position on birth control is a source of death and devastation from AIDS as you mention. And the Church remains committed to a system of gender inequality within its ranks.
I do think that some of the lefty praise of Francis incorrectly ignores these problems. But also I'd rather have Francis than Benedict.
It'll be interesting to see what happens next. Two years ago I would have said that the next pope would certainly be a reactionary that returns to a more rigid conservatism. But with Trump elected and the rest of the world reacting to his idiocy I can see there being more limited appetite for a conservative turn within the Church leadership.
The real (non theological) reason why women are not allowed to be priests is because if you take a random mass of humans and you let them elect a leader, in 100% of the cases that leader will be a man. So don't blame Catholics for the faults of humanity.
I think he will be mostly remembered as a terrible politician, first alienating conservatives with progressive policy and then alienating liberals with very questionable opinions on war in Ukraine.
In the end, nobody was really happy with him. On the other hand, he definitely had a will and a spine to stick to his own opinions - I guess that counts for something.
A comment I'd heard some time back concerned a politician. The speaker (not a politician themselves, but recalling an interaction with one) had said to the politician something like "I suppose you want to win with the biggest majority possible". The politician responded along the lines of, "No, that would mean I wasn't doing my job; if I'm really pushing the limits of the possible I'll have just the barest majority."
People pleasing in politics means never pushing out of the public's comfort zone.
(And no, this isn't an endorsement of any current orange head of state, far from it.)
This is true if you live in a bubble. Most Catholics don't hold strong opinions on the Pope. The people who do are, as usual, the extremes on either side - not the majority.
this is such an intensely off base comment, youre back seat politicking the pope? You think he alienated conservatives and not that American conservatives went off the deep end and find themselves suicidally agitated over the lightest "love your neighbor"? I dont know anyone whos mad at him over Ukraine either, thats extremely minor.
Dude just died, rest in peace francis, the most popular pope we've had in decades.
Of course I am happily criticising pope from back seat, this thread is literally to discuss him as a public figure.
Already said that conservative and liberal are English words not necessarily connected to US political scene. I know plenty of people initially supportive of him who got seriously pissed when he broke the long standing tradition of supporting the attacked, not the attacker.
I would argue it’s a pretty common position in Europe.
Does anyone have any theories why his predecessor, Benedict, so shockingly resigned? (And then, according to this article, continued to live there, which was news to me).
The conventional wisdom is that Benedict was a hardline, conservative nut who had to resign for unknown reasons and was replaced by this well-loved, progressive guy. As seen in this thread, lots of people liked him and his philosophy, and his progressive take on things which always made the news, as he focused on the poor and traveled the world.
However, I've heard the conspiracy that Benedict was forced out, possibly related to his investigations into the child sex abuse scandal, maybe because he was finding important people involved. He was always very focused on the Church itself. And Francis was chosen, almost as a patsy, to end those investigations and instead be the friendly Pope out away from the Vatican.
I just always thought Benedict's resignation was surprising and there was something more to the story.
Conventional wisdom is he attempted to resign 3 times, had a stroke, and had a pacemaker all before he spent a further 8 years of his career elected as pope and then actually resigned. This all extends decades prior to his final resignation, giving the same health and desire for retirement reasons as prior attempts.
As for whether there was something more than the conventional wisdom to the story... I'm not really sure the news of his successors death is the correct thread to spawn that conversation in as it's getting to have little to do with Francis.
> The line between good and evil is very clear in this case.
> Edit: I mean Ukraine war.
Yes but it's not clear yet who will win, and the church cannot afford siding with the losing side, especially that now it's weakest it's been since medieval times.
It would be different materially. The rallying cry would be different for one.
No matter who did it, it would still be 'evil'. There would be 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. Specially when the labels would be applied to dead children and innocents under rubble. Everyone keeps forgetting them.
Just because you think they would do the same to you, does not justify your actions.
>That is a great and underused method of evaluating moral judgments and I believe that it’s very suitable in this particular case.
It also dilutes the current and very real responsibilities of the 'effectors'. In saying 'they would have done the same' it becomes very easy to justify the unjustifiable.
> [basically] What if in a different world Hamas had all the weapons plus the backing of the US while Israel only had shoddy weapons?
In a hypothetical world where Usain Bolt was raised on Greenland and became interested in competitive gaming: would he have become the fastest human? Probably not. Different timelines.
This Sam Harris exercise is meaningless. The goal is not to measure the level of evil in the hearts of <hamas> or <isreali government>. That’s impossible. Hypotheticals that have nothing to do with reality are also fruitless. The goal is to figure out what evil actions are being committed and stop them.
But the abuser only did those things because he was abused as a child for eight yea— What’s that got to do with the problem at hand?
> The goal is not to measure the level of evil in the hearts of <hamas> or <isreali government>. That’s impossible.
The goal of thought experiment wasn't to measure evil or good. It's to determine if the lines between good and evil are that far apart.
If Ukraine was way stronger than Russia, would it try to annex Kursk and other non-Ukraine regions? Would it commit as many atrocities? No. It would be constrained by its desire to join EU. Could it do it if it had 30 more people, more nationalistic populace, and near infinite ammo supply? Probably.
But a litmus test, just tells you rough acidity, not exact pH either.
All: The topic of this thread is the passing of a significant public figure. Discussion should be primarily focused on thoughtful reflections on the life of that person, and his influence on the institution he represented and the broader world. Generic commentary about the institution, religion in general, or other public figures or issues, is likely off topic.*
Before commenting, please take a moment to consider whether your comment is within the HN guidelines [1], particularly the first two:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
(*Edited in response to community feedback.)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Pope Francis caused quite a bit of controversy among Catholics. From his crackdown on the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass) to his often unscripted, pastoral tone on issues like sexuality, economics, and interfaith dialogue, he unsettled many and yet drew others closer to the Church. With his passing, we’re left to process a papacy that disrupted in the deepest sense of the word.
As a Catholic, I often found myself both inspired and unsettled by him. His theology wasn’t always systematic, but it was deeply Ignatian, rooted in discernment, encounter, and movement toward the margins. Francis often chose gestures over definitions, and presence over proclamations. That doesn't always scale well in a Church that spans continents, cultures, and centuries.
His legacy will be debated. But I think what made him so compelling, especially to someone who lives in the modern world but tries to be formed by ancient faith is that he forced us to confront the tension between tradition and aggiornamento not as an abstract debate, but as something lived.
He reminded me that the Church isn’t a museum, nor is it a startup. It’s something stranger.. the best I can described it is a body that somehow survives by dying daily.
- Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.
Looking back on his papacy, I agree that we was very divisive in some aspects but also, being the pope has to be one of the hardest jobs on the planet, he's basically a world leader.
At the "world leader" level it's impossible to do a job in a way where everyone will think it's a good job, you're always going to piss off one group or another with practically any action in any direction.
IMO he took on one of the hardest tasks at the church which is "modernization". The way I look at it is the church is so old that it constantly needs modernization. But that comes at a steep cost as while you are attracting new parishioners, many of your older ones will scoff at the changes. And because of the church's age, this is something that must be done over and over and over again.
A teacher of mine often reminds me that in many cultures—like Japanese and Native American traditions—the role of having an enemy is viewed with a certain respect. Enemies help define us. They challenge us, sharpen us, and push us to grow. Western culture tends to abhor the idea of having enemies, but sometimes, having them simply means you’ve stood for something meaningful—something worth noticing.
It seems Pope Francis had his share of critics—those who opposed his beliefs or feared his vision. And yet, he stood firm and made people think. In that sense, perhaps even his enemies affirmed the impact he was making.
Being both inspiring and unsettling to me says he did the job well. I will remember him as the smiling Pope.
The Vatican published an interesting document on AI [1], which attributes a number of quotes to Pope Francis:
* As Pope Francis noted, the machine “makes a technical choice among several possibilities based either on well-defined criteria or on statistical inferences. Human beings, however, not only choose, but in their hearts are capable of deciding."
* In light of this, the use of AI, as Pope Francis said, must be “accompanied by an ethic inspired by a vision of the common good, an ethic of freedom, responsibility, and fraternity, capable of fostering the full development of people in relation to others and to the whole of creation.”
* As Pope Francis observes, “in this age of artificial intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary to save our humanity.”
* As Pope Francis observes, “the very use of the word ‘intelligence’” in connection with AI “can prove misleading”
[1] https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu...
> * As Pope Francis observes, “the very use of the word ‘intelligence’” in connection with AI “can prove misleading”
Yes, LLMs are more about knowledge than intelligence. AK rather than AI.
Illustrating perfectly how wide this conversation really is, as we don't even have consensus about what "knowledge" means :)
In 2021, during a visit to the Greek island of Mytilene, Pope Francis delivered one of the finest speeches I've ever read:
> This great basin of water, the cradle of so many civilizations, now looks like a mirror of death. Let us not let our sea (mare nostrum) be transformed into a desolate sea of death (mare mortuum). Let us not allow this place of encounter to become a theatre of conflict. Let us not permit this “sea of memories” to be transformed into a “sea of forgetfulness”. Please brothers and sisters, let us stop this shipwreck of civilization!
> We are in the age of walls and barbed wire. To be sure, we can appreciate people’s fears and insecurities, the difficulties and dangers involved, and the general sense of fatigue and frustration, exacerbated by the economic and pandemic crises. Yet problems are not resolved and coexistence improved by building walls higher, but by joining forces to care for others according to the concrete possibilities of each and in respect for the law, always giving primacy to the inalienable value of the life of every human being
Worth reading in full https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/de...
Isn't Mytilene a city while the island itself is called Lesvos?
Technically yes, but they're used interchangeably nowdays. Plus, the official transcript mentions "Mytilene" so I wanted to follow that. Although I use Lesvos myself.
