As an ex catholic, this sort of thing is part of why it's so hard to fully separate myself from them. They've done so much evil, but right now they're doing exactly the good I was scared they may not.
Just waiting for Vance to be excommunicated.
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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Peter Thiel calling the pope the “anti-Christ” made me think the pope is pretty fucking cool. It also makes Peter Thiel look like a clown.
The dude is gay and still in the closet even though he’s a billionaire. What is he afraid of?
The guy was so butthurt about it that he had Gawker taken down.
That already shows he is really quite the freak, but the fact that he's so hopped up by the likes of Curtis Yarvin and the nonsense in The Sovereign Individual is next-level-craziness.
And then, on top of that, you add in his weird obsession with xtian eschatology, and it's truly a real WTAF.
Well..... The problem is that the Catholic Church does not act as a unified body, especially in America.
Trad Catholics in America have been hating the pope since basically Vatican II. That doesn't mean that "they are at war with the church", just that organizations like Opus Dei are actively trying to pull the church further to the right.
So while some of the church maybe doing good, the other part of the church is ending abortion rights and partaking in other crazy shit on the supreme court.
MAGA never really liked Catholics anyway. They only liked their votes, because these same bishops have turned many US Catholics into single-issue voters on Abortion, which directly enabled the current Federal assault on these immigrant parishioners. Most of MAGA is Protestant and Evangelical, and sees Catholicism as only a step or two removed from a cult.
And you know how the article references that this is the first "special statement" that the bishops released in 12 years? I looked it up, that statement 12 years ago was railing against the HHS mandate to fund contraception, in the name of "religious freedom".
It is tragic what is happening to their parishioners right now, but the bishops can only blame themselves. They directly advocated for politicians who are now actively targeting their people.
The US has never really been friendly to Catholics as a whole. Jfk was the first Catholic president, and a fear at the time was that the pope would have undue influence. The KKK also went after non-protestants.
Yep. It's a shame people don't understand that. Actually conservative viewpoints have been long gone from politics. I believe it was Michael Malice who said it--"conservatism is just progressivism driving the speed limit".
Conservatism today is a complete misnomer and just shilling for the traditional religious folk. MAGA does nothing but play on those heart strings and they're still able to lull in so many religious citizens.
I tend to think of and describe myself as a conservative, but don't align myself with the Republican party at all (I am registered to vote Republican to try to weed out the worst of their lunatics in the primaries, but it's gonna be a cold day in hell before I vote for one in a general election with the way things are going)
In my view, which absolutely isn't the view of the Republicans or conservatives as a whole, the point of conservatism is to just pump the breaks and slow things down to make sure all the "I"s are dotted and "t"s crossed to make sure things are actually going to work as intended.
Liberals/leftists/progressives should basically be the "idea guys" coming up with big general plans for what they want to happen
Then the conservatives would be sort of the bean-counters/logistics/nuts-and-bolts sort of guys. They shouldn't be there to outright oppose the liberal ideas, they're there to point out the problems with their plans and make sure they're addressed before we commit to some half-assed plan.
It is tragic what is happening to their parishioners right now, but the bishops can only blame themselves.
No shortage of liberal bishops who promoted like-minded candidates. Everyone from John Kerry to Joe Biden got a healthy windfall of support from the Catholic community at-large. As a consequence, Dems have historically been very squirrely on their support/opposition to abortion, with "Pro-Life" Democrats being a significant chunk of the elected bureaucracy.
The biggest opposition to ACA in the first two years was from these very Democrats - folks who twisted and squirmed at the prospect of extending the wrong kind of health care to the wrong kind of people. This wasn't a "Catholics brought this on themselves by electing Republicans", it was "Democrats allowed misogyny to fester within its party under the cover of the Catholic vote".
In the same way, Democrats have historically demonstrated a chronic unkindness to migrants and their families whenever they saw an electoral advantage in kicking people while they were down. This dates back to the Clinton Era of the 90s, when Bill ran to the right of Bush Sr on immigration and won California on the anti-Mexico vote. Catholics who were staunchly pro-immigration ran around backing migrant-friendly(ish) Republicans like Bush, Rubio, Romney, and Kasich only to get their backsides blown out by Trumpism.
It is tragic what is happening to their parishioners right now, but the bishops can only blame themselves. They directly advocated for politicians who are now actively targeting their people.
Tell me you don’t understand Catholicism without telling me you don’t understand Catholicism. If there is any Christian church that doesn’t advocate for specific politicians it’s the Catholic Church.
The special message from the U.S. bishops has no call to action outside of calling for care, well treatment and prayer for immigrants in the U.S.
I can tell you exactly how this special message will impact church going American Catholics. The Sunday mass following the message will include in its Prayer Intentions something like “we join the call of the U.S. bishops to recognize the humanity in all people, regardless of immigration status. We pray to the Lord”, and the parishioners will reply whether listening or not “Lord hear our prayer.”
