Related: https://catholicreview.org/chicago-native-cardinal-prevost-e...
(via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43928742, but we merged that thread hither)
> "Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.' And his point was, if America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don't want America running the world religiously. So, I think there's some truth to that, that we're such a superpower and so dominant, they don't wanna give us, also, control over the church."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-pope-could-it-be-american-c...
That's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months. It probably has more to do with America's predominant religion being protestantism by a very wife margin for most of the country's existence. We didn't have a Catholic president until Kennedy and even then proving to the common American that Catholics aren't insane Vatican mindslaves was considered a hurdle he had to overcome.
If there's a political motive in not choosing an American pope until now it's that for most of American history it wouldn't have granted them any influence over American politics. If there's a personal motive it's that until recently they felt insulted that America went for almost 200 years before finally electing a Catholic president.
> America's predominant religion being Protestantism
Tangent: Protestantism is not a religion. The religion is called Christianity. I have seen this trend for quite a while of Protestants (or people born in Protestant countries) of referring to Christianity branches as religions. I find it very segregational. The whole point of all the branches is the same guy whose name begins with C.
But yes, given the state of America today, having an American pope will definitely be an interesting development in the context of many lobbying groups wishing for a vaticanised America.
> the same guy whose name begins with C
Nit: "Christ" is actually a title, not a name — it's the English version of the Greek Χριστός (christos), from the Hebrew mashiach (in English, messiah, anointed one).
His name was Yehoshua (or Yeshua or Y'shua, "Yahweh is salvation" — in English, "Joshua") whose Greek version is Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous, anglicized to "Jesus", although the Spanish pronunciation hay-sooss is closer to the Greek).
I don't consider myself part of any organized religion at this point, but I grew up going to this really iconoclastic presbyterian church where we only ever talked about the two testaments of the Bible and the only formal rituals we had were eucharism and the baptism (which, IIRC is because those are the only two rituals with a basis in the gospel) and from that perspective it's always seemed like whatever catholicism is, it's not the same religion as our relgion because they have all sorts of extra stories and tradition that seemed entirely foreign. We didn't even have an antagonistic relationship with them, our pastor never talked about other religions during sermons because he wanted to avoid our church getting involved in any of the negative aspects of christianity and focus only on the sort of positive community-building that jesus does in the gospels. The catholics have a massive canon of saints who they pray to instead of god, a church that claims to derive its authority from jesus himself via claiming one of the disciples to be their first pope, and a tendency to put mary the virgin at the forefront of everything (not that protestants ever had anything against her, but the catholic preoccupation with her really is bewildering from a protestant point-of-view) that seems irreconcilable from the the viewpoint that the religion begins with the old testament and ends with the new testament. I don't even consider myself a christian anymore and yet I still sometimes find myself feeling like Catholicism is no less alien than islam.
That said, looking back there were a couple problems with the protestant viewpoint: one is that there's no attempt at explaining god's apparent 2000-year vacation and another being that the bible was effectively nonexistent until the council at Nicaea and I'm not sure what legitimacy there is in them having any authority to decide what is and is not canon unless you accept the catholic church's authority.
I hear you about these being a bunch of different branches of Christianity. But the difference between branches of Protestantism and Catholicism is old and significant.
It'd be like saying "Talking about Rust is segregational. It's just all branches of programming languages starting with C". Technically true, but not a useful distinction.
> It'd be like saying "Talking about Rust is segregational. It's just all branches of programming languages starting with C". Technically true, but not a useful distinction.
That analogy is not valid. Protestants argue that catholicism does christianism in a sloppy way, whereas they do it right. If you're going with a programming language analogy, it's like a C++ programmer arguing that onboarding cppcheck and --Wall --pedantic is the only acceptable way to work with C++, and everyone else is doing it wrong.
>That analogy is not valid. Protestants argue that catholicism does christianism in a sloppy way, whereas they do it right. If you're going with a programming language analogy, it's like a C++ programmer arguing that onboarding cppcheck and --Wall --pedantic is the only acceptable way to work with C++, and everyone else is doing it wrong.
Every sect within a religion is going to argue that they are the ones doing it right and the others are either wrong or at least suboptimal depending on the state of inter-sect relations. I would peg the Protestants as C and the Catholics as C++ in this analogy, as the chief defining feature of protestantism is that they do not acknowledge the legitimacy of just about everybody who has ever claimed to speak on God's behalf past a certain point; thus, like C, their view of religion is inherently stagnant. They don't necessarily deny that God continues to interact with his creations, but they've realized that statistically speaking any given prophet or saint has an approximately 0.0 probability of actually conveying messages from God so they'll just stick with the ones that are so old that just about everybody [who calls themselves christian] already agrees on them. This is similar to the way that many C programmers are really C++ programmers who got tired of all the dumb new C++2x bullshit and just want to write computer programs.
Both the protestant religion and the C programming language have viewpoints that make sense given the histories of their respective subjects, but the major drawback of these viewpoints is that they have chosen to limit themselves to only iterating through new interpretations of old ideas; both of them are fundamentally incapable of innovation because being incapable of innovation is the fundamental core of their belief systems. Thus, if God ever really does try to leave the protestants a voicemail or if bjarne stroustrup ever does come up with an idea that isn't terrible and needlessly complicated, both the protestants and the C programmers will miss out on it.
I will not even attempt to speculate as to which programming languages should represent islam and judaism in this analogy because i do not want to die or have my account banned.
That's really not fair because the different sects and denominations of Christianity have different apocrypha and different translations (or lack of translations) of the source texts.
And of course they vary widely in rites, practices, and liturgy.
People think they are closer than they are. The difference between the protestant denominations, catholic denominations, mormans, jehovah's witnesses, etc are quite major and in a very real sense the separation between these different sects of Christianity are essentially only a few steps removed from the separation Islam has from Christianity.