With no opinion one way or another on the pope.. In the modern world this is a weird criteria to judge people on. I assume like every modern politician, he doesn't write his own speeches. A quite google search seems to confirm it
https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/02/does-the-pope-write-his-o...
Who cares? He said it. The words are his responsibility. If his speech had advocated for grinding orphans into a nutritious paste, we wouldn’t be defending him on the basis that he didn’t write those words. He chose to read them and give them his official backing.
The link says:
> My suspicion is that Pope Francis may have more to do with crafting his own speeches than did previous pontiffs, because Pope Francis’ talks strike me as more spontaneous, conversational, and unfiltered.
Anyway, a public figure is still giving the direction and “plot points” to their speech writer.
I will never forget his sympathy for the motives of the terrorists who massacred staff at Charlie Hebdo:
“If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch,” Francis said while pretending to throw a punch in his direction.
He added: “It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”[0]
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/charlie-hebd...
> You cannot insult the faith of others
Why not? The concept of proportionality between an “offense” and a response that characterizes the liberal worldview was entirely missing here. If one chooses to take offense about some deeply held personal view, whatever it is, then fine; but let your response be proportional.
The music of Beethoven is sacred to me, let’s say, but I’m not prepared to murder you if you mock it, or miss a note in performance.
The pope’s threat of physical intervention himself seems at odds with the teachings of his own faith, too, as I understand them. Turn the other cheek, and all. But that would be for adherents to say for sure.
Remember, a judge let Neil Armstrong off for punching a moon landing denier in the face due to persistent taunting.
That being said, as an American, the culture of mocking and gracefully learning from being mocked runs deep in my blood. I don't know if others share that same worldview.
> as an American [...] I don't know if others share that same worldview.
I'm far from American, but have the same "blood", but I think it has nothing to do with being American/Swedish/Spanish/whatever, some people have different personalities, upbringings and strengths/weaknesses simply.
Americans aren't "tougher-skinned" by default or anything, at least I didn't get that experience from interacting with Americans.
> That being said, as an American, the culture of mocking and gracefully learning from being mocked runs deep in my blood. I don't know if others share that same worldview.
This is quickly getting forgotten.
> Remember, a judge let Neil Armstrong off for punching a moon landing denier in the face due to persistent taunting.
That didn’t happen. The person you mean was Buzz Aldrin and it looks like there weren’t even charges filed, and there was no judge involved.
That was Buzz Aldrin
I believe that in the incident you referring to, it was Buzz Aldrin who did the punching. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/buzz-aldrin-punched-conspi...
I think there's an implied "and not expect a response" there.
If you insult unhinged people (and people who kill over a mere 'offense' to their religion are unhinged), don't be surprised when you receive an unhinged response back.
I didn’t hear from him any call-to-arms to defend Christianity from those who keep making fun of it left and right. Be it other religious faiths or quasi-religious political movements. His actions seemed the opposite tbh.
That’s reprehensible, but also refreshingly open-minded. It shows an awareness that other religions deserve an equal footing to his own. I prefer this over the nuts who decry Sharia law while wanting to implement a Christian equivalent.
Any Christian fundamentalist who advocates for its religion to become law is a bad Christian who never understood the lesson behind "Render unto Caesar...".
Now, contrast with Islamic teachings. Not every Muslim will advocate for Sharia, but there is a non-negligible part of them (leadership included) who think that not advocating for Sharia is a sin.
This checks out - he worked as a bouncer at a nightclub to put himself through seminary.
Our leaders should not be normalizing or condoning responding to words with violence.
Such an attitude is abhorrent and shameful.
I think that article lost a bit of nuance somewhere. The Pope was specifically defending the right of Muslims to protest peacefully against deliberate insults to their religion:
> Francis spoke about the Paris attacks while on his way to the Philippines, where around 1,500 Muslims protested yesterday against the depictions of the Prophet in the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo. [0]
He also explicitly condemned violence:
> Francis insisted that it was an “aberration” to kill in the name of God and said religion can never be used to justify violence. [0]
So, he wasn't justifying the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office.
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/charlie-hebd...
Holy war in 3… 2… 1…
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis...
> According to Archbishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic Ceremonies, the late Pope Francis had requested that the funeral rites be simplified and focused on expressing the faith of the Church in the Risen Body of Christ.
Always struck me as a simple man and that likely contributed to people liking him more when compared to his predecessors. RIP.
His persona as being simple focus is just PR, no different than puff pieces about bill gates driving a Prius, or Warren buffet living in the first house that be bought.
Pope John Paul II was also extremely popular across the world.
He was, but John Paul II was traditionally conservative. I think Francis resonated with more people–Christian or not–because he emphasized compassion, humility, and social justice.
He spoke more openly about issues like poverty, climate change, and inclusion–his encyclical LAUDATO SI’ is a great read–, and he often used language and gestures that the "common man" could relate to.
Perhaps the way he dressed so simply–with the plain white cassock–also emphasized his overall approach: less focus on grandeur, more on service.
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"telling Ukraine to "have the courage of the white flag"."
Perhaps he should have told Russia to have the "courage" to stop murdering people.
do you think that would have even the slightest chance of changing anything?
So never speak against brutal aggressors who commit war crimes? That seems to be antithetical to Christian values.
John Paul II is widely credited with helping Poland overthrow communism. While he won't change the world overnight, there are millions of people even in Russia who respect the Roman Catholic pope, even if they aren't Roman Catholics themselves.
No but it puts the ball on their court
> telling Ukraine to "have the courage of the white flag".
If an aggressor attacks your country, it takes courage to surrender. Churchill was a coward it seems. He could have surrendered to the Germans and saved so many lives on both sides.
/s
Pope Francis was the only Pope that resonated with me. I was really shocked that at how human his words were. The moment he came on the scene he seemed genuine and honest. I hope they find more like him.
Hopefully not. Although I’m against Catholic Church for historical reasons, I respect JPII for his anti-communist stance. And Ratzinger was an interesting figure I can respect. Meanwhile Francis… hopefully he can kiss Putin ass soon.
There was an interview on NPR this morning with a high-level Jesuit in the Americas (former leader of the order in Canada and USA, IIRC).
He put it well... Pope Francis was always a pastor at heart. And he put the needs of the person in front of him ahead of strict doctrine. The interviewee likened it to triage in a field hospital - address the soul in front of you, worry about doctrine later (suture the wound, worry about cholesterol later).
I think it's interesting that PJII was very popular with Catholics and possibly less so with non-Christian. Despite or because being more conservative? He was also a very good man and humble.
JPII was a long running Pope. I would guess most people wouldn't know how conservative or not he was, or even what means in the context of the Catholic Church. He was the first Pope many of us knew, and the Pope who was with many of us the longest. He is probably most well known for the pope mobile.
Didn’t JPII rebuild the curia so that progressive popes like Francis could get closer to the keys of power?
JPII was also elected in a very different world. And he played a big moral role in taking down iron curtain and getting Eastern Europe back Europe.
Meanwhile Francis was quite the opposite. Especially as seen in the light of Russian aggression against Ukraine. For much of Eastern Europe that was like 180 turn. At least here both church goers and not seem to despise Francis while JPII has a warm place in the hearts both factions. Maybe it was different far away where Russia ain’t a hot topic.
His global appeal was real, but his decision to give Opus Dei and similar conservative Catholic networks special status under the Vatican had serious consequences.
Elevating Escrivá to sainthood and creating a personal prelature for Opus Dei handed them unmatched moral authority—authority they used to push back on women’s autonomy, justify discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and quietly influence politics from Spain to Latin America.
Popularity doesn’t erase the impact of empowering hard‑right movements that have harmed lives across the globe.
Even in Europe Opus Dei has immense influence in certain circles. I've seen first-hand the nefarious effects of that.
Part of that though was that he was Polish, at a time when Poland and other Eastern European countries were Communist dictatorships. He represented in part a kind of "insurgency" against them.
The first non-Italian pope since the 1500s. For comparison, note the 1968 movie The Shoes of the Fisherman, in which a priest from Russia unexpectedly becomes pope and provokes great political change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shoes_of_the_Fisherman_(fi...
In Poland, he was a figure bigger than life.
Since I see a lot of people commenting on this topic, I would like to offer a different perspective.
Pope JPII was for my southern European social democratic Catholic family much more polarizing than Pope Francis. Pope Francis had politics that are mainstream and not at all controversial in my part of the world. Whereas JPII was perceived as the guy who was buddies with Reagan and Bush and a general supporter of American foreign policy. To what extent that was a fair assessment, I do not want to comment, since he did try to speak against the invasion of Iraq.
None the less, it is not true that Pope Francis is more popular with non-Catholics (Reagan, Bush and most of the US were not Catholic and big supporters of JPII). It was also JPII that started the interfaith dialogue. It is also not true that Pope Francis is unpopular with Catholics.
There are Catholics all across the globe with vastly different opinions on all kinds of issues.
JP2 was liked by catholics (the reasons are interesting and complicated enough that would warrant a long discussion). But Francis was generally well-liked even by the irreligious.
I know a few muslims that liked him. I believe he just seemed like a "good guy" who wanted to unify the world
I thought the film the Two Popes gave a good overview of his life and perspective.
It’s important to note that The Two Popes was a drama, and not a true factual story.
It fictionalizes and sensationalizes some details; and that’s ok because its purpose is to make you feel exactly the way you feel about it.
Pope Francis was a wonderful steward of Christianity and espoused the virtues that anyone would want to see in their religious leaders: humility, grace, an openness to listen and a strong voice against even prelates in his own church that are xenophobic or nationalistic. He wanted us to welcome all and to live as the bible said Jesus did.
