 |
|
|
|
|
March 14th, 2013
02:22 PM ET
5 things to know about the new pope(CNN) - From the Vatican to Buenos Aires, Catholics worldwide rejoiced when Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio became the new pope. He's the first Jesuit and the first Latin American in modern times to lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. But in some ways, he's just a normal guy. Here are five things to know about Pope Francis. FULL STORY |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
|
|
|
| Part of 
Excellent article on the Pope, from all that we read this Pope is truly a great servant of God. Praying that God grant him and wisdom and great health as he leads the church.
Enjoy this story on what your "truly a great servant of God" did during the Argentinian Dirty War.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/pope-francis-election-stirs-up-argentine-dirty-war-allegations-biographer-calls-it-unfair/2013/03/14/3363e006-8c71-11e2-adca-74ab31da3399_story.html
For now, I believe it is an allegation. Hope this new pope will touch the lives of suffering mankind in a positive way.
I hope he does a lot better than he did in the Dirty War. The very best that can be said of him is that he was totally silent and washed his hands of the massacre, and he stonewalled all later trials. I'm gonna bet more will be revealed.
It's so hard to find good popes these days.
Amnesty International investigate the claims by the two priests and dismissed them. Oops. The two priests wanted to arm themselves and jump into the action. Oops. They were caught committing crimes against the state. Ooops. Oh, well. Try again.
God's Love is Stronger Than Our Doubt
God's love has never done anything, and our doubt causes us to take greater care, and review the facts and evidence more closely, and "look twice before leaping"/"measure twice before cutting." And etc..
Does it make any sense what you are saying?
I used to think like that.
You should have stopped at the fourth word of that last post, amendude
believer's delusion is stronger than their logic
Dear all,
I am just a 1-day-old baby, could you all stop making noise and let me sleep? Gracias.
When someone is nasty
or treats you poorly,
don't take it personally.
It says nothing about you
but a lot about them.
His role and activities in The Dirty War are going to haunt him, and the stories are already starting to come out.
While I will not defend the church in anyway, I do believe that we are being unreasonable to expect this man's attitudes on certain things to change. He's 76, not too likely to change his stance at this point in life sadly.
There is a good article on the National Post that does speak to the good and bad of this man and goes slightly more in-depth. As more comes out in the future the bad just may outweigh the good.
I agree that I wouldn't expect great changes at that age, but I think that speaks to a structural problemwithin the church. Few organizations or any kind take on a leader of that age, and the reality is that there's a reason for that in a fast paced and changing world.
Meet the new pope, same god delusions, same certain-member-shaped hat, similar dresses, and same silly rituals (to keep stupid folk mystified) as the old pope. Nothing very new to see here, just some other old guy propping up a religious myth.
New actor in the Ronald McDonald outfit. Nothing really changes.
I'm going to remain optimistic about this pope for now.
He hasn't finished with the official swearing in ceremonies yet, so too much scrutiny over everythnig he has done so far may be premature.
Part of the flawed underbelly of Christianity that even a pope named Francis or a cardinal named Dolan will not be able to cure:
(only for the new members of this blog as current members know the flaws already):
Saving Christians from the Infamous Resurrection Con/
From that famous passage: In 1 Corinthians 15: 14, Paul reasoned, "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith."
Even now Catholic/Christian professors of theology are questioning the bodily resurrection of the simple, preacher man aka Jesus.
To wit;
From a major Catholic university's theology professor’s grad school white-board notes:
"Heaven is a Spirit state or spiritual reality of union with God in love, without earthly – earth bound distractions.
Jesus and Mary's bodies are therefore not in Heaven.
"
"In three controversial Wednesday Audiences, Pope John Paul II pointed out that the essential characteristic of heaven, hell or purgatory is that they are states of being of a spirit (angel/demon) or human soul, rather than places, as commonly perceived and represented in human language. This language of place is, according to the Pope, inadequate to describe the realities involved, since it is tied to the temporal order in which this world and we exist. In this he is applying the philosophical categories used by the Church in her theology and saying what St. Thomas Aquinas said long before him."
http://eternal-word.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2HEAVN.HTM
The Vatican quickly embellished this story with a lot CYAP.