Protestantism is more like C++ than Rust on this analogy.
It's mostly compatible and people keep confusing them.
> Tangent: Protestantism is not a religion. The religion is called Christianity. I have seen this trend for quite a while of Protestants (or people born in Protestant countries) of referring to Christianity branches as religions.
Deciding what is a “branch” of a religion versus whats is an independent “religion” is more subjective than objective. This might become clearer if we move away from Christianity for a moment, and look at the same question for some non-Christian religions
Consider the southern Indian religious movement of Ayyavazhi - most people, both in India and outside it, consider it a branch/denomination/sect of Hinduism, including even many followers of Ayyavazhi - but some of its followers and leaders insist it is a separate Dharmic religion [0]. The question is (in part) political - Dravidian nationalists and Tamil nationalists are more likely to call it a separate religion, Indian nationalists (Congress) and Hindu nationalists (BJP) want to view it as part of Hinduism
Meanwhile, most people consider Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism to be separate religions from Hinduism - but the British courts in India decided they were branches of Hinduism, a classification still followed by the Indian legal system to this day. Many Hindu nationalists promote the idea that these traditions are branches of Hinduism, even though most of the Indian followers of those religions reject the idea.
It is standard to classify the Alevis in Turkey as an Islamic sect - yet the Turkish government wants to insist on the idea they aren’t even a sect, just a “cultural movement”, to promote the fiction of a homogeneous Turkish Islam - but while some Alevis are fighting for government recognition as a separate sect of Islam, there is a movement among Alevis (Ishikism) which claims it is a separate pre-Islamic religion, and its Islamic content is just a superficial distraction (dissimulation) to prevent persecution. Meanwhile, many hardline Sunnis around the world agree that Alevis are a non-Islamic religion - and some of the most hardline Sunnis will even say that of mainstream Twelver Shi’a.
So, the boundary between “branch of a religion” and “separate independent religion” is more subjective (theological and political) than objective.
[0] https://m.economictimes.com/news/elections/lok-sabha/tamil-n...
In the end Christianity is just a branch of Judaism ;)
It's unlikely that Protestants (including all the weird splinter groups/cults/sects in the US), Catholics and Orthodox will ever reunite into the same church again, so calling them separate religions is fair I think.
But the numerous reunions effected by the Catholic Church have been nothing short of miraculous.
For starters, there is a Catholic Church corresponding to every Eastern/Oriental Orthodox Church in existence. Belarussian Orthodox Church/Belarussian Catholic Church. Including some unique outliers: Melkites, Maronites, Chaldean Catholic.
These Catholic Churches "returned" to communion when their head bishops decided to rejoin after centuries of schism. Thereafter, these churches are open to new individual converts, as well as entire parishes or eparchies coming into communion anew.
Furthermore, the Personal Ordinariates were erected quite recently to accommodate conversions from the Anglican church. It began long before that: the Catholic Church has received Anglican priests, with their families, ordained them as Catholic priests, and set them to parish ministry. Yes, even the married ones. Some Anglican priests or bishops became prelates, and entire parishes converted to the Catholic faith. They even retain their own liturgy, "Divine Worship", which is based on the Book of Common Prayer. If you're a fan of the old Tridentine liturgy, just imagine if that were presented in English instead!
Today there are no fewer than 24 Catholic Churches in communion with Rome, including a brand-new Eritrean Catholic Church, corresponding to the split in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
So I disagree with your pessimism because we have plenty of examples, in the distant past as well as quite recent history, where Protestants and Orthodox alike have come back into communion with the Catholic Church. Thanks for bringing it up!
The great schism between the orthodox and catholic churches isn't like the schism between the protestants and Catholics. The protestant and catholic split is rooted in a fundamental disagreement on what the religion is; historically there has been conflict intertwined with politics too, but (Ireland notwithstanding) that isn't relevant to the Catholic/Protestant divide.
It is true that certain protestant sects are effectively "the catholicism we have at home [in england]" and you are right that those probably can be convinced to rejoin the catholic church but the majority of protestant sects have a firmly-rooted belief that the church is an organization created by humans to worship god and there is nothing inherently sacred about it. They also tend to reject anything outside of the old and new testaments compiled at nicea as being canon.
There's a fascinating bit of cognitive dissonance wherein they believe that God is still actively involved in the world and has been for the past 2000 years yet they haven't made any attempts at recording them; I think the logic is that they'd need the church to have some sort of divine authority to add to the bible and they've already ruled out the church having that authority so the bible is effectively set in stone forever. But that's irrelevant, I'm getting off-topic here.
Anyways, as far as unification goes it doesn't really matter that nobody knows or cares about ancient wars between catholic and protestant kingdoms and it doesn't matter that they can all get along and be neighbors and even have their churches work together on charity projects because the schism between the catholics and protestants is rooted in ideology not animosity. There's no compromise between the pope being a direct line of succession from peter and the pope being "just a guy in rome who makes great sermons" and I can't imagine they're going to want to take 1700 years of catholic lore and add it into their canon like its no big deal either.
Another roadblock is that the protestants themselves are highly fractured, often due to minor disagreements over pedantic minutiae that at least 99% of their members don't care about (IIRC one of the disagreements was over whether Jesus meant it literally when he said the bread and wine are his flesh and blood or rather that was a figure of speech, i think the calvinists and the lutherans are on opposite sides of that disagreement) but they've all had a long history of peaceful cooperation and they've never let that turn into an actual conflict yet still they never even try to unite. They don't see any point as long as they can coexist peacefully as separate churches because the only thing that would grant them is consolidation of power, which they are largely disinterested in. So even putting the ideological debates and factionalism aside, they'd need to be convinced that there is even a point in unifying with the catholic church when they can continue to peacefully coexist as separate organizations.