The fear I have is that each swing of the pendulum goes in two directions. He was far more “liberal” than the conservative Catholic prelates of the USCCB, and I fear his actions — including rightfully limiting the Latin mass, will force the church to swing in the other direction and give in to the illiberal forces that divide us.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
- John 14:27
> including rightfully limiting the Latin mass
Why is that a political thing though? The mass of the roman church was for centuries (almost all it’s history?) in latin.
Indeed; and when the Second Vatican Council decided Mass should be said in the vernacular, the obligation of the Church was to follow. Instead, the conservatives of the church ('conservative' here means those that emphasize adhering to tradition and are adverse to change) created a rift by eschewing this change and even heightening the importance of the Latin Mass, creating the impression that a mass spoken in the local language was somehow less of a mass.
If you’re Catholic, suggesting that a mass spoken in one language over another is somehow "less" takes away from the most important idea of the Mass: reenacting Christ’s Last supper commandment and the institution of the Holy Eucharist for what amounts to word games.
This divisive description of the mass increased over the decades, to the point that it threatened to cause a schism. As such it was the Holy Father’s duty to resolve the issue.
There are still groups(at least I'm aware of them in Poland, I've met people who are part of them) who believe exactly this, that the second Vatican Sobor was a mistake and the "real" mass is only the one conducted in Latin.
My first impression when he arrived was of the Bishop of Digne. May the world be that lucky again.
I am a (non-catholic) Christian and I loved Pope Francis, for all the hate he won from traditionalists. He really seemed Christ-like, in his deep concern for the marginalized and poor. He never ceased to emphasize Jesus' saving power and good news. May he rest in peace and may he be with our Lord.
Also not a Roman Catholic, but there were some good things about Pope Francis that I could appreciate, particularly his very Augustinian take on reason and the restlessness of the heart found in his lecture from the launch of the Spanish edition of Msgr. Luigi Giussani's book "The Religious Sense."
I genuinely liked him, even as an atheist. He seemed to be trying his best to make the world a better place and I can't fault him for that.
He riled many of his flock and hierarchy when he said that "even atheists can be redeemed". [0]
I will always applaud a person who retreats — even just a little — from dogma and fanaticism.
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/29/187009384/...
> He riled many of his flock and hierarchy when he said that "even atheists can be redeemed".
Which is "interesting", considering how much of the New Testament is about redemption and reaching out to outsiders. Aren’t we all supposed to be God’s creation, and wasn’t Jesus supposed to teach us about salvation, redemption and forgiveness?
(And by "interesting", I mean that it is yet another of example cognitive dissonance amongst fundamentalists. If anyone can be redeemed, it implies that atheists can, as well.)
> I will always applaud a person who retreats — even just a little — from dogma and fanaticism.
Indeed. He was not perfect but he was better than most. I hope the next one won’t be a catholic version of patriarch Kirill.
Mind explaining your issues with Kirill?
Haven't really been paying attention. Wasn't he the one who got Russia into defending persecuted Christians wherever (Syria etc)?
The man declared Putin's war to be a literal crusade against the West:
> From a spiritual and moral point of view, the special military operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people, defending the single spiritual space of Holy Rus', fulfill the mission of the "Restrainer", protecting the world from the onslaught of globalism and the victory of the West that has fallen into Satanism.
> After the end of the SVO, the entire territory of modern Ukraine must enter the zone of exclusive influence of Russia. The possibility of the existence on this territory of a Russophobic political regime hostile to Russia and its people, as well as a political regime controlled from an external center hostile to Russia, must be completely excluded.
https://www-patriarchia-ru.translate.goog/db/text/6116189.ht...
Read up on him more. He's essentially former KGB that was originally assigned to keep an eye on the token remnants of the church in Soviet Russia. He's now saying the war against Ukraine is "holy and justified", signing up to fight is "guaranteed to wipe away your sins", etc. He's designed to manipulate a segment of the population. He's Putin's method to "religiously justify" whatever Putin wants.
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> Which is "interesting", considering how much of the New Testament is about redemption and reaching out to outsiders. Aren’t we all supposed to be God’s creation, and wasn’t Jesus supposed to teach us about salvation, redemption and forgiveness?
As religion has shrunk in participation in most of the west, it has become hugely susceptible to manipulation. My wife (now atheist, but grew up evangelical) often has to correct me when I make snide remarks about Christianity. Recently I made some comment about hypocrisy amongst Christians for supporting a multiply-divorced man who bragged about groping women for president (who has probably never read the bible), to say nothing of the people around him. She quickly snapped back at me that "they actually see themselves in it, have you not noticed all the sex scandals that happen in so many churches?" and then went on to list the "questionable" relationships in her own youth group. (I am NOT saying all Christians are like this, but religion is often used to cover up or excuse misdeeds).
It is not unique to Christianity or even Islam, though. You're seeing a lot of religion being used to justify many terrible things, including many smaller ones in Africa and Asia that have been used to justify atrocities and genocide.
Same here. Although I grew up a Catholic and am now an atheist, my father counselled me that there were few institutions in the world that look after the downtrodden. The Catholic church has often not done that, but under Francis moved more towards that goal than any other time in recent history.
A prevalent sentiment.
I'd researched popes' policies and statements toward the poor some years back, and he really had no peer going back centuries.
Partial exception in the late 1900s, under Leo XIII (1878--1903), in the encyclical Rerum novarum.
Rerum Novarum was the basis of catholic social teaching since, so...
But yes, one thing is statements another is actions, regarding the latter the Latin Church's actions have often not been in keeping with their lofty writings.
He felt like a throwback to me, in a good way. He reminded me of a time when Christians weren't so afraid of being subsumed by the secular progressive mainstream, when they could still see love and forgiveness as the core of their faith.
"An athiest doesn't believe in 2,000 gods, a Christian doesn't believe in 1,999 gods." -- Ricky Gervais
Ricky is smart, but not smart enough.
I'm not religious either, but was educated in a Jesuit school. He brought a well needed breath of fresh air to the church. He was a pope for our times. Let's see if the church will be able to make another strong selection to replace him.
> .. even as an atheist
lots of christians didn't like him, considering he was too progressive
On the other hand, lots of christians liked him because he was progressive (more than his predecessor, anyway). Catholics are not all fundamentalists and in general don’t have much in common with the catholics bishops in the US, who are for the most part downright medieval.
I think these are two sides of the same coin
Only American Protesting Catholics had issues with him. The same ones that post Deus Vult memes on Facebook.
Plenty(well, some) Catholics in Poland had an issue with him for the exact same reason - just way too progressive for them. Although I do think that American Catholics are particularly.....fervent in their beliefs.
i saw this only on the internet tho, and mainly the english speaking internet, never in real life.
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Where do you live? How much of your money and land are you willing to surrender to me? I think there's a real argument that it's the right thing to do.
No, Ukraine should not surrender because if they surrender now the same argument can be made next time - and with Russia there will always be a next time. This is an existential fight for Ukraine and Ukrainians.
Assuming that you are arguing in good faith you should read up on some basic game theory. The outcome of this fight is not just about this war but about establishing the incentives of all future potential attempts at aggression by Russia (and other expansionist countries).
Edited to remove the snark.
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Wars, even righteous ones, are not very Christian. It’s a bit disjointed to expect any religious leader to endorse death in the name of justice. Or maybe you believe Ukraine can win? You would not be alone in that. I too hope that’s what happens, but I’m afraid they may not overtake Russia in the coming years, and might ultimately suffer a worse fate by dragging out the loss. It’s a real risk.
thats my point on it too. Ukraine can't win, so its options are fight until everyone is dead or surrender and work out some kind of peace.
Russia is currently mostly cut off from the globe because of American sanctions, which means they really have no impetus to stop. The pope could say "russia should stop invading ukraine" every singly day and they would have zero reason to listen to him.
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Last year, an interviewer asked Francis how he envisages hell. His response stayed with me: “It’s difficult to imagine it. What I would say is not a dogma of faith, but my personal thought: I like to think hell is empty; I hope it is.”
Nothing from the Bible indicates that hell is empty, so that is indeed an interesting response from the Pope.
The bible only has sparse and often contradictory references to hell - so it's very difficult to state "what the Bible says about hell" as if there's a unified picture laid out.
I've heard descriptions of hell of everything from the classic "fire and torture" we all know, to it being a total and complete detachment from god (in a disappointed and kicked out of the house by your parents kind of way). It's similar to descriptions of Satin. Everything from the horns and pitchfork all the way down to a "beautiful fallen angel" that he technically was explained to be in the bible.
I've always just assumed the descriptions that work to keep people fearful of leaving the religion as whatever is used at the time (saying this as somebody who is agnostic).
Yes - I think it caught my attention because it was such a mystery. It was a welcome thing to hear from one of the most powerful people in the world, but it came like a bolt from the blue. As far as I know, he never revisited the topic.
its not biblical but its very catholic, its optimistic. I've heard it from other catholics, its just a hope that at the end of everyones life they accepted jesus and made it into heaven.
Why would that be? There is a rich tradition of theology outside the Bible. Most popes are able to have a thought on a subject without quoting it.
The Bible has very little to say about hell in general.
Gonna disagree with you there.
https://www.openbible.info/topics/hell
Modern academic scholarship paints a very complex picture: https://www.bartehrman.com/hell-in-the-bible/
I would argue that reading random quotes without context can be misleading. Unless of course you believe in a univocal, consistent and divinely inspired bible - which is a fairly extreme position to take.
It's not that simple, because there are multiple concepts and Hebrew and Greek words that were translated as "hell". And many of those passages don't mention hell at all, but are just interpreted as such by readers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_in_Christianity
“I like to think Hell is empty” might be a hopeful statement, as in he hopes nobody ever actually goes to Hell but that everyone, no matter how evil, repents in their dying moments and accepts the path of truth.
A much more hopeful version than “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here”!
LOL Ill say! Far more positive
Interesting.
