I know this is about siasa. But just curious why you think Pope Francis comes across that way. To me, he behaves like I would imagine Jesus would actually have behaved. The Jesus I knew was not a judgmental kind of guy, put the pharisees in their place, embraced all sorts of taboo characters. Francis comes across as genuine saintly material.
Hmm...this is a very personal and painful topic for me and I'd rather not discuss it, but....Yes, I understand how/why you would have that view and I respect him but for someone who was as invested in the
truthfulness of the teachings of the Catholic Church above all as I was, Pope Francis has been as near a disaster as they come. Look, the pope is a nice chap. But he is also much more a politician than he is a Bishop. And he has around himself a group of cardinals who are what I can call PR geniuses with long-standing ties to the media who have made sure the pope remains a darling, which I don't mind at all. I don't want the pope needlessly attacked simply for being Catholic.
But the pope speaks with one end of his mouth to one audience and swiftly pulls another appearance when he is talking to an audience of Orthodox Catholics. Besides ancient people I only read about in historical accounts (with the attendant psychological distance that provides), pope Francis has honestly behaved in the most political ways as I have witnessed a pope do in my life time. He is not above underhanded tactics like setting up essentially fake discussions groups of Bishops to discuss a church issue and then using minions to deftly and in a very UN-transparent way attempt to manipulate the outcome in a manner I have only associated with politicians (and not those I consider the most honest), and then upon failure, essentially lashing out at those whose 'honest views' were requested but apparently not really desired. It also came out that his rise to the papacy was very dishonest, straight from the mouth of those cardinals who did that dishonesty so that not an insignificant number began to doubt that his papacy was legitimate.
Look, I am the last person who would accuse a pope of anything bad, being as invested as I am in my faith, especially one as jolly as Pope Francis who has essentially managed to stem to an extent, the flow of extremely negative PR about the Catholic Church since the breakout of the abuse scandal. But honestly, I have only managed to remain Catholic by willfully ignoring all Catholic news especially that involves the shenanigans at the Vatican.
Here is my view: Intellectual inconsistency is my lie-detector. However nice a person seems. I don't believe God would require me to sacrifice reason for truth and the Church has always said as much. But this pope unabashedly demands that. With this pope, I have come dangerously close to the fideism I used to despise in order to retain the faith I love. I was gonna become Buddhist since its the only non-Christian religion that would allow me to retain my conviction in the
specialness of
Jesus (which is why I was Christian at all) without blowing up my brain with intellectual self-contradictions. I couldn't bring myself to do that though. Anyway, this has been a real crisis for me for a while now and you will not catch me involved in those religious debates any more. Not even to defend the Church from what I know to be lies told/believed by many about her, which are abundant. Pope Francis' reign put a crack in my world view and I think I have become those "little ones" who must believe without being "clever": essentially, blindly. It's the best I can do for now, but it also allows me not to think any other views are "clearly" wrong.
Anyway, hiyo tu. Please lets not have a debate about this. It's a very personal experience.