>In the end Christianity is just a branch of Judaism ;)
hoo boy, be careful who you say that around, some of the jewish denominations have some very strong opinions about Christians calling themselves jews lmao.
anyways, I think beyond there being a major disagreement on whether there's any legitimacy to jesus being worshipped as a messiah or the new testament as a whole, the primary reason why they're considered separate religions is that judaism is ultimately centered around the fathers of the jewish/Israelite ethnic identity making a sacred covenant with God that cements them as his chosen people, whereas christianity's basis lies in Jesus' sacrifice forging a new covenant between God and all peoples (jewish and gentile alike). The reason why there's so much undying support for israel among modern evangelicals is that they believe judaism is still a legitimate religion because in their view there's no reason why the old covenant shouldn't still be valid for Jewish people who never partook in the new covenant.
Yes, protestantism is a sect, with a history of conflict with catholicism. Catholics have a huge body of literature and claim stories about tens of thousands of saints and holy/blessed people (you could get lost in those stories for years and never see the end of it, quite beautiful.) whereas the default protestant position is to be skeptical due to the self serving nature of the catholic church.
Pope Leo is obviously not going to represent any american interests, just like the earlier popes not representing german and argentinian interests as that would be blatant and absurd.
Anything is a religion if enough people agree to it. If Scientology can call itself a religion than "Protestantism" is legit.
It seems that the baptist subsection of Christianity already have a bunch of different interpretations of Christian scripture. Historically it's only a matter of time before the inevitable schism, and then they also get to claim to be a different religion.
> Anything is a religion if enough people agree to it. If Scientology can call itself a religion than "Protestantism" is legit.
Protestantism, by definition, is Christianity. The very nature of protestantism is that the Catholic church needed to fix errors and discrepancies. If anything, protestantism advocate that they do christianism right, whereas the Catholic church is a tad sloppy.
I am an Orthodox Christian and I can tell you that to us, Protestantism definitely looks like a completely different religion.
Despite claiming that they follow Christ, our and their definition of "following" is so different that what they do and believe often looks unrecognizable.
The same can be said about the difference between Catholics and Protestants. Despite our disagreements, the Orthodox and Catholic churches still share a lot theologically. The same cannot be said about Protestants (although, that also depends on what denominations you consider).
It's not to say that we don't share any values. We actually do and there are many individual Protestants that behave in a more Christian way than some members of the Orthodox Church.
However, that is not a highly relevant factor. For one reason or another, there are many atheists and members of other religions that do as well. But those still remain clearly separate and would never be classified as Christians.
I agree on your sentiment and it’s also in the Bible: 1 Cor 3:3-6. It bothers me when people switch denomination and say they have “converted.”
If that is how we wanna logic through this, all of these religions are Judaism; Jesus-branches and Torah-branches and Mohammed branches and on and on…
Eh. While the correct term is denomination, in practice the separate arms of Christianity have fought each other and function separately. Like Sunni vs Shia vs other muslims.
Anti-Catholicism runs deep in America, but the particularly weird issue is the converts. People who convert into Catholicism tend to be much more conservative than those born into it, often much more so than actual Church doctrine. Hence the Vance controversy.
OTOH, 6 of the 9 supreme court justices are catholic so there might be some influence there although I think the influence is probably more from the somewhat uniquely American brand of conservative Catholicism.
More like 6.5 out of 9.
Gorsuch was raised Catholic, and thus the Catholic Church still considers him a member. Gorsuch hasn't publicly stated whether he considers himself Catholic or not. In 2017, one of his friends said:
>Trent, Gorsuch’s close friend, said he believes Gorsuch would consider himself “a Catholic who happens to worship at an Episcopal church.”
https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/18/politics/neil-gorsuch-religio...
‘The next Pope is from Chicago’ sounds like the kind of thing 1800s American nativists would panic about
Give Twitter another 24 hours to stew over his past ministry and his Peruvian citizenship, and one will find our modern Know Nothings making similar hullabaloo.
Is it even viable to run for pope as a priest who spent his whole life in a first-world country? I can't imagine somebody who has spent a significant portion of his life doing charity work or spreading the church to some new population losing out to some guy who spends his whole career preaching to a crowd of predominantly-white bourgeois Americans in a boring midwestern suburb where the biggest problem is either too many DEI programs in local schools or not enough DEI programs in local schools.
There is no shortage of the downtrodden and dispossessed in the USA, if you seek them. The problem in this hypothetical would rather be that acknowledging and prioritizing such people in America is likely to be, for many fellow first worlders (to include parts of the American Catholic hierarchy) an inherently radical, polarizing, and political act. I doubt such a priest would be so rapidly promoted as was Leo XIV.
Acknowledging and prioritizing similarly marginalized people in poor countries, or at least in countries less tetchy about their failings and political pieties, carries less political risk. (Which is not to claim Prevost cynically avoided American ministry to the poor.)
That said, that such ministry is qualification at all seems to me more a product of Francis’s remaking of the college of cardinals with a notably Franciscan philosophy. The majority of post-WW2 popes have been European, of the first or second world. Benedict was German and John Paul Polish.
For whatever reason, and I guess this is mostly based on my experience with my Catholic friends and family, even if they are not lawyers the Catholics just love arguing about rules. Perhaps that's because Catholic Dogma and Tradition is complicated. In any case, I suppose that means it should be unsurprising that a lot of Catholics end up studying Law and as a result provide a wide pool to draw from when it's time to nominate Justices to the Supreme Court.
> That's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months.
I don't think they had much control over when Francis died.
The concern is that America would be too powerful if they had this power over Catholicism as well. There's no concern about waiting until it's time to appoint the next one.
Sure, but there clearly wasn't much concern if an American got 2/3rds of the vote on day 2. They didn't have to elect a new pope this quickly.