Is this a way of saying I don’t believe there is a place like hell?
The "threat" is there, but the hope is that everybody finds the "right" path at the very end.
It is impossible to reconcile the idea of an omnipotent god that is simultaneously good and permits people to be tortured for eternity.
Perhaps he chose the “god is good” over the “god, despite being able, will not prevent billions of reasonable and decent people from suffering eternally” fork in the road. You can’t logically choose both, and if you’re the pope, you probably had better have a belief in the goodness of god.
God bless him. Religion aside, his encyclicas covering more earthly subjects (Fratelli Tuti, Laudato Si) are really worth to be read. Download and read them as PDF in the language of your choice, no matter what your religious views are.
Fratelli tutti : https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/docu...
Laudato si : https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/docu...
RIP.
His speech yesterday (he dictated it I guess) was very very political, not on the usual level, felt like a finally "all out" for me.
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/urbi/do...
Thank you for sharing a text that I would not have seen/read otherwise.
The salient parts that support your view:
---
---> I express my closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel, and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. The growing climate of anti-Semitism throughout the world is worrisome. Yet at the same time, I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation. I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!
Yes because some even went against was he previously said.
But Love him or Hate him. Rest in peace.
Thanks for posting this.
>> Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and truth over falsehood.
This is interesting since I thought he was displeased about recent world events (e.g. Trump's election, shift towards deglobalization, ...).
that fragment references Easter theology. at a fundamental level love is stronger than everything, including the unsurpassable frontier, death. nothing could kill Jesus, not slander, not hatred, not envy, not even the cross.
and btw, in that little collection of booklets we call the Bible, the story doesn't end all flowery and pink either. Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed, early disciples are martyred in troves and everybody is aware the story of that Jesus guy and Mary and Mary Magdalene and Junia and all the others just has begun.
and it's clear it has to be written by us...
so regarding the recent world events yes PP Francis was heavily displeased (he talks about several of them in the very text we respond to here) but the Jesus thing gives us confidence and hope and justification to actively do something about it and to nudge the world into being a better place, for all of us.
that's how I think PP Francis meant what he said. and it's definitively how I see it.
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
— Gandalf
It's Easter :)
I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but it sounded like he was referring to something broader, especially given the explicit political references he made later.
... He's referring to "Christ is risen". That's way more broad (conceptually) and very in-character for the Pope, compared to some transient current events.
Francis stood for values over positions and ranks, which was a real revolution.
I sincerely hope the new pope will be as human, humble and pushing for renewal as Francis.
I think that after such a pope, people won't be satisfied with just another symbolic figure with empty gestures, hard conservative views and no real substance.
Are you pointing to another pope with "another symbolic figure with empty gestures"? Would be clearer to name him then! Having read a bit of the previous pope Benedict XVI I liked a lot what he did/wrote
what about Benedict did you like?
That was a likable pope, non-christians and even non religious people tend to like the guy. I also enjoyed the memes about his lookalike in Game of Thrones. Rest in peace.
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The most Protestant people in the world are American Catholics.
ahahah, this is so true. American Catholicism is honestly so weird, at least the version I see online. I guess in real life, it’s more level-headed.
You consider yourself christian?
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Pope Francis was truly inimitable. A Pope to remember, and one of a kind.
How to describe such a unique pontiff? Coming from "the end of the world," as he said, he truly represented a peculiar voice.
He stands alone as the greatest international symbol of our age, an embodiment of its most salient characteristics. A man whose presence will remain indelible in our minds, and who really made his presence known in the Church.
His fierce defense of his ideas, no matter what, marked the Church of our time forever. Catholics will never forget him. Traditional Catholics, in particular, will always vividly remember his legacy.
source: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2025/04/francis-pope-who-w...
I wonder whether we will have another Jesuit Pope. Jesuits are supposed to be generally very education focused, more progressive (especially w.r.t science) and stand less on ceremony. I know nothing about how the College of Cardinals work, but if they're anything like other political voting bodies, one of two outcomes are possible: a swing to the Right (and toward tradition), recognizing the current balance of power in the world, or a swing even further Left of Francis, again recognizing the current trend but as a counterweight.
Francis spent the last couple of years creating new cardinals to stack the College in what - he hoped - was a more progressive direction.
But the College has a mind of its own, and there is going to be some furious horse trading happening behind the scenes to steer the result in one direction or the other.
> especially w.r.t science
I would like to know more. My impression is that most Christian institutions have long ago disentangled from scientific debate - providing interpretative value rather than alternative science. This is part of a larger trend to focus their scope and mission in modern life. Have the last few popes made comments on scientific issues?
(The exception is evangelical Americans.)
Catholics don’t generally adopt the anti-science stuff. Their dogma around life has some walls around some areas of medicine.
I know several priests who are scientists or teachers/professors.
Evangelicals have a simpler dogma where the individual minister or church has more sway (hence the joke about the man on a desert island with a hut, a church, and a church he doesn’t go to). It’s a more populist form of worship, which has ups and downs.
the pontifical academy of science has.
https://www.pas.va/en.html
Thanks. That looks like a way for Catholics to support and endorse scientific research rather than a develop alternative science.
Indeed, that is exactly what it is. Mainstream catholics don’t really have a problem with science in general, but with moral consequences of some application of science. Broadly speaking, they are not saying that science is fake, more that there are some things we should not do.
A conversation with a Jesuit for example can be enlightening because they have intellectual and moral arguments, it’s not just castles built on the shifting foundations of a Bible verse.
This leads to different approaches compared to a lot of American Protestants. They don’t seek to undermine science.
Ironically, Catholicism as an institution has a better track record of supporting science than many Protestant sects. Much of the "alternative science" comes from the Baptists and Evangelicals.
Not sure if this is accurate. I was once a member of an astronomy club and its patron was a Catholic priest who was very much into the subject. And he wasn't even a Jesuit.
The Jesuits do indeed have a long tradition of research on the basis of a belief that understanding how the universe works gives a greater understanding of God's creation.
As such, they've traditionally been more open, and a disproportionately high proportion of Jesuits have been scientists. At one point about 1/3 of all members of the Jesuit order were scientists.
"The pope's astronomer"[1] is a jesuit, and the Jesuits have a long tradition in astronomy, with the result of numerous lunar craters (e.g. McNally) and several asteroids named after Jesuits. More than once, Jesuits have also tangled with the question of extraterrestial life, e.g.[2a] - a question fraught by the question it would raise about what it would mean for belief [2b].
Wikipedia also has a long list of Catholic clergy scientists[3]. When reading it, it's worth considering that if anything they had more influence as teachers (e.g. Descartes, Mersenne were both educated at Jesuit colleges), and that the order ranged from low thousands to a few tens of thousands during the centuries the list covers.
With respect to the last few popes, the most notable recent intervention is Pope Francis making clear that he saw the theories of evolution and the Big Bang as real[4]. But already in 1950, even the deeply conservative Pope Pius XII, while expressing hope that evolution would prove to be a passing fad, made clear that catholic doctrine officially did not conflict with evolution. John Paul II formally acquitted Galileo, and stated that "truth cannot contradict truth", when talking about evolution vs. catholic doctrine. [5]
[1] https://www.deseret.com/faith/2024/07/27/vatican-observatory...
[2a] https://aleteia.org/2020/08/28/jesuit-astronomer-calls-extra...
[2b] https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/men-black-belief-aliens-no...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scient...
[4] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis...
[5] http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/vatican...
Given how changes of power tend to swing nowadays, I am afraid I guessed it right (pun not intentional)
the film Conclave did a very good job at showing the politics and conflicts within the catholic church
I think that is merely skin deep - Catholicism provided an interesting setting or scenery for a story, rather than being the subject.
i think that is intendeded; it's not a movie about catholicism but about politics and human nature. What I meant is that it shows the internal workings of the papal election and the conflicts within the catholic church that may be unknown to laypeople.
On second thought I think you’re right. The layperson can become more aware of religious politics, because there is so little exposure.
I hope the next step is for people to understand that religious problems are actually people problems. And similar themes and tendencies appear in modern secular contexts.
But he was also an odd Jesuit wasn't he?
Starting from his chosen name, since Franciscans and Jesuits have not been very close historically (although the founder of the latter was inspired by St. Francis).
From what I read, it's exactly as you say: people expect either a reaction swing to conservativism or a a big swing towards modernity. Pope Francis was old and could not do much, but he tried to set a path for the latter, afaiu.
Fully agree. It's going to get interesting - by numbers, the Church is shrinking in its core lands of Europe, and it's growing in Africa, South America and Asia, but that isn't even closely reflected in political realities and the amount and importance of cardinals.
I'll admit that I am curious about if we'll ever see a conservative African pope.
this italian (venetian) reggae band has been predicting it since 97, this song regains minor popularity in italy every time there is a new pope election
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh0O2Ah-qO4
It always seems weird and ignorant for people to be labeling Catholic bishops as “left-wing” or “right-wing” or “liberal/progressive” or “conservative”.
Those are all political terms for politicians and their platforms or parties. They do not translate to Catholic doctrines or teachings. Y’all are simply parroting what the lamestream media wants to impose, a political veneer on non-politicians who are shepherds, pastors, teachers.
There very much is such a thing as a "progressive" and "conservative" wing in Catholicism, and the Vatican is well known to be very much a viper's nest. It's naive to imply that all those clergymen are simply "shepherds, pastors, teachers".
Catholic bishops and clergy like to meddle in politics.
In the US, reactionaries are dumping lots on money on the church, and many bishops have embraced right wing politics, stupidly aligning with evangelicals who deeply despise Catholicism in the process.
Some of the moves made are comically dumb. The archbishop of New York decided to make a big show about denying communion to the notoriously vindictive former governor of the state. That governor subsequently changed the look back period for civil sex abuse lawsuits, which has bankrupted or is in the process of bankrupting dioceses as they are forced to own up to their failures to protect children.