With respect to rising from the dead, we also have this account:
An added note: As per R.B. Stewart in his introduction to the recent book, The Resurrection of Jesus, Crossan and Wright in Dialogue,
p.4
"Reimarus (1774-1778) posits that Jesus became sidetracked by embracing a political position, sought to force God's hand and that he died alone deserted by his disciples. What began as a call for repentance ended up as a misguided attempt to usher in the earthly political kingdom of God. After Jesus' failure and death, his disciples stole his body and declared his resurrection in order to maintain their financial security and ensure themselves some standing."
p.168. by Ted Peters:
Even so, asking historical questions is our responsibility. Did Jesus really rise from the tomb? Is it necessary to have been raised from the tomb and to appear to his disciples in order to explain the rise of early church and the transcription of the bible? Crossan answers no, Wright answers, yes. "
So where are the bones"? As per Professor Crossan's analyses in his many books, the body of Jesus would have ended up in the mass graves of the crucified, eaten by wild dogs, covered with lime in a shallow grave, or under a pile of stones.
"...current members know the flaws already." You mean your posts right?
"So where are the bones"? As per Professor Crossan's analyses in his many books, the body of Jesus would have ended up in the mass graves of the crucified, eaten by wild dogs, covered with lime in a shallow grave, or under a pile of stones."
Except, the rise of the Church was immediate, thus giving both the Romans and the Jews time to go get the body and show it to the new (obviously misled) believers and that would have been the end of it–no Christian church. Yet here we are. Interesting.
Amen.
Of course, it easily could have been Christian grave-robbers trying to keep their myth alive after their god came to a stupid end.
But Kitty, the Romans had posted guards...are you suggesting Christians, who would later suffer persecution by both the Romans and Jewish leadership in charge of the area, would be able to take the Roman guards out and then continue on with the lie all the while being persecuted? Makes no sense.
Guards are only noted in one of the gospels. In the other three, there clearly are none. Indeed, the women would not have even gone if there were guards, for they would not have let them open the tomb and annoint the body. The guards are part of the fiction, to make it sound more impressive. The simple fact that the four accounts vary radically and are incompatible clearly show they are legend, invented, lies.
A few critical thinking skills would help you immensely.
Do you have knowledge of how oral tradition then translated to a writing is interpreted by most reputable scholars (regardless of religious affiliation)? Why don't you explain your broad understanding of this subject so we know you are as smart as you now claim to be.
First of all, I have a Masters in History from a major university, and I am well aware of oral history and it's major limitations. Oral history is a notoriously inaccurate form when you are seeking the facts. For example, if you have four oral histories that cannot agree on simple thing such as how many people were there, what they found, what other people they saw, and what they did afterwards, then your oral histories are very dubious.
Oral history is much better in determining the emotional impacts on people, but even there it tends to be very distorted over time, and in the case of the Bible, other tellers. And of course, it is questionable if the resurrection tales are even oral history when oral history is always first person accounts and the tales are third person.
So nice try, but you failed miserably. Get back to me when your academic credentials will stand up to mine.
A-maz-ing. Kitty, I think you might not have done so well with that Masters. I'll take my JD and my ability to analyze evidence over your apparently limited understanding of oral history interpretation any day. Honestly, do you think anyone with half a brain believes what you just said? If you were to speak to someone at that time the oral tradition of the gospels was established and pointed out what you believed were inconsistencies, they would have looked at you like you were from Mars. You don't get to apply today's standards to yesterday's practices and say we're in a better position to communicate. The issue is whether the stories would have been considered consistent THEN...and THOSE people would have said yes.
Like you have a fvcking clue what "those people" would say or think, you pompous azzhole! Kitty seems to have her stuff on point, and I have EVERY right to make that statement based on my credentials and impeccable powers of critical thinking. There's only one azzhole here spewing pure sh!t, and it ain't Kitty.
A JD who thinks witnesses are reliable. Right. How can you claim to have any ability to analyze evidence when you have nothing but contradictiry stories, all of which came word of mouth through chains of people with agendas? That's not evidence, and it wouldn't stand up in any court.
How about I assembe you a few million oral histories of peope who say they have persoanlly experienced UFOs? That makes UFOs true, yes? I can find more living people who can give eyewitness testimony to voodoo magic actually working than all the witnesses of Jesus in the bible. Therefore the voodoo it true too?
You can hide behind ad hominem all you like (and as a JD I am not surprised you did), but your claims on oral history are totally ridiculous. You can not even prove any of the godspel accounts are oral histories and not invented stories, and as a JD you must surely know at least three are lies. If you walked those four stories into court, all of the witnesses would be discredited as unreliable. Their stories are way too contradictory.
"If you were to speak to someone at that time the oral tradition of the gospels was established and pointed out what you believed were inconsistencies, they would have looked at you like you were from Mars." – that's pure heresay and totally inadmissible. Are you sure you area JD? That's really incompetent.