130+ cardinals aren't going to be stuck in Sistine Chapel for months just to assuage some hypothetical concerns about America.
At one point they took the roof off of a building because they were taking too long. Another, they changed their diet to bread and water. In one instance they stopped their pay until they decided.
You should look into the history of choosing a pope, it’s wild.
Well, they used to take quite a bit longer in the past.
They had to. They are locked there, isolated, until they elect. That is how catholic pope elections work. Their job is to elect and then move on their normal duties and interactions.
Then they appoint somebody else and wait until he dies and then appoint Pope Americus the First. The hypothesis is that they didn't want an American pope until America is in decline and that America is in decline due to the re-election of Donald Trump. I will admit the part about Donald Trump is something i assumed with no basis and it is possible that the OP did not mean to say that America is in decline solely as a result of this, but whenever i read about America losing its international influence it's always somebody complaining about the tariffs or insulting Canada or whatever.
Anyways, nothing can end America on such a short timescale. Even if Donald Trump's recent decisions will cause the downfall of America's global pseudo-empire we are not anywhere near a point of no return and he could give up on playing "5D chess" and fix this all within a month; some opportunities would be lost which leads to some unrecoverable economic damage but we'd still be largely in the same position as we were six months ago; consequentially, any fears they may have had about appointing an American pope during a period of global American hegemony are still valid.
> they’d wait longer than four months.
Why? Is there any reason for anyone in the world to think this behavior will change suddenly? Is there a reason the church wouldn’t think the US has a crisis of faith if those in power and their followers are so willing to commit sin against their fellow man? Clearly we all know how Jesus proclaimed, “Gather ye the masses of immigrants and send them to another country, lest they not be tortured for their grave sins of migration.”
Very late to this discussion, but you should read the Vatican's laws on migration and citizen-only residency, before talking about "sin against fellow man". I am not even Christian, but I find the Popes very hypocritical.
Are you referring to the laws of the Vatican City State, which is a microstate-sized enclave with barely enough infrastructure to support the Roman Curia? The Vatican City State, where the vast majority of its male populace are celibate, unmarried, no wife and no children? The Vatican City State, where tourists abound and comprise a giant revenue stream by their presence? The Vatican City State, which is surrounded by an ancient and cosmopolitan city which plays host and home to thousands of refugees and immigrants?
Or are you referring to some other type of hypocrisy?
What the actual hell?
Yes, I am referring to that Vatican city. Immigration is extraordinarily harsh and strict - your cherished principles of Christianity do not apply. Hence the hypocrisy.
If you believe the city too small, then please consider Italy - which require asylum applications to be submitted while in a third country, the "Cutro Decree", limits on number of non-EU citizens who can enter, non-EU citizens need work permits, nothing given for "family reunification" - laws that are strictly applied or you are kicked out with little fanfare and 1000% less drama than in the USA.
Yes, the hypocrisy is mindbogglingly astonishing. I can say even more firmly: What the actual hell ?
Italy? You mean where it is illegal to immediately deport someone to their own country if they can show they would be in danger due to EU and International law, and if safe, will be sent to a third country or back to their own country and allowed to apply? Or were you just trying to throw out an example hoping no one would know better about the difference between this, and sending people to third-world torture camps?
> That's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months.
Are you suggesting that the decline has only been apparent since Trump's re-election? For some (myself included), America has been in obvious political decline for some time - highlighted and spurred along by some significant events (Trump's first election and the nature of US involvement in Gaza to name a couple).
I personally don't think it makes any sense to claim America's in a decline on a short-term basis; my point is that a decline is inherently something that would only be visible over a longer scale of time.
The reason I said "four months" is because America's media establishment has been pushing this narrative that the tariffs and the argument with zelensky have somehow ended american hegemony overnight; I personally believe it's impossible for these events to cause a noticeable decline on such a short basis because there's far more to america than merely not taxing imports and giving limitless amounts of free stuff to ukraine with no strings attached, but I have developed a pavlovian response to the phrase "America's in decline" because it really is all about Donald Trump with these people.
I would personally put the origin of "America's Decline" at 9/11 because that was the beginning of America's self-doubt about what their place in the world is and what it should be. Everything since then has been the five stages of grief on a nationwide scale. Currently we're somewhere between Depression (stage 4) and Acceptance (stage 5) which is why we gave up on Afghanistan, and also why so many people are opposed to funding Ukraine; there's a legitimate fear that arming the Ukrainians will in some way come back to bite us in the ass 20 years later just like arming the mujahideen did.
For what it’s worth, I was just reading that Leo wasn’t seen as “completely” American due to his many years in Peru — he’s even a citizen. Take that as you will.
Americans will say they are Italian because their great grandma ate spaghetti once, but God forbid someone is American because he was born there
GP is right, he is not "completely" American in the sense that he is both American and Peruvian because of his dual citizenship. He also spent most of his life outside of the USA.
Which I think is a great thing as the representative of a worldwide religion. Born in the US, an English-speaking country in North America, lived in Peru, a Spanish-speaking country in the South America, then in Italy, an Italian-speaking country in Europe.
> he is not "completely" American
As for being completely American: dual citizen of U.S. and another country here. On each April 15, the U.S. still considers me completely American even though I haven’t earned a cent there in over a decade. So in an official sense, that moniker sticks to you like Super Glue.
Granted, the new pope may have a wider scope of cultural influences than many, if not a majority of Americans, it sounds like his formative years were spent in the U.S. so I’d call him American.
There’s a really interesting question here. Will the USA claim the right to tax the new pontiff? Likely answer is no, but legally the statute suggests yes. But who knows? There’s never before been a US citizen who is also a foreign sovereign.
> There’s never before been a US citizen who is also a foreign sovereign.