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RIP. He was a likable guy with the heart in the right place, always struck me as deeply humble.
The world would be better off if many a leader these days, religious or otherwise, would be a bit more like him.
A man has died, that is sad.
Under his watch he did not move the church to fully acknowledge or deal with the historical and widespread abuses the organization he led was involved with. He had opportunity to be the leader to bring the organization around and he did not. Let's all hope his replacement will.
I don’t think anyone who would be ready to completely do a 180 with the Catholic Church will be the pope soon (or ever, given how the system works). He has, however, nudged that ship in the right direction and with what he has done and with his appointees. Let’s just hope it continues with whoever replaces him.
He didn’t make things worse and he, in his heart and in his words, kept the spirit of Jesus’ teachings and not the dogma of power and patriarchy.
May the next pope feel emboldened to further this as the church itself becomes less of a lumbering monster.
Pope Francis has done much to transform the Catholic church into a more progressive and inclusive institution. If not for his papacy, it was somewhat likely that the church would drift too far from Millennial values to keep its former relevance.
Hopefully, the next pope will also champion unity, inclusivity, and peace, and oppose religious dogmatism. This will define the future of Christianity. Many challenges remain for the institution.
There's been much talk of the Church finally electing a black Pope from sub-Saharan Africa. The irony is that, if they are inclusive enough to do so, the selected Pope will almost certainly be more hard-line and doctrinaire than any of his recent predecessors on issues like homosexuality. Here's one of the contenders:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sarah
Of the current widely accepted papabili, Peter Turkson is from Sub-Saharan Africa. He is softly pro-LGBT, and he seeks to harmonize the progressive homosexuality views with traditional African culture[0]. I don't think Robert Sarah is considered papabile, possibly owing to his message of hate for homosexuality. Overall, it's inconsistent with the recent message of the church, and it is hard to imagine that progressive Catholics would accept it.
Here's a Reuters list for possible Francis successors: https://www.reuters.com/world/who-might-succeed-pope-francis.... Usually, Reuters does thorough due diligence before releasing something. So I'd expect their predictions are accurate.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Turkson
Interesting that they identify mostly progressives as papabile. If they're right, Francis did an excellent job behind the scenes to set up the Church to do in the future what he could not in the present.
We live in cynical times, i hope his passing reminds people that narratives and morals matter
From his statement yesterday:
> May the principle of humanity never fail to be the hallmark of our daily actions. In the face of the cruelty of conflicts that involve defenceless civilians and attack schools, hospitals and humanitarian workers, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that it is not targets that are struck, but persons, each possessed of a soul and human dignity.
Yes. I agree with you and hope so too.
"Think of those souls!" reads to me cynically close to "don't think of those who ordered and executed those strikes". Almost like a deliberate distraction. When you turn forgiveness into a carte blanche for serial sin, you're doing Christianity wrong.
I interpret it very differently from you. Modern warfare is directing drones at 'targets' based on 'intelligence' with little regard for the collateral damage. We see it daily in the news in various conflicts: children killed in strikes with the excuse being that bad guys were also in the vicinity - zero regard for the innocents. It' a reminder that just because you don't have to see the destruction you cause (thanks to modern technology) innocents are still being killed by your actions and you shouldn't forget that (and maybe should reconsider your actions).
I do agree that narratives and morals matter. That said is hard for me to reconcile this statement with the late pope's stance on the Ukraine war. His narrative about this was that it is a regrettable conflict between brother nations and that the sides should somehow resolve their disagreement. He didn't once admit that Russia is the aggressor and is one sidedly pushing for war, not to speak about condemning the aggressor.
I understand that a leader of an organization that acts on historic time scale might be reluctant to take sides in contemporary conflicts. Nevertheless always washing your hands in every conflict is not morality, it is cowardice. It enables evil and is in direct conflict with "narratives and morals matter".
> I understand that a leader of an organization that acts on historic time scale might be reluctant to take sides in contemporary conflicts.
Even from this Historical optic, it doesn't make much sense in my opinion - it's not like Ukrainians didn't suffer at the hands of Russians/USSR in the past.
> Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, at the age of 88 at his residence in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta.
> Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, the Vatican has announced. - Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected to lead the Catholic Church in March 2013 after Pope Benedict XVI stood down.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/crknlnzlrzdt
He wasn’t an intellectual giant like his predecessor and I disagreed with some of his positions, but at the end of the day I do think that he was a good man. May he rest in peace.
Held out all through out Easter. Lot of strength of character.
Strength and power of will does not affect one’s lifespan or ability to resist disease. This is a myth.
Disease is not a fistfight.
Condoléances.
I wonder if a Pope's funeral can serve as an occasion for backdoor diplomacy - the world needs a lot of that.
If the next Pope is young and energetic, he may want to use his first few days making a mark in history by putting people from different side of different conflicts.
Paraxodically, he may have more chance putting the Israelis and Palestinian around a table (or at least provide the optics for a deal that would be discussed in the usual boring transactional way.)
On the other hand, one has to wonder what a populist pope would do (interfere in elections ? Make a u turn on climate, migrants, etc... ? Go back to hardcore conservatism ? Or fall into irrelevance ?)
Rest in Peace to a dude who actually lived his beliefs
I guess we're just waiting for Peter the Roman now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes
In my early 20s I was part of secular and socialist Jewish research centre. Franciskus was just voted as the new pope, and my first assignment was to write an opinion paper about him, and forecast his future actions. I don't think anyone, including myself, expected that I'll end up with a positive report — religion was almost always a negative thing, and Catholic Christianity even more so. However, I concluded that his action seem to show that he cares more for people rather than for specific rules or biblical quotes. That he is flexible and open to changing things. In retrospect, I think the whole world benefited from his openness. I wish we could say that about other influential religious leaders.
I can imagine that for people of faith there is a lot to be read into the time of death.
Several ways.
RIP, i hope it was peaceful. he was such a good leader and force within the church.
May he rest in peace
RIP to the coolest pope.
May we live his consistent reminder of refraining from hurting and hating each other regardless of country, race, religion, politics, etc.
rip in piss
https://newsthump.com/2025/04/21/pope-loses-will-to-live-aft...
So Pope Francis departs for a meeting with his boss perhaps?
Jokes aside, he seemed like a genuinely decent human being and enough of a humanist to cast aside some of the drier absurdities surrounding the bureaucracy of Catholic Church administration, and ideology.
Even as someone who's deep in the skeptically agnostic camp on any questions about supreme creators (after all even a firm atheist can't be absolutely sure there is no genuine God) I had more respect for the apparent practical concern for humanity of this pope, particularly compared to the more typical nature of historical pontiffs.
> after all even a firm atheist can't be absolutely sure there is no genuine God
Why so? There is no reason for one to exist so not having one is the obvious case.
We could of course assume anything, that we are av stylization, that the world is a large ice cream, that what we see is not the reality, whatever
If we go for that, sure, we cannot be sure of anything. But we then must also believe that we may live in a large ice cream.
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.
This atheist admired him and read his Encylicals.
It feels kinda wrong to like this post
Some of the highest voted stories on HN are related to someone's passing. Think of the upvotes less as a 'like' and more as 'paying respects'.
It's called "upvote", not "like".
Okey
RIP, I have given Francis my prayers for his soul and his close ones and everyone who saw him as a leader and a holy figure. God can use anything for the good <3
I recommend one of his books, The Name of God is Mercy
With most figureheads there will be words or actions with which you disagree. But his rejection of the 'riches' that came with the job, especially in the early days will hopefully outlast him.
I'm curious how devout Catholics will perceive it when the leader of their Church dies on their holiest day, which commemorates the resurrection of Christ. Will they going to see it as a symbol, a sign, or perhaps some kind of deeper message?
The way I see it, expecting holy days to somehow be "safe" ignores the basis on which the Church was built.
Martyrs were mauled by lions regardless of their work in spreading the word of God. Jesus himself died just like the common thieves next to him. The Catholic Church is built by people, and people sometimes die.
May he rest in peace.
May he rest in peace
Rest in peace.
When I think about it being the Pope is quite a position, probably the most unique in our world?
You have to be:
- A head of state, meaning taking positions though UN votes, etc.
- A "CEO", there is a lot of "business" decision to be taken to run the Vatican and the Church. I mean the Vatican can be seen as a giant museum (no offense) with a lot of people flowing in everyday so that need to be managed.
- But first he is a religious, spiritual leader and has to steer its evolution.
- Many also still see him steering an entire civilisation. Whether you are a Catholic or not, he is at the center of something.
Tough job...
Minor correction: the Vatican is a UN observer member, meaning it does not have voting rights.
:(
And for political side - in Poland, he was seen as way too leftist/liberal for the conservatives in Church, and too pro-Russian for the liberals in it - he had not condemned Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This was a very interesting thing to witness. It seemed to indicate that politics is more powerful than religion, even in a country as religious as Poland.
I found this surprising and genuinely thought-provoking.
I had been talking with my conservative colleagues - they were deeply unhappy with him on stance of migration, LGBT issues, or even very recent - his talk with Vance, whom they support (American politics are just so big that it has effect on us even across the ocean).
Then, from religious point of view - they didn't really like his ecumenism approach, to them it was borderline of heresy.
I was born in, and currently live in Poland. It truly blows my mind that any Polish person could side with a foreign political party that openly sides with moscow over Ukraine and even Poland. Political alignment is truly the strongest drug for many people.
While I support Ukraine and would like to see a stronger, more unified front from the collective West, making this the only question that matters in Polish politics seems wrong. My 2c.
Also, while I think that barring a fringe part of society, everyone would agree, the fun part is, how do you get to people to agree who's pro-Russian or not ;) Of course, this is for local parties, but go to /r/Poland and /r/Polska and ask them, what parties are pro-Russian. Then to Wykop, both Mikroblog and frontpage, and see the reactions.
