Pope Francis: Church may support civil unions

[Rushing Jaws]

"The Pope is a politician heading up what is probably the most expansive political institution in the history of the world."

The CC is political for the same reason as any Church must be - b/c Christ's authority extends not over the soul of the believer alone, but over all men in all of every society, in all matters: sex, economics, politics, wages, migration, education, the arts, the sciences, government, international relations, states, Churches, religions: in short, absolutely everything, bar nothing. Whether people like this, is a different matter. But that is our problem. Not Christ's. Christ is both Lord and Messiah, & "all authority in Heaven and Earth" - not some, not most, not very nearly all, but "all" - is given to [Him]"; & the Church has not the shadow of a right to deny or dilute that. So the Pope has to recognise it; and that means he is obliged - as is any Christian - to act in a way that can look political, can risk being political, and for much of the Church's history has been political. There are wrong ways for a Pope to be political - and there are right ways. A right way of being political in the US of 2014 will not necessarily be right in a different place, or time, or both.

[Epoetker]

"The Pope is a politician heading up what is probably the most expansive political institution in the history of the world."

The CC is political for the same reason as any Church must be - b/c Christ's authority extends not over the soul of the believer alone, but over all men in all of every society, in all matters: sex, economics, politics, wages, migration, education, the arts, the sciences, government, international relations, states, Churches, religions: in short, absolutely everything, bar nothing. Whether people like this, is a different matter. But that is our problem. Not Christ's. Christ is both Lord and Messiah, & "all authority in Heaven and Earth" - not some, not most, not very nearly all, but "all" - is given to [Him]"; & the Church has not the shadow of a right to deny or dilute that. So the Pope has to recognise it; and that means he is obliged - as is any Christian - to act in a way that can look political, can risk being political, and for much of the Church's history has been political. There are wrong ways for a Pope to be political - and there are right ways. A right way of being political in the US of 2014 will not necessarily be right in a different place, or time, or both.

Presumptuous leftist nonsense, though possibly forgivable if it's all you grew up with. A man who worships Thomas Carlyle (himself a previous minister,) much less Christ, can see through that in an instant:

So, for instance, a typical neo-Benthamite public-policy construction needs a measure of national utility, such as "GDP" (roughly, net business-to-consumer sales). Both Mises and Carlyle will tell you (a) that there is no conceivable quantification of national utility, and (b) this measure, or any other, is of no use whatsoever. A policy that decreases GDP may be good; one that increases it, evil.

To a Carlylean, any such policy of government-by-steam is a simple declaration of surrender to Satan, like leaving port 23 open on your e-commerce server. For instance, America has built an enormous debt by consuming beyond its income - thus maximizing GDP. Oops.

Good does not tolerate evil, but drives it out entirely. If you see a process inviting further evil, it may well be compromised itself. Chaos breeds more chaos; order must extirpate it entirely, or surrender to it.

As a democratic platform, Manchester liberalism is effective from the left, but not from the right. Most tactics (as James O'Keefe is finding out) that are effective from the left, are not effective from the right. There is no such thing as effective right-wing Alinskyism - at least, not in the United States in 2010.

To a Carlylean, Satan is the Lord of Chaos and the Father of Lies. When you lie - intentionally or unintentionally - you sacrifice a kitten to Satan. Satan loves you for this! And, since he is not uninfluential on this earth, he does what he can for you. Which is sometimes quite a bit.

The Carlylean technique accepts only absolute veracity as the basis for any political strategy. The fact is: by sacrificing the occasional kitten or two, by twisting the truth a bit for the sake of this quarter's sales, libertarians and other rightists get nowhere. Their enemies are (a) in power today, and (b) operating an assembly-line rhinoceros abattoir for the sole benefit of His Satanic Majesty. Surely, sir, you had not thought to out-scoundrel such a bunch of scoundrels.

Politics is inseperable from democracy, and democracy is entirely seperate from an monarchical organization with a single ruler charged with ruling, whether it's a country or a doctrine. A king who acts like a politician is showing that he is in fact corrupted by politics, and no king who makes a proclamation that he considers binding would risk being misunderstood or unclear, such as, by regularly giving interviews to the public media instead of his own council. A politician, however, loves ambiguous terms and loosely-controlled media proclamations, if they can be made to mean whatever brings a vaguely positive association between the politician using them and the people voting for him.

That which is true, like Jesus Christ, will remain true yesterday, today, and forever. Whether you call it 'politics,' 'evolution', or 'building a seeker-sensitive environment,' any process that edges or shies away from the truth when called to speak it will inevitably fall into destruction or the service of Satan.