Éamon de Valera was born in New York City in 1882, and served as President of Ireland from 1959 to 1973
Bhumibol Adulyadej was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1927, and served as King of Thailand from 1946 until his death in 2016
That’s just two US-born individuals who became head of state of another country, there may be more.
I assume both were US citizens at birth (de Valera was born into poverty, abandoned by his Spanish father, reputedly an artist; Bhumibol‘s father was a student at Harvard)-whether or not they ever formally renounced their US citizenship, I don’t know
I was wondering whether Wikipedia would comment. They don't, but somebody already edited Bhumibol's article to say that "His father was enrolled in the public health program at Harvard University, which is why Bhumibol was the only monarch to be born in the US until the 2025 papal conclave elected Pope Leo XIV."
There are some sources indicating that children of foreign sovereigns would be exempt from automatic citizenship, but Bhumibol's father wasn't the king, just the king's brother.
Éamon de Valera's case is unambiguous.
There are surely other world leaders who spent significant time in the US - Benjamin Netanyahu spent some time in the Philadelphia area as a child, for example. And a little bit of research turns up Naftali Bennett, prime minister of Israel in 2021-22 - he was a US citizen (born in Israel to US citizen parents) until he had to renounce his US citizenship when elected to the Knesset.
Famously Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel (which is a largely ceremonial post), which presumably would have come with Israeli citizenship, but he turned it down.
> there may be more.
> Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City
Not a foreign sovereign - Boris Johnson was never head of state, only head of government - a distinction often forgotten in countries like the US which merge those two offices into one. (Which is not about the UK being a monarchy-parliamentary republics such as Ireland, Malta, Germany, Austria, Israel, keep the two distinct)
I believe King Rama IX was not technically a U.S. citizen because his parents were considered foreign diplomats. In any case he never tried to claim citizenship and was only ever considered Thai.
So, a foreign prince (not the King, his brother) enrols as a student at Harvard - would he be considered a “foreign diplomat”? He wasn’t formally acting as a diplomat, and unless he happened to be officially accredited to the State Department as one, I doubt he would have technically counted as one either. Was he present in the US on a diplomatic/consular visa, or a student visa?
Also, in most countries (the US included), one’s status as a citizen/national is legally independent of whether one tries to “claim” it.
Éamon de Valera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89amon_de_Valera), US citizen and President of Ireland.
Two things:
1. Does the Pope have significant personal income? 2. Does, which what I think you are getting at, the law apply to a head of state?
> Does the Pope have significant personal income?
Monthly income for pope US$32,000 equivalent.
> Does, which what I think you are getting at, the law apply to a head of state?
I don’t know if he will exempt as head of state, but as ordinary US citizen he will be paying taxes to US as his income exceeds FEIE exemption threshold.
I am not sure that is correct. Different sources show very different amounts.
The $32k seems suspiciously close to the monthly €2,500 reported by other sources multiplied by 12.
There also seems to be some confusion between the assets and income of the pope and the papacy.
he is completely US American because he was born and raised there and studied there, maths and philosophy amongst other things.
and in addition he is also Peruvian.
so he's more than American. hyper American if you will. and now he's the head of state of the Vatican, too.
a triple whopper of sorts ;-)
Definitely a "yes, and" thing. I'm working on dual citizenship and I would not consider myself "less American" once I got it.
You can't study maths in America. There is only one math in America.
There are many sports though.
loool TIL
my cheap excuse is that Europeans learn en-uk ;-)
1955 born (chicago)
1977 seminary grad (chicago)
1982 ordination (->rome)
1985 canon law doctor (->peru)
1999 midwest augustinians (->chicago)
2001 global augustinians (->rome)
2015 bishop (->peru)
2021 dicasterate (->rome)I think it was Aristotle who said "Give me a child until his mid-twenties, and I will give you a complete American."
He is moderate. Even, with his speech and choice of clothing, somewhat confrontational with Francis.
Traditional papal symbols of Benedict XVI return and that whole speech of “Do not be afraid to evangelize with the truth” gave me a sense of confrontation with the modern ideology.
If Peru gets to claim this pope, then the US gets to claim Tesla, Einstein, etc. lol
I suspect that’s going to be a political talking point sooner, not later.
For what it's worth, Peru is in South America. Still American, Technically.
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I've heard people expressing disappointment (or triumph) because there's an American pope now, as if that would somehow strengthen Trump's position, but I don't see how.
Trump doesn't control him and the pope owes no allegiance to Trump, but as an American pope, I think American Catholics are more likely to listen to him, and I think his moderate views could do a lot of good to the extremism of US politics.
I agree. There is no reason to expect the Pope to just back the country he is a citizen of, let alone the current government of his country. Popes have not usually done so in the past.
With their almost religious following of Trump, I find it more likely for them to ignore the Pope.
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> I guess I interpret it as "America has gone into political decline." I'm a bit surprised to hear a Trump appointee say that
What do you think the premise of the motto Make America Great Again is? The difference between Trumpists and others who see a decline is that the former see the 2016 and 2024 elections as reverses in the decline, whereas other see them as sources or exacerbations.
He wasn't a Trump appointee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_George
Great symbol was - every cardinal standing on balconies with/besides him.
No media covered / decoded what that gesture signifies.
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Since this is a thread about the new pope, note that Catholic doctrine interprets that passage to mean you can only divorce if the original marriage was invalid. The Greek word, porneia, has more literal or abstract interpretations depending on context. Protestants and Orthodox[1] interpret it to mean illicit sex, particularly adultery, but Catholics interpret it to mean something closer to incest, which would imply a marriage was never valid in the first place. Catholic doctrine argues this interpretation is easier to square with the preceding statements by Jesus in Matthew that "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." That is, that marriage is indissoluble by man--i.e. a spouse can't dissolve a marriage just be screwing around. And also squares with Mark, who mentions no exception. OTOH, that's arguably asking too much of the text.