"The issue is whether the stories would have been considered consistent THEN" – oh now really, I no longer believe your JD claim, for that is just assinine. The credibility of an account can only be judged by uneducated ancient contemporaries who are biased due to their ideology? Modern people cannot analyze ancient claims using advanced techniques. Give me a break.
You have failed miserably.
A Conversation
But Kitty, the Romans had posted guards
.
I as sume you have more evidence of this than just heresay? Your bible, correction "heresay" lacks credibility.
For those who want to learn more about the historic Jesus:
o 1. Historical Jesus Theories, earlychristianwritings.com/theories.htm – the names of many of the contemporary historical Jesus scholars and the ti-tles of their over 100 books on the subject.
2. Early Christian Writings, earlychristianwritings.com/
– a list of early Christian doc-uments to include the year of publication–
30-60 CE Passion Narrative
40-80 Lost Sayings Gospel Q
50-60 1 Thessalonians
50-60 Philippians
50-60 Galatians
50-60 1 Corinthians
50-60 2 Corinthians
50-60 Romans
50-60 Philemon
50-80 Colossians
50-90 Signs Gospel
50-95 Book of Hebrews
50-120 Didache
50-140 Gospel of Thomas
50-140 Oxyrhynchus 1224 Gospel
50-200 Sophia of Jesus Christ
65-80 Gospel of Mark
70-100 Epistle of James
70-120 Egerton Gospel
70-160 Gospel of Peter
70-160 Secret Mark
70-200 Fayyum Fragment
70-200 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
73-200 Mara Bar Serapion
80-100 2 Thessalonians
80-100 Ephesians
80-100 Gospel of Matthew
80-110 1 Peter
80-120 Epistle of Barnabas
80-130 Gospel of Luke
80-130 Acts of the Apostles
80-140 1 Clement
80-150 Gospel of the Egyptians
80-150 Gospel of the Hebrews
80-250 Christian Sibyllines
90-95 Apocalypse of John
90-120 Gospel of John
90-120 1 John
90-120 2 John
90-120 3 John
90-120 Epistle of Jude
93 Flavius Josephus
100-150 1 Timothy
100-150 2 Timothy
100-150 T-itus
100-150 Apocalypse of Peter
100-150 Secret Book of James
100-150 Preaching of Peter
100-160 Gospel of the Ebionites
100-160 Gospel of the Nazoreans
100-160 Shepherd of Hermas
100-160 2 Peter
3. Historical Jesus Studies, faithfutures.org/HJstudies.html,
– "an extensive and constantly expanding literature on historical research into the person and cultural context of Jesus of Nazareth"
4. Jesus Database, faithfutures.org/JDB/intro.html–"The JESUS DATABASE is an online annotated inventory of the traditions concerning the life and teachings of Jesus that have survived from the first three centuries of the Common Era. It includes both canonical and extra-canonical materials, and is not limited to the traditions found within the Christian New Testament."
5. Josephus on Jesus mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm
6. The Jesus Seminar, mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/seminar.html#Criteria
7. Writing the New Testament- mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/testament.html
8. Health and Healing in the Land of Israel By Joe Zias
joezias.com/HealthHealingLandIsrael.htm
9. Economics in First Century Palestine, K.C. Hanson and D. E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus, Fortress Press, 1998.
Added references are available upon written request.
Thank God this man stands strong against the filthy sin of ho mose xuality. Let the vicious, disgusting habits of the qu eers be exposed for all to condemn. Qu eers the people who gave the world AIDS.
and you're giving the world ignorance and fear.
Bull sh it. it is past time for the world to recognize the filthy sin of qu eers for what it is. No qu eers deserve any rights. Qu eers the people who spread AIDS to the world.
It is time to regognize your hatred and bigotry for what it is, you filthy minded moron. You are evil personified. I hope you get capped soon. Oh, and God told me he hates you.
Couldn't agree more, biffyfink has always been disgustingly wrong. Qu eers the people who gave the world AIDS.
Starving Africans eating monkey meat gave the world AIDS – you are an idiot.
I'm afraid you are quite correct, "My Dog is a jealous Dog". "pervert alert" is, in fact, an idiot.
I was talking to you, pervert. Replying to the original poster, which is you. Filthy pervert alert.
pervert alert"No qu eers deserve any rights."