Same thing will apply here.
Anecdotally, my uncle just dropped by to thank me for the Easter flowers I had left at their place. He is pretty conservative, had always railed against this pope, and just called him a really good man. So at least today, religion and forgiveness won his heart.
At one point Francis said "The Patriarch cannot become Putin’s altar boy", in reference to Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church [1]. Maybe Francis recognised that working to get Kirill to temper his support for Putin would be more effective than his own public condemnation, which might allow propagandists to whip up a Western vs. Orthodox religious frenzy to unify Russians behind Putin?
[1] https://www.wn.catholic.org.nz/adw_welcom/pope-says-kirill-m...
The concept of Liberal in the US is different from liberal in Europe. In Europe "liberal" means supporter of low taxes, small govertment. The concept in the US has to do with sexual liberation and sexual freedom more than economic marxism.
Francis was not sexually liberal. He was marxist. He believed in liberation theology.
As someone who knew personally the man from a spiritual exercises' house in Spain(obviously when he was not yet Pope), I never liked the guy.
He was the friend of dictators. Loved so much Raul Castro, and Maduro, never criticised them, but criticised the affluence of western democracies. His business was the poor and he loved poor makers.
His support for Putin and not denouncing the takeover of absolute power was jarring for someone in his position.
You can be a leftist religious leader, but you have to report abuses when you see them, specially if the abuses are made by your friends. Of course you will lose them if you do.
Francis was too weak in character to oppose them. But as a Pope, that is your job.
He was a man of hypocrisy:
Immigrants must be welcome as a moral imperative, but not in the Vatican!
Bigotry is wrong, except for the modern Marxist form!
Embrace the Progressive world view, but don’t talk about how we forcibly sterilized people!
Etc.
Why is this posted on HN, even twice? It’s not like other news sources won’t announce this. The pope had its good and bad sides, but in the end we should remind ourselves he’s just a human being. It’s OK for HN to inform about people here, but shouldn’t they be somehow related to any topics HN touches? The popes was just a guy who somehow got popular because of some quite successful religion - but I’d personally prefer keep religion out of HN.
It's conventional for there to be a thread on HN when a major pubic figure dies. If you look at the list of obituary posts on HN [1], several of the biggest were for politicians, royals, and others unrelated to computer science and technology.
It's in keeping with the convention that stories that have "significant new information" are on topic for HN, and that includes major mainstream news stories when they first break.
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=%22has+died%22
Cheers! Good idea to provide the search example with Algolia!
> Why is this posted on HN
This isn't a headline service or newswire. It's a place for discussion too. He was the head of a large institution that has a lot of influence. And the views of the institution on emergent technologies is very much relevant. Those views are greatly shaped by the one at the top for their stint. This post isn't about religion.
Two thoughts:
- The pope was not only a very important religious and political leader but also wrote and spoke about the relationship between humans and technology [1, 2]
- I joined Hacker News due to its links but stayed for the community of smart and thoughtful people (and the great moderation). Oftentimes, a HN submission acts as a seed crystal for "off-topic" discussions that people want to talk about. As the people that make up this community get older, and as the times change, the topics we discuss change, too. At some level, technology always has political, moral, ideological implications. For me, HN is one of the best places to discuss these.
[1] https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pu...
[2] Tim Cook on how Pope Francis influenced his thinking: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1541230109287507
He was the head of one of the largest and oldest institutions that was working to handle its successes and failures as it worked to modernize.
Someone's running bot farm to manipulate this website. There's been tons of dupes and suspicious flagging lately.
I concur. I believe that political and religious discussions are better suited for other platforms rather than HN. I am not particularly interested in the Pope, if I were, I could find coverage of the topic on mainstream news sources. There’s nothing interesting here from a technical or startup perspective.
Why have you posted the same general comment twice after the first was flagged? As the rules suggest, if you disagree with the post - flag it.
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Interestingly, [X has died] seems to be among some of the topmost upvoted posts of HN. (Based on https://hn.algolia.com/)
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I’m pretty sure that comments count as upvotes; if that’s the case, I find it a lot less surprising.
@tomhow
I understand the intention behind keeping the thread respectful, especially in the context of someone’s death. That said, I find it difficult to fully separate reflections on Pope Francis from reflections on the institution he led. The papacy is not just a personal role—it is deeply representative of the Catholic Church as an institution, with all the historical and present-day weight that carries.
It also stands out to me that similar moderation reminders don't usually appear in threads about other public figures. That gives the impression that this topic is being treated as more sensitive or "untouchable" than others, and I think it's fair to question why that is.
I'm all for thoughtful conversation, but part of that includes being able to engage critically with the institutions and roles that public figures embody—even in moments like this.
It may be unusual for this kind of reminder to be posted on an obituary thread, but it's not so unusual for it to be posted on a thread about a religious topic. There's nothing to read into this other than we all know that religion is a topic that elicits strong reactions in people and is one of the most frequent topics of bitter argument, and that's just the thing we're trying to avoid on HN.
It's fine to talk about the larger institution he led; please just keep to the HN guidelines, which apply equally to all threads on HN, and which, in particular, ask us to be thoughtful and substantive, and to avoid generic tangents.
(I've edited my top comment, to clarify what I think should be deemed on/off topic.)
> similar moderation reminders don't usually appear in threads about other public figures.
Friend, this is not true. "dang" himself has often exhorted posters in this same manner and language when a notable death may attract inconsiderate commentary.
See the search link provided by tomhow in this branch of the same discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749405#43750046
"Pope for our times" should be seen a contradiction in terms.
We should well be past the point as a species where we care what decrepit old wizards on golden thrones have to say about anything, much less morality.
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Yes, we should, but despite our current state, the pontiff can still generate momentum for progressive global policies, and in that regard, Pope Francis was a breath of fresh air.
If we ever reach the point where we aren't interested specifically in what prominent elders have to say, we're screwed.
He's mainly prominent for the his role in an archaic cult. I'm not sure what we gain with giving special interest to anyone in such roles
Not every "prominent elder" deserves respect. Certainly not on the basis that men in a smoke filled room elected them the infallible avatar of a God that most people don't even believe in. People are in awe of this latest Pope because his morals were essentially normal and not medieval. The Pope was just a guy in a robe.
The world would be much better off if we listened to scientists and scholars - people who at least earned the authority with which they speak - the way we listen to priests.
Francis would have been the first to call himself just a guy in a robe. I’m an atheist and don’t find it difficult to listen to people of all faiths put forward moral philosophy, and I can identify parts that I agree with even if I might disagree that there is any supernatural basis for them. There’s a wide world of thought available that is simply outside the remit of science, and there is a lot to be gained from listening to people who have spent their lives dedicated to that domain, even if some of it is wrong, and even if none of it is founded in peer-reviewed academic papers.
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I'm not even a tin-hatter and that is immediately where my mind went when I saw the headline. Vance and his ilk are so incredibly near-sighted that it would bolster them to think they could plot such a thing and play it off as a coincidence.
the conspiracy minded were convinced he already died weeks ago but they also thought he was the anti-pope so it's whatever
If anything this speech tried it's best to counter Vance and Trump's political opinions. Let's hope it matters.
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We know with absolute certainty that he died soon after Easter. Literally tens of thousands of people saw with their own eyes that he was alive yesterday (and billions saw it on TV). Exactly when he died between the end of his public appearance and the announcement is hard to know, but also ultimately irrelevant. This would be the biggest topic of discussion in Europe, Africa, and the Americas at the very least regardless of when it happened. And, if there were some goal to increase news coverage in Asia, where there are relatively fewer Christians as a percentage of the population, the announcement (9:45 in Italy) was somewhat late in the middle of the day, at least for China (about 14:45 in China, when everyone is at work and not watching news, either on TV or social media).
So you are being entirely silly.
Just saw him yesterday in the carriage in Vatican City.
> definitely
that's a dubious theory based on no evidence at all
What "public relations games" are they playing? He was out in public yesterday afternoon. And they announced the death a few hours after it happened. The death of a Pope will get maximum media coverage regardless of the time or day it happens - it's going to be headline news for weeks.
No, he passed away on the second day of Easter: Easter Monday.
Easter Sunday represents the beginning of a long season. There is first an Octave celebrated: eight days, each very much like Easter Sunday itself.
Once the Octave ends, it is still “Eastertide” or the Second Week of Easter.
Pentecost marks the 50th day, (inclusive), and the end of the Easter season, but sets off a rather remarkable chain of new holy days.
So I will be around, wishing you a Happy Easter, even during June
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I believe you will find the majority of progressive Jews has said that Israel, and more specifically the government of Israel, does not speak for Jews worldwide. In fact many rabbis have written about the nauseating position of having Israel be considered a representative of all Jews by so many people
That's because it is being used to hit the brakes on discourse about Gaza
* brakes
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If I follow your logic:
- Israel has to eradicate Hamas as its existence is too much of a threat ("there is no alternative")
- Hamas has embedded itself in the civilian population in Gaza so that they are indistinguishable
- therefore, Israel must eliminate all Gazawis to guarantee its security
So.. Will Israel kill millions to avenge the deaths of thousands?
You used the word indistinguishable, the other person used "deep". You are factually wrong since the ratio of Hamas to Gazan casualties does not represent random targeting even by the worst estimates. You also ignore the possibility of Hamas eventually giving up or some other diplomatic solution being reached.
We are a highly technical community, we should be able to debug the situation and find edge cases rather than trivialize it.
> You used to word indistinguishable, the other person used "deep". You are factually wrong since the ratio of Hamas to Gazan casualties does not represent random targeting even by the worst estimates.