[1] That said, depending on which Orthodox theologian you ask, Orthodoxy doesn't permit remarriage, either. Some Orthodox will tell you that a second marriage isn't a sacramental marriage; that the original marriage is never dissolved. Rather, "remarriage" is a form of "Ekonomia", wherein the community sort of ignores some misbehavior, or withholds judgment, so as to avoid cutting a person off entirely. Pope Francis explicitly mentioned this concept of "ekonomia" when discussing his preference that (civilly) remarried Catholics be permitted the Eucharist. And he arguably had this concept in mind when advocating for the blessing of people in same-sex relationships.
American Christianity != American Catholicism
It’s funny seeing people talk about the decline of America. I can remember the same conversations in the 1970’s, late 2000’s as well.
> I can remember the same conversations…
Do you remember a president from those eras who when asked whether he believed that he was duty bound to uphold the Constitution answered “I don’t know.”?
> It’s funny seeing people talk about the decline of America.
Funny? I’d rather say it’s pretty sad.
If we ever hit a point where nobody is talking about America being in decline, that will mean we are entering decline.
I do think we’ve been in a down period when it comes to politics for a while but I am mid to long term optimistic about things getting better. This is not the first time we’ve had crazy massively divisive politics or populist crackpottery. Overall I do not think we are in any kind of terminal decline.
What is happening is that other countries are rising. I think that’s good for us. When America was the only superpower it made us lazy and foolish.
Look at how it works out in the corporate world. Take Intel for instance. They had a near monopoly for about a decade on top performing CPUs and it destroyed the company. Google carved out a monopoly on search and they are complete trash now. Pride cometh before a fall because pride causes the fall.
Back then we didn't have a fascist for president or a court full of people who will make up anything to get the results that they want.
“ That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics is not surprising.
The elements of the conflict now raging are unmistakable, in the vast expansion of industrial pursuits and the marvelous discoveries of science; in the changed relations between masters and workmen; in the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses; the increased self reliance and closer mutual combination of the working classes; as also, finally, in the prevailing moral degeneracy. The momentous gravity of the state of things now obtaining fills every mind with painful apprehension; wise men are discussing it; practical men are proposing schemes; popular meetings, legislatures, and rulers of nations are all busied with it - actually there is no question which has taken deeper hold on the public mind.”
From the last Pope Leo over 100 years ago.
Neat thanks.
Btw how do you know this?! Have you memorized stuff of all the passed popes?
This is the beginning of perhaps the most famous of Leo XIII.'s many encyclicals, entitled "Rerum novarum" from 1891. To my knowledge it is the first of many papal encyclicals on social issues. It thus marks an important point in church history (and beyond that in the history of ideas in general).
For further details see the encyclical's Wikipedia entry at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_Novarum
For the text itself: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/docum...
These are the types of things talked about in small groups near your local cathedral by members of groups like Opus Dei everywhere around the world. All are welcome :)
The last Leo was a notable pope. His views are well known. You don’t need to memorise everything, a lot of what they’ve said over the years is available in books or online.
There are already a plenty of analysis pieces published by reputable news sources that discuss the new pope's chosen regal name and its significance, in particular in relation to the last Leo and his views and important writings.
Someone asked me the same question! I just know that popes pick their names to indicate what their priorities are. Francis picked a totally new name. I think that in itself signals a time of change in the church, we can also look to st Francis And the traditional association with kindness, mercy, not to mention his "Rule" (basically that Christ had no possessions).
Typically the previous pope with that name is where you look. Maybe the first too. Leo I stood up to Atilla the Hun. Leo XIII championed trade unions and workers rights (though also rejected socialism). Make of it what you will.
"From the last Pope Leo over 100 years ago."
everything old is new again.
history repeats.
we never learn.
The Terminator: "It's in your nature to destroy yourselves"
That definitely rhymes, more than rhymes actually.
In his time around the end of the 19th century, Leo XIII was known as the “Social Pope” and “Pope of the Workers”. He wasn’t a radical but opened the door to modern thinking in the church.
Presumably there’s some symbolism to why the new pope wanted to adopt this particular name.
Symbolism is a huge part of what name you select which is why its been a minute since a Pope Innocent or Pope Pious.
Pius XII is controversial because of WW2, but I don't see anything particularly bad with the latest popes with Innocent. Is it something related to his predecessors?
As a YIMBY, I could go for a Pope Urban.
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Popes usually go for symbolic names, so the Leo XIII connection seems unavoidable.
I think unavoidable is the wrong word, he surely picked the name because of this connection.
The book you want to read about what he was about is this one (reprint): "The Church Speaks to the Modern World: The Social Teachings of Leo XIII" [0]. You can find his encyclicals, speeches, etc. here [1].
Francis would joke he hoped his successor would be John XXIV. We still get a nice long Roman numeral but could've been even better.
There's also more baggage associated with choosing the name of a very recent predecessor. Choosing Francis II would alienate certain factions in the Church, choosing Benedict XVII or John Paul III would alienate others. Reaching further back in time is more of a signal of unity.
John-Paul II chose his immediate predecessor’s name, and he had combined those of his two most recent predecessors.
The three most recent popes are the longest run of Popes with none choosing the name (counting JPI as choosing both of two recent predecessos) of a recent (one, two, or three back) predecessor since the 1500s.
Pope Leo 13 wrote this encyclical: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_novarum
My guess is new Pope Leo 14 will try to thread the needle on rising global interest in experimenting with socialism and the possible ramifications of AI automation.
From [0]:
> Rev. Robert Prevost bears responsibility for allowing former Providence Catholic H.S. President and priest Richard McGrath to stay at the high school amidst sex abuse allegations that dated back to the 1990s.
> That's according to Eduardo Lopez de Casas, a clergy abuse survivor and national vice president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
[0]: https://willcountygazette.com/stories/671124585-if-he-saw-an...