Isn't that what they were saying about black about 200 years ago?
this pope, like all others, is a h.omophobe. he came out strongly against same-s.ex marriage in 2010, so he's not likely to change his mind on the issue anytime soon. he also has come out strongly against contraceptives. so he'll continue the policy of promoting the spread of AIDs/HIV by telling people not to use condoms. sure, he'll say don't have s.ex, but of course 20-year-olds are going to have s.ex - but they'll please the pope and stop further sin by not using a condom. great job, catholics, helping to spread disease and ignorance.
he won't take responsibility for the child molestations, he'll just do what the others have done before him - lie and say they're really gonna crack down on child molester priests from now on, but actually do nothing. they have a long list of known pedophiles that are still active priests. he could say the church is going to come forward with any and all information on child abusers within their ranks. the pope could say they will release all doc.uments proving such abusing and help the police in their investigations/prosecutions in order to put these monsters behind bars instead of letting them molest children at the next church. but he won't do any of that. the new pope will protect child molesters just as the old one did.
personally, i'm happy they picked another super-conservative to head the church. the church will keep becoming more and more irrelevant.
He also has a disturbing accusation against him from the Dirty War in Argentina. I imagine some interesting things are going to turn up about his pro-tyrrany behavior in those horrible years.
very interesting. what happened to those two liberal priests that were outspoken critics of him?
Bootyfunk "great job, catholics, helping to spread disease and ignorance."
The disease and ignorance are just lucky byproducts. Their main goal is to spread poverty and despair because that makes for the most devoted sheeple
Some believe that celibacy is appropriate for certain people, or for certain positions. It's ridiculous. Celibacy is unnatural and will continue to cause problems for the religious institutions that employ it.
Many of the people from these same institutions advocate against abortion, but don't understand the realistic benefit of the morning after pill or even basic contraception; their unrealistic wishful thinking is causing the death of many at the hands of disease. Realistically, many abortions could be avoided if a morning-after pill were not viewed as such an evil option. Many of these same people bring children into the world at a high pace, and then would prefer that the rest of society take over and educate their children in their particular brand of religion when they don't plan well.
In the U.S. recently we learned of the head of LCMS chastising a minister of that church for participating in a joint service for the victims of the Newtown school shooting.
One sect calls homosexuality an abomination while the next one in the same denomination is already performing gay marriage.
One sect, the Westboro Baptist Church believes Americans are being killed at war because America is too kind to "fags".
One sect believes that Jesus and Satan were brothers and that Christ will return to Jerusalem AND Jackson County, Missouri.
One sect believes women to be subservient, while another sect in the same denomination promotes equality between the sexes.
Conflicted right from the very beginning, Christianity continues to splinter and create divisions and more extremism as it goes.
=================================================
Has anything improved with Christianity since 200+ years ago?
Thomas Jefferson, POTUS #3 (from Notes on the State of Virginia):
Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
James Madison, POTUS #4, chief architect of the U.S. Constitution & the Bill of Rights (from A Memorial and Remonstrance delivered to the Virginia General Assembly in 1785):
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.
John Adams, POTUS #2 (in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 09/03/1816):
I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved – the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history.
Ben Franklin (from a letter to The London Packet, 3 June 1772):
If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.
Thomas Paine (from The Age of Reason):
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
Yay..more irrelevant copy/paste..YAYAYAYA
Damn it, CNN, NO MORE FRICKIN' POPE ARTICLES!!!!
You dingbats have a real talent for redundantly redundant redundancy, all empty as can be.
Do you guys have the slightest notion that increased quantity is no substitute for quality?
nope. they are just catering to the christians, as usual. christians constantly cry on this blog that there are so many anti-religious articles - wrong. 80% of articles on here are pro-religion. and when there's an article about child molestation, is that negative or just reporting on what happened? a negative article would read, "christians worship a make-believe sky-fairy".
Bootyfunk- "nope. they are just catering to the christians"
Or the atheists. Many of them love to moan and groan about the Pope.
Yeah, theycater to the athiests with pro-religion articles. Nice thunking, brainiac.
@Arvn Huac- You obviously don't read many of the comments on here. Many of the atheist regulars on here live for pro-religious articles so they can trash them.
I'm a little confused...this is the belief blog...as the atheists are fond of saying, "Atheism is a belief system, like bald is a hair color." So if there are no atheist posts, wouldn't that be right? Just like we also don't see posts about the new Xbox coming out...
Changing the subject is a sign of failure, Lycidas. Your point was that CNN caters to atheists, but the articles they post are mostly pro-Christian. So you now shifted to comments?
That's really lame, buddy.
@Arvn Huac- "Changing the subject is a sign of failure,"
Implying failure is a sign of failure on your part.
"Your point was that CNN caters to atheists,"
You really think I meant that? How tragic. Obviously they do not cater to them anymore than they do Christians. These are merely religious stories that all ppl (atheist, christian and all points inbetween) can and do comment on.
Belief and unbelief are two sides of one coin.
Like all duality (light and dark etc), one cannot exist without the other.