If there is any Christian church that doesn’t advocate for specific politicians it’s the Catholic Church.
Really? They have no problem publicly disciplining specific Catholic politicians over their votes
I really like the sources you provided:
NPR:
After debate last year about whether Communion should be denied to Catholics who support abortion rights, including politicians, U.S. bishops decided not to implement such a policy and instead urged Catholics veering from church teachings to refrain from taking Communion
Wikipedia
In 2008, a minority of American bishops supported denying communion to pro-abortion rights Catholic legislators … These statements of intent from church authorities have sometimes led American Catholic voters to vote for candidates who wish to ban abortion… While there was thus disagreement among the bishops about the opportuneness of refusing the Eucharist to Catholic politicians promoting legalization of abortion, there was unanimity regarding the moral obligation of Catholic politicians who participate in what their Church considers a seriously sinful action to refrain from going to Communion
My takeaway is some Catholics may have been influenced by the opinion of individual bishops, but the church has been quick and consistent in its messaging that in regard to abortion and communion their request is: if you had an abortion, please don’t take communion if you haven’t confessed and asked for forgiveness. (This is the same request they’d ask for what they’d consider any mortal sin.)
It certainly doesn’t seem to suggest the Church is advocating for specific politicians, like my comment you originally replied to mentions.
I'd love to see the "religious right" wake up a bit to what being "conservative" has actually come to mean. The current level of cognitive dissonance has been a long time in the making.
I'm a little tired of pretending people just don't understand what is going on. Conservatives are fucking liars. They lie about their beliefs. They lie about their understanding. They feign ignorance at the horror and buy into nakedly fake conspiracy theories and artificially generated images/videos. To quote Upton Sinclair
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
The common denominator across the conservative movement is industry of employment. O&G, FinTech, Sales, Real Estate, Automotive, MLMs... If you find a staunch conservative pundit, you're going to quickly discover one or more of the above puffing up their financial sails.
Religious Right figures know full well that their religious leadership differs from their political leadership and they don't care. Their dioceses are funded with the money from extractive and exploitative industries. Their churches are built with blood money. And they're going to defend that money far more zealously than they defend some random asshole from Chicago promoted to the highest office via a conclave of foreign fucks most of them couldn't pick out of a crowd in full uniform.
The current level of cognitive dissonance has been a long time in the making.
It isn't dissonance. Its a pronounced divorce between the local churches and Rome that's been widening since Vatican II. As Catholicism spreads across the developing world and shrivels in the imperial core, the so-called Catholics find their economic future and their religious faith at odds. And they aren't flinching in response. They're going all in on the money.
I think there is a bit of cultural narcissism underpinning it all. It's the mindset that they are the special ones chosen for preferred treatment by the omnipotent ruler of the universe. No matter the issue, we're the good ones and the other guy is bad, and leopards won't eat our faces. It's only when the cruel grifters they've voted into power casually do something that directly harms them do they begin to wonder if something might be wrong, but they assume it must be some oversight or unintentional error. "My exalted master, President Trump. You've deported my wife and sent my children to a Nicaraguan gulag, and I'm thinking that there must be some sort of error. We've followed all the rules, and hate everyone you hate. Surely we're 'the good ones,' right? Right!?!"
There are lots of modern examples of "Jews for Hitler", that's for sure.
If things get bad enough, I'm sure even the very monied class but that are one the "wrong" side of some kind of sorting - including people like Thiel - will find themselves on the other end of that gun and they will be the most Pikachu-faced if it happens. Again, they apparently learned nothing from history. I'm sure the well-heeled Jews under Hitler thought their money would protect them, too.
Thiel is gay and I'm more than sure that a mobbed-up government that is pointed at him would be more than happy to seize all his assets, redistribute to the "worthy" people, and throw him in prison. Doesn't matter if he identifies as a billionaire and has weird xtian beliefs that match with "maga" (whatever the fuck that term means - it's just baby-talk, and I have a feeling that just like fascism, it doesn't really have much of an ideology for a reason. It means whatever the current cult leaders says it means).
The analogy I've always heard is "living inside the fence" versus "outside the fence". And how your perceived position shapes how you behave politically.
But I also see this painfully naive assumption that Democrats are actually for looser immigration policy or that a democratic administration won't end in your wife/kids getting the old heave hoe.
In the end, it's just two Have Nots arguing which plutocrat would trickle down on them better. There's no reason to vote for Trump, but no reason to vote against him either. Doubley so when you realize your vote isn't even impacting the election's outcome.
If every Republican had a crystal ball and could know with perfect certainty whether their immediate family would suffer from Trump's immigration policy... he would still be president today. The margins were too wide and the deck was too stacked.
i’ll never understand how someone can claim to be Christian and not be considered radical and “left wing” by the current standards of the Overton Window. To behave like Christ is, compared to what happens today, to be a fucking radical.
They don't believe in the Christ you describe. They believe in Supply Side Jesus
oh first hearing that. will look.