Here's a somewhat different description of the situation, which I found useful:
"[A] priest convicted of sexual abuse of minors was allowed to stay at an Augustinian priory near an elementary school and continue functions as a priest until later removed, and then laicized in 2012. However, Prevost is said to have never authorized that particular situation, the priest was not an Augustinian, and it took place before the Dallas Charter."
https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/cardinals/robert-franci...
Edit:
There is also this discussion of an incident in Peru:
"More recently, questions were raised about Prevost’s knowledge and handling of abuse allegations in his former Diocese of Chiclayo. Two priests were accused of molesting three young girls, with the allegations surfacing in April 2022 during Prevost’s tenure as bishop. The case has been a source of frustration for local Catholics due to its slow progress and unclear resolution.
"Some accusers have claimed Prevost failed to properly investigate the allegations and covered up for the accused priest, but the diocese has firmly denied this, stating that Prevost followed proper procedures. They stated that Prevost personally received and attended to the victims, and reportedly opened an initial canonical investigation. He also encouraged the victims to take the case to the civil authorities. In July 2022, Prevost sent the results of the investigation to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) for review. His supporters stress that he has documents from the DDF and the Papal Nunciature in Peru which also indicate that he was not only attentive to the presumed victims, but that he did all required in Church law in following procedures set out for these cases.4
"However, in May 2025 allegations emerged that the diocese paid $150,000 to the three girls to silence them. Described as “longtime public critics of Prevost,” the girls reportedly blame Prevost for covering up their sexual abuse by the priest.
"The allegations, reported in InfoVaticana, described the Peruvian scandal, which was the subject of a national television report including an interview with the girls last fall, as the “stone in the shoe for Cardinal Prevost.”
It's worth mentioning that defenders of Prevost in Peru are saying that those allegations were manufactured by his political enemies. Prevost was active in the fight against the Sodalitium, a catholic society with ample accusations of brainwashing and sexual abuse. This society was recently supressed by Bergoglio.
Wouldn't that make him more aligned with the current US administration?
sadly only partly /s. That being said, people in position of power are a high target of such accusations, so I'd wait for something more proofed.
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‘I was only following orders.’
Yes, but find a catholic priest who doesn’t share that responsibility.
There are several important American bishops who have made serious strides to protect children. This is an ignorant statement.
The operative word was amidst.
Seeing as he's now head of a religion that believes none of us is perfect (Romans 3:23) it's unsurprising to think someone may allege that he is not perfect.
There's "imperfect" and there's "shields child molesters".
bad faith response.
No one, from any religion, should directly or indirectly support crimes against minors. If people really cared about kids, we would protect them from sexual abuse from priests and prosecute priests via the legal system.
I wonder if there is any other event in recent history that is communicated as quickly to as many people as the fact that a new pope has been elected.
I was out on the streets when the church bells started ringing here in Vienna as must have all around the globe where there are catholic churches
Here in Ljubljana too. I wasn't even fully aware of them, doing something else, but somehow it made me check my phone and there was the news bulletin, only a couple of minutes old.
World Cup results
I think that gets close since you can hear them from the reaction around you, but I don't think it's a equally distributed. You may have regions where the fans are very vocal but you also have a lot of regions where people don't care all that much especially if you are in a region that got eliminated in an early round
You clearly overestimate the amount of people worldwide interested in golf.
Here in Frankfurt, too, the bells began to ring at the announcement.
The release of a new iPhone.
Probably not as spiritually fulfilling, but the stock market would be an example of that happening at sub-second latencies, every day, all day.
I don't think that counts as communicating to people at all, let alone to as many people.
Doubt it's even barely comparable.
Stonks go up and down all time, it's not news, and people don't tune in mass from all around the world to watch sp500s chandelier bars.
What I was thinking is that a billion people all around the globe got an involuntary information upload all at roughly the same time.
Being on the street hearing the bells and recognizing what it meant while a huge number of people all around the globe have the same realization at the same time feels somehow incredibly connecting, and not even necessarily at a religious level.
With some exceptions like crisis, not everyone is listening to that.
And it happens every day, all day. It's not discrete information.
That message is sent quickly. But if you're talking about raw eyeballs, not many are reading it.
Pretty sure the US presidential election is on par.
Maybe the exact timing is ambiguous since candidates usually declare victory/admit defeat before all the votes have been counted officially, but still.
Yeah, that exact timing is the whole deal.
The US presidential election is a mess compared to this.
> Pretty sure the US presidential election is on par.
Contested US elections are logistically, a huge mess that takes forever to resolve, and even when the writing is on the wall, everybody waits and hemms and hawws because <some other network hasn't called it yet>, <so we can't call it>. (And that's not even counting the potential faithless electors, a potential coup in the House, conspiracies to commit election fraud directed from the president's office, etc.)
Canadian elections are figured out and their results are broadcast to the world before Western Canada even finishes voting. (Spoilers: It's always all blue starting from Manitoba and going all the way to the eastern fringes of Greater Vancouver.)
They are, of course, utterly uninteresting, with the last one coming and going without even a mention on the front page of Hacker News.
I think you are overestimating that.
Yes the whole world is somewhat curious who the president is but especially in timezones where it's inconvenient to follow that it's more a "we'll read it in the news later" thing.
The fact that a new pope has been elected is an information is information you don't need to look for because it's announced through one of the oldest public announencement systems ( the church bells )
Eurovision is quicker.
The pope is not a subject that typically interests me, but I must admit that I find announcing a decision with changing smoke color rather delightful. I wonder how long ago that started.