True, I apologize for the misrepresentation; but reasoning is the same. At some point Hamas is too deeply ingrained in Gazawi society for Israel to perfectly excise it.
Hamas is the civilian government of Gaza and therefore includes firefighters, doctors, policemen, teachers. Israel does count them as members of Hamas and relies on statistical methods to select targets (ie you are on the same WhatsApp group as a member of Hamas, therefore you are likely to be a member, see the "Lavender" target selection program).
For a point of comparison, after Nazi Germany collapsed the Western allies had German civil servants fill questionnaires to assess their level of involvement; of 3.6 millions surveyed, just 1% were charged as "main culprits" (Hauptschuldige), whereas a third were designated as "followers" (Mitläufer), who basically contributed to the regime's crimes but nontheless got to keep their jobs after the war. I'd argue the allies were way too lenient on Germany, but the current Israeli approach (kill them all) is too extreme and will not work because its objectives are unrealistic.
> You also ignore the possibility of Hamas eventually giving up or some other diplomatic solution being reached.
I sure hope peace will be reached but Israel is waging a war without clear conditions of victory, leaving only total destruction of the enemy as their strategic objective. Think of the US trying to eliminate all the communist Vietnamese by compiling kill counts.
My impression is the war will end either when Gaza is drained of all of its population, or Israel tires of the war and reduces its stated objectives (probably this would involve a shift in government).
> We are a highly technical community, we should be able to debug the situation and find edge cases rather than trivialize it.
We can't solve everything with tech principles. Even in our field, probably the biggest thing separating a senior from a junior is humility and ability to connect with other people.
> For a point of comparison, after Nazi Germany collapsed the Western allies had German civil servants fill questionnaires to assess their level of involvement; of 3.6 millions surveyed, just 1% were charged as "main culprits" (Hauptschuldige), whereas a third were designated as "followers" (Mitläufer), who basically contributed to the regime's crimes but nontheless got to keep their jobs after the war. I'd argue the allies were way too lenient on Germany, but the current Israeli approach (kill them all) is too extreme and will not work because its objectives are unrealistic.
You're comparing the Allies' actions after WWII concluded with Israel's actions in the midst of conflict.
Are you forgetting the Dresden firebombings?
Are you really suggesting that Israel will continue to "kill them all" if Hamas surrenders? That's not even what Israel is doing now, although they have the military capability to do so if they wished.
I'm comparing the stated goal of Israel (dehamasification) with denazification.
The allies' strategic bombing campaign was intended to destroy industry and infrastructure and was not aimed at any political group in particular, whereas Israel can and does target precise buildings associated with Hamas (see the "Lavender" program that provides bombing targets).
> That's not even what Israel is doing now
There's no real way to know since Israel does not allow journalists in Gaza, but the international court of justice found there was sufficient possibility that an investigation should be carried out. Are you so much better informed than them that you can be sure?
> therefore, Israel must eliminate all Gazawis itself to guarantee its security
Guess why they're keeping the Palestinians on a run: to ransack the entire place for weapons caches or Gaza Metro entrances. And that's not eliminating the Gazan population, by the way.
I don't like it very much myself, but honestly, I do not see any other way of making sure Hamas does not rise up again.
> Will Israel kill millions to avenge the deaths of thousands?
Again: it's not about revenge any more, it's about preventing the repeat of 2006-2023 aka constant terror from Qassam rockets and other terrorism.
I wonder what would have happened if the Americans had taken the same approach with the Iraqis and the Afganis. As someone said, if your enemy is carrying a baby, you don't punch him through the baby, you punch around it.
The staggering number of civilian casualties, deaths and literal executions that have been inflicted in the name of peace must give the acting populace a pause. In the name of humanity. The place is just rubble now. How much more security could one country want? No one else has done something like this since the first world war.
> Guess why they're keeping the Palestinians on a run: to ransack the entire place for weapons caches or Gaza Metro entrances.
Let's say Israel finds all caches and tunnels, while not disturbing the population of Gaza (besides blockade, forced displacement and destruction of their homes), and then lets the population back in. Israel cannot tell Hamas militants from civilians, so some measure of Hamas will survive the event -- indeed, it might even reinforce anti-Israeli sentiment. What then would stop these leftover Hamas members from rebuilding whatever smuggling routes and weapon caches they had?
> Again: it's not about revenge any more, it's about preventing the repeat of 2006-2023 aka constant terror from Qassam rockets and other terrorism.
According to OCHAOPT Israel suffered 138 casualties on its own territory (ie excluding Gaza and the West Bank) from Palestinian attacks from 2008 to the eve of October 7. Would you say the current Israeli response (which itself inflicts terror) has been proportionate? Where would you place the threshold where it would no longer be an acceptable response?
> What then would stop these leftover Hamas members from rebuilding whatever smuggling routes and weapon caches they had?
Disbanding UNRWA, for one, and replacing it with UNHCR which is responsible for every other refugee situation in the world. It's time for the end of the special treatment of Palestinians, and that includes getting rid of inheriting the refugee status.
Following that, there must be strict accountability on all aids and their eventual disbursement in Gaza and the West Bank. No more diversion of construction materials to Gaza Metro, no more diversion of food aid and then re-selling it.
The final important thing to do is stop funding Hamas, and that one falls squarely on Israel, where Netanyahu has covertly funded Hamas to keep Fatah in check. When there's no money to pay for smuggled Qassam parts, there won't be any more smuggled Qassam parts.
> Would you say the current Israeli response (which itself inflicts terror) has been proportionate?
Yes. Israelis had to live 17 years in terror of rockets from Gaza. There's no way calling this acceptable in any form. Hamas and those backing it knew that eventually, Israeli patience would end one day and there would be hell to pay for it.
With all due respect, massacring civilians because “you have no other choice” is historically not an excuse holding up in courts.
Israel has enormous advantage over Palestinians and while I don’t mind them waging war with Hamas, indiscriminate bombing is not ok and never will be.
The word massacre is loaded and does not represent the typical reality in Gaza. Most estimates place the ratio of combatant to civilian casualties within the range for armed conflicts, nevermind guerilla warfare settings.
> With all due respect, massacring civilians because “you have no other choice” is historically not an excuse holding up in courts.
The thing is, under the rules of war, protected installations (such as residential areas or even hospitals) lose their protection if they are being abused by a warring party for military operations. Otherwise, it would be an open invitation for anyone to do what Hamas did - force the other party between either risking getting shot at or violating rules of war.
No one forced Hamas to embed themselves among civilians. They did that on their own.
> protected installations (such as residential areas or even hospitals) lose their protection if they are being abused by a warring party for military operations
You should maybe research where key millitary apparatus of the Israeli state is located. The headquarters of the IDF for example.
I am familiar with IDF headquarters, they are located in a clearly marked base, you can see it on Google Maps. This is similar to French army's Hexagone Balard in Paris or the Italian and Dutch armies HQ for example, from a cursory search, ask your local LLM for more.
Can you say the same about Hamas?
It's in a residential area. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy. The whole area is heavily militarized, there are bases everywhere, citizens are automaticlaly enrolled into the IDF - every Israeli citizen in a certain age group can be considered a legitimate millitary target if you follow your logic.
The arguments you are using for attacking Palestinian infastructure and people are more than applicable to Israeli infastructure and population.
In international law people have the right to resist occupation through millitary means. In a small area under occupation then there is no means to create a millitary setup that matches what the 'good guys' consider to be legitimate.
If you want to be consistent then allow Palestinians to have a millitary, air space, airports, ports, navy, jets, nuclear weapons etc. And then you can fight them on equal terms.
As a belligerent occupying power, Israel has a legal obligation to protect the Palestinian population too, not just their own.
Slaughtering the Palestinian population to get at Hamas is a war crime no matter the excuses on tries to make to justify it.
> No one forced Hamas to embed themselves among civilians.
Of cource Israel forced them to. "Force" means to use violence to let someone do certain things, i.e. if they don't do those certain things, they get violence. And looking at the records of the past decades, whatever Hamas (among everyone else in Gaza) did or didn't, Israel did violence to them. So whatever Hamas do, it's forced by Israel, since if they don't, Israel does violence to them.
On the other hand, no one is forcing Israel to bomb civilians right now. No one will do violence to them if they stop bombing.
Your one-sided definition of "force" is patently ridiculous on its face.
"Everything Hamas does is forced by Israel's actions, nothing Israel does is forced by Hamas"
Do rules of war apply here? Israel does not even consider Palestine to be a state.
All that has been said under this thread, including the sibling comment to this one, could be true at the same time. I see dissenting stances where the opinions are not.
>that is mostly made of misheard slogans and made up discriminations
Aside from legitimate concern about the genocide in Gaza, there's also been a rise in good-old-fashioned antisemitism, especially among young people: https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/46-adults-worldw... . For instance: 40% of those under age 35 affirm that “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars” while it is 29% for those over 50, a remarkable 11 percentage point difference.
The argument that claims of antisemitism are exagerated is ridiculous, there are prominent figures with ties to the US government giving literal nazi salutes. That said, the reaction of the ADL to those figures leads me to question their integrity as well.
Did you really have to make this comment here on this post? I think you intentionally wrote it to spark a fire as well. "systematically massacring tens of thousands with the declared intent of ethnic cleansing" You know yourself that so many people disagree with you about this and sees this as an outrageous claim.
It's very much not an outrageous claim, it is in fact the shared opinion of literally all non-partisan international organizations that have studied the conflict in any way - including the UN, the Red Cross, the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, Doctors without Borders, and many many many others. And it is not unrelated to Pope Francis or his death, as he spoke about the humanitarian tragedy in Palestine just yesterday, in his last public speech.
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Bergoglio was a South American intellectual. He could recognize a proxy war when he saw one. That's why his account of the war was a tad more complex and articulated than that of the average liberal Anglo.
