You only hear about the lead grifter at any point in time. There’s always a bunch of them.

As long as the money is there to grift, people will do so.

Also, Billy Graham’s Troubling, Nasty Nixon Moment

The legendary religious leader exposed a nasty side in a 1972 meeting with Richard Nixon.

The pope is a jesuit. They usually are scholars and work in science. The pope is a chemist. Jesuit schools teach evolution and all that. Basically looked at like secular liberals by conservative catholics.

Evangelicals don’t care that they’re wrong. And they believe that the Catholic Church has wandered too far from the ‘original church’ to a point where it’s no longer actually worshiping god, but has been twisted by the devil. So they ‘return’ to how their idea of what ‘the original church’ is instead. They recognize, however that their worship is actually nothing like the original church and despite not having proper biblical support, believe they are actually worshiping the right way. It’s one of the many contradictions they actively hold highly.

This was my experience with evangelicals, which I’m rather sure is rather more expansive than most as I’ve lived all over the country attending several evangelical churches in each place, grew up VERY active with Billy graham ministries and focus on the family, spent my first 4 years of school in the evangelical home school system known as A.C.E., ‘interned’ for teen mania ministries which brought together evangelicals from around the world, all of whom conformed quite directly to this experience, and attended a Christian university where a pre-req was to do an academic deep dive into Christianity which is, unsurprisingly, the catalyst for what got me out… I of course spent more time learning about the evolution of evangelicalism than I did the rest of the denominations as I was continually having my world rocked by how little sense any of the general beliefs actually make and was desperately grasping for anything to settle my worldview back down.

Evangelicals are stupid, they know it, and they revel in their ignorance (faith of a child bullshit taken so far out of any semblance of context).

preying to merry though, pretty common. funny though i was raised catholic but my mothers side are Irish protestant and i remember talking about the differences with my aunt, she said, you go to merry, we go to the man himself.

Catholics weren’t the original church. That claim of theirs basically hinges on the claim that Peter started the Papal succession which is bullshit also, when Peter came to Rome James was already Bishop in Jerusalem. Coptics are also definitely contenders, tracing themselves back to Mark. That was all before the New Testament was written, the newest parts date to as late as 100CE.

…and that’s organisationally. When it comes to rites and theology the Orthodox Churches and Coptics have a much better claim at being original, Rome forming its doctrine to serve the unity of state and governance of the people as they were essentially the ministry of religion. And thus arguably the last remnant of the administration of the Roman Empire, I’ll give them that.

As to idolatry: Protestants deny that there’s a distinction between dulia and latria, consider it a rhetorical justification ex post, “We’re doing that stuff but as we can’t be idolaters we must now make up new terms to explain how it’s not actually idolatry”. That’s, mind you, Calvin and Luther, not the current bunch of nutjob US evangelicals I doubt those have ever considered anything about theology.

Damnit, you’re right. They’re the nosy neighbor that’s constantly looking through their blinds and gossiping about everyone to everyone else. This is actually exactly in their wheelhouse.

Look, he’s banking on them not reading the bible and you are not helping.

More like 95 feces, amirite?

This is also the understanding of marriage that is offered by the Gospel. For this reason, when it comes to blessings, the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion. Such is also the meaning of the Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which states that the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2023/12/18/0901/01963.html#en

Arguably, the Pope has said it was always like this and hasn’t changed anything.

Which is… A tall argument to make given how many priests are pissed off about the Pope’s announcement.

Note: I am Catholic. Ama I guess, lol. But technically speaking, this is just how the Church always has been and therefore no change happened.

So people ask priests to bless stuff rather often. Stuff like babies, boats, cars, fields, tractors, running shoes, and whatever else. This is the kind of religious tradition that goes back a long way before Christianity, but nevertheless, the Roman Catholic church has policies, procedures, and liturgical texts for how to do it.

These types of blessings are not usually a major part of spiritual life for most people.

Previously, it was explicitly forbidden for a priest to offer this kind of blessing to a sane-sex couple. That is now permitted, but the priest must take steps to ensure that no one is confused that this might be a marriage, which it is definitely not (in the eyes of the church).

he created a second type of marriage for everyone else so their unions may be officially blessed by the church

The church doesn’t have the power to create different types of marriages and neither does the pope. I do not believe the nature of the change made is being described or reported accurately. It is being oversimplified.

Francis has actually been a very progressive pope, making great strides to make the church a more welcoming place.

I agree. I think a lot of changes he has made are good. I think this change is good. I think reporting on it has been dumbed down to the point of being incorrect.