While the volume of Pope stories is tediously repet!tious, the election of the Pope is clearly the most important and newsworthy 'religion' story going on right now. It will settle down eventually.
I'm not a GOPer, nor do I play one on TV- "Belief and unbelief are two sides of one coin."
Exactly...atheism does not exist without some form of religion existing first. Atheism is a choice and not a default setting.
DamianKnight "I'm a little confused...this is the belief blog...as the atheists are fond of saying, "Atheism is a belief system, like bald is a hair color." So if there are no atheist posts, wouldn't that be right"
Yes, atheists don't believe your god exists; but, many of us do believe your religion is one of greatest disasters to ever befall human kind and so we are here to make sure your lies and illogic don't go unchallenged unlike the last 2000 years
Your just miffed that christians cant burn heretics at the stake any more
the new pope is a fatty. looks like he ignores the deadly sin of gluttony. wonder which others he indulges in?
Definitely pride. Thinking you are the goddiest person on earth is hardly the humility the Vatican propaganda machine is spinning onto him.
Wrath at gays, atheists and others who don't obey him? Yeah, there's a few scoops of that on his sundae.
"Ronald Regonzo" who degenerates to:
"truth be told" degenerates to:
"The Truth" degenerates to:
"Atheism is not healthy ..." degenerates to:
"Dodney Rangerfield" degenerates to:
"tina" degenerates to:
"captain america" degenerates to:
"Atheist Hunter" degenerates to:
"just sayin" degenerates to:
"Chad" degenerates to
"Thinker23" degenerates to
"Bob" degenerates to
"nope" degenerates to:
"2357" degenerates to:
"WOW" degenerates to:
"fred" degenerates to:
"!" degenerates to:
"pervert alert"
This troll is not a christian..
You need to add chrissy hitchens to that list, since she is the same person as the others.
hmmm... his posts are all based on ignorance. seems pretty christian to me...
why not add everyone to the list since no proof of anything is provided.
because this list is most of the ones this troll uses and this troll has been too stupid by making the same bad spelling mistakes or using the same post or forgetting which name they used.
to one who lives life as a fraud everyone else appears as a fraud, no proof cited. We all write English so are we all only one person.
What sort of proof is required?? What kind of proof do you want??
There is no proof, honesty is beyond anyone who would post such a list or agree with it.
Dot@4:37, do you think what pervert alert or truth be told posts is remotely honest?
Prayer changes things
Prayer does not; you are such a LIAR. You have NO proof it changes anything! A great example of prayer proven not to work is the Christians in jail because prayer didn't work and their children died. For example: Susan Grady, who relied on prayer to heal her son. Nine-year-old Aaron Grady died and Susan Grady was arrested.
An article in the Journal of Pediatrics examined the deaths of 172 children from families who relied upon faith healing from 1975 to 1995. They concluded that four out of five ill children, who died under the care of faith healers or being left to prayer only, would most likely have survived if they had received medical care.
The statistical studies from the nineteenth century and the three CCU studies on prayer are quite consistent with the fact that humanity is wasting a huge amount of time on a procedure that simply doesn’t work. Nonetheless, faith in prayer is so pervasive and deeply rooted, you can be sure believers will continue to devise future studies in a desperate effort to confirm their beliefs!
"Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things"
That's why the data, has shown that atheists have happier and healthier lives than conservative Christians. Your post is built on a lie!
Atheists have murdered more innocent children in the last 100 years than were killed in all previous centuries. Mass murder is not my idea of "health and happiness".
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited."
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922
truth be told is false
Truth be told is Truth
actions cause change; prayer wastes valuable time.
unclasp your hands. get up off your knees. think for yourself.
now go outside and put those hands to use helping your brothers and sisters.
congratulations - you're now a better person.
"intelligent snopes" is a fake
"Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things" is false
and as always snopes is wrong
honest snopes is a fake
Yay..more irrelevant copy/paste..YAYAYAYAYA by "Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things"
Truth is never copy paste.
truth be told is a liar
Only one statement is needed.
Same shit, different name.
he wears funny hats
Do you think Jews wear funny hats too? Just curious.
@Lycidas,
you don't think this is a funny hat:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Tiara_Benedict_XVI.JPG
It looks nothing like a yarmulke by the way.
Oy vey.
Considering the point of reference, it's kind of interesting that no one else ever used "Francis" before.
Sadly, while Pope Francis I might be an individual that will try to reorganize the RCC...considering his age and health, I doubt we will be seeing him in another 5-7 years.
A good pope is a dead pope
Hmm, hoping for the death of another human being that has done you no harm. How enlightened of you.
I like to know more on #4