That link is to a cartoon from Al Franken's book. So it is satire, but becoming more real every day.
oh i just pulled it up. reads like a current era documentary 😂
Comes from a great book, too.
You are talking about red letter xtians. They are very few in number and influence.
I was raised a liberal xtian, and when I started talking to other xtians (or coming across Jack Chick tracts) and about what they believe and espouse, it really sent my mind reeling. I had read quite a bit of the NT myself at a fairly early age, and later, I read the OT. If you take the red letter stuff and try to make the conservative ideology fit, it doesn't really work.
Most of today's most vocal and prominent xtians seem to glom onto more the fire and brimstone stuff, assuming all that punishment will be dealt out to others and not them. Also, quite a few are definitely NOT readers, and probably have never even read even a few pages of either NT or the OT. Quite a few are fixated on things that are entirely off the ranch, meaning things like the Left Behind stuff...
They'll get to sit at the side of the character of Jesus and watch those other people (again, not them - they are not perfect, just forgiven) eternally tormented. You don't have to have a degree in psychology to realize this is the kind of sick fantasy that sounds more like something a character like Hannibal Lecter would dream up rather than something to ground a moral philosophy in. Their idea of "heaven" is watching other people getting tormented? Talk about telling on yourself. That is some truly depraved stuff.
But if they wake up then they'll be woke and they all agree that woke is bad.
I bet they're scared that the Pope is from Chicago and could run for president.
Holy shit, could you imagine
Honestly, he'd probably better than like 80+% of the field we've had in the last 3 elections or will have if there is another one.
Have you ever seen his brother talk? It sounds like that family is all pretty conservative. I bet his brother is MAGA. I’m guessing his politics aren’t that different. Though maybe he doesn’t talk about them so openly, because of his position.
President Pope sounds like a bad action movie. He would also be a cop too. And be one day from retirement. “President Pope, you’re a loose cannon. The mayor’s breathing down my neck. Hand in your gun and badge… and Bible.”
The pope is technically a head of state position for a foreign nation so he couldn’t run for president while holding that office.
But it would still be cool.
That would be like a President owning and running businesses that get revenue from foreign leaders while he was in office. That would be a conflict of interest and would never be allowed by Congress or the Courts.
* Rules only applied to Democrats.
Given what "maga" really is, it is little surprise that they are starting to say the quiet KKK parts out loud.
Huh. That’s odd. MAGA and the Catholics have being pedophiles in common. You think they would get along.
The don't wanna share the kids
Thought I'd actually applaud something decent being done by the Catholic Church. Can't wait to see Stephen Miller's violent rhetoric in response to this one 🤣
Given that this is the country that killed a Catholic bishop that was saying stuff that sounded too much like that Jesus Christ guy, I doubt they would hesitate to kill a pope if that pope opposed the "national interest" too much...
Everything I can find says he was killed in El Salvador by a local militant group. What am I not getting here?
Huh, I guess the shared interest in sexual abuse wasn't enough to keep them together.
Well of course. Honestly I'm surprised it took this long. As I've said in the past, there's no bigger tent than a fascist who needs power, and no smaller one than a fascist who has power. Trump has gotten the votes he needed from the Catholics, so it's out with "We're all Christians here!" and in with "They're not real true Christians!" In this case apparently because they commit the sin of empathy.
I wonder if anyone has been measuring the use of that phrase "Judeo-Christian" over time (as in "Judeo-Christian values")...would not be surprised to see that start to die off....at least in the way the cons use it.
Christian nationalism always turns into a purity contest. I feel like this would be true with any religious based political movement, but my knowledge of these structures in other parts of world is limited.
It always seems to start with purging outsiders, but once the outsiders are not soliciting the right reactions anymore they need to turn inward, they need start eating their own. They need an enemy to point to, they need to convince their followers that they are victims, and that they need to take extraordinary actions in order to take revenge on this perceived enemy.
That collective "enemy" is one of the core principles that unites these scattered political groups, and keeps them working together. Because MAGA isn't just one group, it's a collective of right wing groups united under the banner of defeating the "enemy of the nation" which they've been convinced is this imaginary idea of the left. A group apparently so powerful its influence touches every scientific institution, regulatory body, school and university in the US, but also completely helpless to pass any government policy that might benefit the working class.
Their labeling trans identity an ideology, will go down into the history books along with Geocentrism and Darwinism. As just another example of scientific method coming under attack for going against church doctrine.
To...own...the libs?
I mean, have fun, guys.
As if he would care:
I know I can't tell if someone is a good or bad person just from looking at a photo.
But this is very good evidence of the contrary.
Reminds me of every time I've seen Miscavige - the fact that his wife hasn't been seen for nearly 20 years is not surprising at all. I guess I don't understand how cults work on even intelligent people...but every time I see him, my skin just crawls.
Found Satan
That's one hell of a civil war brewing then.