I'm not liberal Anglo(or any Anglo), so let me explain - Russia attacked Ukraine, because it thinks it's imperium. Russia kills Ukrainians and destroys their country for their sick ambitions.
Fact that other countries use the war for their own politics doesn't change it in the slightest.
point in case
He even sees a proxy war when there is none...
Let me make this clear for you: Russia invaded Ukraine, and wants to erase the existence of Ukraine.
Russia steals Ukrainian grain and agricultural machines.
Russia destroys Ukrainian museums and any historical artefact related to Ukrainian writers.
Russia steals ukrainian children to raise them as russians.
Russia is engaged in open genocidal elimination of Ukraine. They speak about it openly, they write about it, they issue press releases about it.
There is no proxy there. Russia is doing all of this by themselves.
point in case
That's a generalization that does not help the vision of the world he had. Putin is the villain. Spreading the bad image of Russian people in general is not really helping anything. Even if the polls in Russia might show support for the war, it's mostly because everybody in Russia if afraid of speaking their opinion in public.
Putin is a product of Russian culture. To deny discussions about failed, catastrophic nurture equals handing the debate via silence back to the racist and nature. Ignoring the patterns by paying attention only to conflicts with the west / clichees involved gets your ideas bankrupt .
Empires in all incarnations are pure evil https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russi...
They're not afraid, they're disinterested in politics as long as it doesn't affect their day to day life, so food and fuel prices remaining manageable.
Putin is popular and has personal interest in remaining so, because otherwise Russian elites will find themselves a new Putin.
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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43750046
There were recent posts about George Foreman and Val Kilmer dying. The way these rules are enforced is pretty hit and miss.
With that said I think that the pope dying is a subject worth discussing on HN.
It's unfortunate that it seems to be descending into a flame war about Israel though.
I don't get it. There are nearly unlimited forums where these deaths, especially the pope, are being actively discussed. Why do we need it here?
Hacker News was once a place focused on sharing news you wouldn't find most other places. Is it time to update the guidelines?
HN focuses on fostering thoughtful discussion by curious people on anything those folks find interesting. Technology naturally bubbles up, but it is far from the only thing on HN.
This focus on people is to me, is WAY better than theme-based filtering (compare with many subreddit cesspools).
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Francis was both things.
Within the scope of the Catholic Church he was progressive. His speeches were often in opposition to rising nationalism. He spoke about inclusion for people who haven't traditionally been included by the Church. In comparison to Benedict he was much more friendly to the global left.
But he was also a Catholic. The Church remains a global enemy to LGBT rights and its position on birth control is a source of death and devastation from AIDS as you mention. And the Church remains committed to a system of gender inequality within its ranks.
I do think that some of the lefty praise of Francis incorrectly ignores these problems. But also I'd rather have Francis than Benedict.
It'll be interesting to see what happens next. Two years ago I would have said that the next pope would certainly be a reactionary that returns to a more rigid conservatism. But with Trump elected and the rest of the world reacting to his idiocy I can see there being more limited appetite for a conservative turn within the Church leadership.
Okay.. but outside of speeches and saying nice words, are the actual policies of Francis and Benedict different? Is the church run differently?
Nice words are important but popes are not just a friendly powerless old men after all
EDIT: Looking into the topic of homosexual clergy in the Catholic church. It seems things got worse in 2005 and there has been no change since then
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_clergy_in_the_Catho...
The real (non theological) reason why women are not allowed to be priests is because if you take a random mass of humans and you let them elect a leader, in 100% of the cases that leader will be a man. So don't blame Catholics for the faults of humanity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elected_and_appointed_...
Where do you get your numbers from? And how women were elected to political poissons in that case?
Right of course. No female Protestant priests whatsoever. Definitely not a policy issue
That female clergy is only a thing in dead Protestant churches exactly illustrates my point.
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I think he will be mostly remembered as a terrible politician, first alienating conservatives with progressive policy and then alienating liberals with very questionable opinions on war in Ukraine.
In the end, nobody was really happy with him. On the other hand, he definitely had a will and a spine to stick to his own opinions - I guess that counts for something.
A good politician is a people pleaser?
A comment I'd heard some time back concerned a politician. The speaker (not a politician themselves, but recalling an interaction with one) had said to the politician something like "I suppose you want to win with the biggest majority possible". The politician responded along the lines of, "No, that would mean I wasn't doing my job; if I'm really pushing the limits of the possible I'll have just the barest majority."
People pleasing in politics means never pushing out of the public's comfort zone.
(And no, this isn't an endorsement of any current orange head of state, far from it.)
A good politician is able to garner support to enact change.
>> In the end, nobody was really happy with him.
This is true if you live in a bubble. Most Catholics don't hold strong opinions on the Pope. The people who do are, as usual, the extremes on either side - not the majority.
Not holding a strong opinion counts as not being happy with him, otherwise you would have a strong positive opinion of him.
How very Christ-like
Yeah, nothing says Jesus like siding with the aggressor due to your own prejudices.
Jesus famously said turn the other cheek
You can’t turn your other cheek when you’re dead, so I am pretty sure he didn’t mean it as allow yourself to get killed.
Besides, Ukraine did turn other cheek after 2014 war, they just run out of cheeks to turn.
Back to main subject, I believe nothing weakened Pope Francis’s policies as much as his widely misunderstood position on this subject.
this is such an intensely off base comment, youre back seat politicking the pope? You think he alienated conservatives and not that American conservatives went off the deep end and find themselves suicidally agitated over the lightest "love your neighbor"? I dont know anyone whos mad at him over Ukraine either, thats extremely minor.
Dude just died, rest in peace francis, the most popular pope we've had in decades.
> I dont know anyone whos mad at him over Ukraine either, thats extremely minor.
I know a lot of people that are mad at him over that, it's extremely major.
Of course I am happily criticising pope from back seat, this thread is literally to discuss him as a public figure.
Already said that conservative and liberal are English words not necessarily connected to US political scene. I know plenty of people initially supportive of him who got seriously pissed when he broke the long standing tradition of supporting the attacked, not the attacker.
I would argue it’s a pretty common position in Europe.
I don't think that US conservatives and liberals are were the center of gravity of papal policy is.
US doesn’t have a monopoly on those words and I am not even American.
Lesson learned: running defense for serial child molesters is acceptable if you pay lip service to climate change and gay rights.
Does anyone have any theories why his predecessor, Benedict, so shockingly resigned? (And then, according to this article, continued to live there, which was news to me).
The conventional wisdom is that Benedict was a hardline, conservative nut who had to resign for unknown reasons and was replaced by this well-loved, progressive guy. As seen in this thread, lots of people liked him and his philosophy, and his progressive take on things which always made the news, as he focused on the poor and traveled the world.
However, I've heard the conspiracy that Benedict was forced out, possibly related to his investigations into the child sex abuse scandal, maybe because he was finding important people involved. He was always very focused on the Church itself. And Francis was chosen, almost as a patsy, to end those investigations and instead be the friendly Pope out away from the Vatican.
I just always thought Benedict's resignation was surprising and there was something more to the story.
Conventional wisdom is he attempted to resign 3 times, had a stroke, and had a pacemaker all before he spent a further 8 years of his career elected as pope and then actually resigned. This all extends decades prior to his final resignation, giving the same health and desire for retirement reasons as prior attempts.
As for whether there was something more than the conventional wisdom to the story... I'm not really sure the news of his successors death is the correct thread to spawn that conversation in as it's getting to have little to do with Francis.
Religion is an undiagnosed mental illness.
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> The line between good and evil is very clear in this case.
> Edit: I mean Ukraine war.
Yes but it's not clear yet who will win, and the church cannot afford siding with the losing side, especially that now it's weakest it's been since medieval times.
> The line between good and evil is very clear in this case.
Edit parent meant Ukraine war, not the Israel conflict quote Pope had.
It would be different materially. The rallying cry would be different for one.
No matter who did it, it would still be 'evil'. There would be 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. Specially when the labels would be applied to dead children and innocents under rubble. Everyone keeps forgetting them.
Just because you think they would do the same to you, does not justify your actions.
Apologies, I meant Ukraine war, should have been more clear, it is that simple there.
That is a great and underused method of evaluating moral judgments and I believe that it’s very suitable in this particular case.
I do not have much hope that Palestinians would behave “better” according to any sensible measure of the word.
I would conjecture that many governments would position themselves differently and that criticism would face less obstacles.
In the end it would be as much of a catastrophe.
>That is a great and underused method of evaluating moral judgments and I believe that it’s very suitable in this particular case.
It also dilutes the current and very real responsibilities of the 'effectors'. In saying 'they would have done the same' it becomes very easy to justify the unjustifiable.
To your pre-edit:
> [basically] What if in a different world Hamas had all the weapons plus the backing of the US while Israel only had shoddy weapons?
In a hypothetical world where Usain Bolt was raised on Greenland and became interested in competitive gaming: would he have become the fastest human? Probably not. Different timelines.
This Sam Harris exercise is meaningless. The goal is not to measure the level of evil in the hearts of <hamas> or <isreali government>. That’s impossible. Hypotheticals that have nothing to do with reality are also fruitless. The goal is to figure out what evil actions are being committed and stop them.
But the abuser only did those things because he was abused as a child for eight yea— What’s that got to do with the problem at hand?
> The goal is not to measure the level of evil in the hearts of <hamas> or <isreali government>. That’s impossible.
The goal of thought experiment wasn't to measure evil or good. It's to determine if the lines between good and evil are that far apart.
If Ukraine was way stronger than Russia, would it try to annex Kursk and other non-Ukraine regions? Would it commit as many atrocities? No. It would be constrained by its desire to join EU. Could it do it if it had 30 more people, more nationalistic populace, and near infinite ammo supply? Probably.
But a litmus test, just tells you rough acidity, not exact pH either.