From Catholic News Agency [1], for your convenience: The history of the white smoke, which indicates that the cardinals have elected a new successor of St. Peter, is ancient. In 1274, at the Second Council of Lyons, Pope Gregory X, in a document titled Ubi Periculum, determined the procedure for holding a conclave. There he specified that the election would be done in isolation and with strict secrecy. For this reason, and to avoid any communication with the outside, the smoke signal was eventually adopted as part of the ritual. The tradition of burning ballots goes back to at least 1417, and likely before then, according to historian Frederic J. Baumgartner. The addition of the white spoke to announce the election of a new pope is more recent, however. Baumgartner traces it to 1914, with the election of Pope Benedict XV. If the smoke coming out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel is black, it means that none of the proposed candidates has reached two-thirds of the votes needed to be elected. If the smoke is white, the Church has a new universal pastor. In ancient times, the method to give the smoke these colors was to burn the ballots used in the voting with a bit of wet straw so that it would come out black, or dry so as to obtain white smoke. Nowadays, and due to some episodes that caused confusion, special chemical compounds and a procedure that includes two different tubes, one for each color of smoke, are used. In addition, a bell is rung, part of the ritual introduced when Pope Benedict XVI was elected, which confirms the smoke is white and a new pope has been elected.
[1] https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263867/the-story-beh...
That's a confusing paragraph.
> The addition of the white smoke to announce the election of a new pope is more recent, however. Baumgartner traces it to 1914 [...]
but also
> In ancient times, the method to give the smoke these colors was to burn the ballots used in the voting with a bit of wet straw [...]
In ... the ancient times of 1914? Something's wrong here.
(For what it's worth, the Wikipedia article about this says that before 1914 black smoke meant "we held a ballot but it didn't successfully choose a new pope" and no smoke meant something other than that, though it's not clear there what the "we got one" signal was. The Wikipedia article, unlike the Catholic News Agency one, cites some references, but I haven't checked them.)
The white smoke means there's a pope thing started in 1914[1], but they've been burning the ballots for a very long time.
[1]https://www.history.com/articles/pope-conclave-smoke-color
Annoyingly, when I go to that page, even from Google where I found that URL too, I end up at the German homepage www.history.de (no path, the main page). I cannot go to history.com no matter what.
I hate "intelligent" websites as much as I like touchpad microwaves, and that means not at all. Why would anyone assume an enforced(!!!) connection between my geographic location and the language-version of the website?
Any chance the guy who programmed history.com to redirect deep links to your local tld version’s frontpage is on HN? What a helpful feature
There was an interesting video by the Religion for Breakfast channel that talked about the process and where some of the rules came from.
Yeah I usually don't pay attention but as an American, rock on Pope Leo! I think this is a nice plus in a sea of minuses that has hit the USA lately as far as it's status in the world looking more and more like the bad guy.
As a record of how likely people considered this outcome:
Prevost was hovering around 1% on Polymarket, and was <0.5% between white smoke and announcement.
Yes, but how much liquidity was available?
Well, seems that conclaves really are notoriously unpredictable
At least for recently, it's almost always someone on the short list, but often not near the top of that list.
"people" "Polymarket"
How many non-technical people are on polymarket? That seems like a poor sample size.
One of two things must be true: Either Polymarket's more accurate than you are, or you can make free money.
Sounds like an amazing opportunity for insider trading
I wouldn't be shocked if that's one of the reasons why they sequester
Isn't the max profit limited by counterparty liquidity? Polymarket won't pay out anything extra.
Among the most unlikely papabile I would have preferred someone like Tolentino.
Prior to Francis, the last pope we had from a religious order (as opposed to a career diocesan) was Gregory XVI in 1831. Now we've had two religious popes in a row --- Francis, a Jesuit, and then Leo, an Augustinian.
Can you explain this like I'm 5?
It’s part of the hierarchy of the church.
Diocesan priests “work” for the bishop in a particular geographical area and are in the “corporate” hierarchy of the church.
Religious orders are sort of independent from the the church hierarchy and report through to the leader of their order, at a global level. They often focus on specific things and may have different vows. Franciscans are known for their work with the poor and personal vows of poverty, for example. Also the order is a community that has its own governance.
I have friends who are in a similar organization as nuns. They govern themselves democratically and globally. It’s pretty amazing - we helped them setup their real-time voting system to manage their community. Each group is different.
You can (sort of) divide Catholic clergy into diocesan priests, who spend their careers managing the clerical hierarchy of a specific region, and religious-order priests, who belong to religious orders within the church --- the Jesuits, Franciscans, Augustinians, Dominicans, etc. The "religious" Clergy are thought to be in some sense less tied up in church politics.
There are a few different orders within the catholic church with some of their own intellectual, practical and traditional differences. Most popes don't come from any of the orders. The last two popes did. That's historically odd. Francis had been the first one from his order ever, even though it's the largest one.
To the other useful answers I just want to add that if you think about monks, nuns and friars, that covers a large portion of what a Catholic religious order looks like.
> Now we've had two religious popes in a row
Aren't they all religious? That seems like a mandatory part of being a pope.
This was sorta answered here already https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43930231
Religious in this context means "of a religious order" instead of "diocesan". Not the general sense of the word "believes in religion" or similar.
Religious has a specific technical meaning in the Catholic world. It means to be part of a religious order like Jesuits, Benedictines, etc.
As a Catholic from the Chicago area I'm shocked and surprised he was elected. My group chats and social media is just blowing up with regional pride. God bless Pope Leo XIV!
Now the real question: Is he a Cubs or Sox fan?
Cubs
This is a good time to check the 'Views' section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_XIV#Views
Some important bits:
> he expressed sympathy for George Floyd and criticized U.S. immigration policies
> Prevost advocated for stronger Church action against climate change
> Prevost opposes the ordination of women
> Prevost opposes euthanasia, abortion, and the death penalty. [...] In 2012, he criticized popular culture's sympathy for the "homosexual lifestyle" and same-sex families.
Are any of those views any different from any previous Pope?
The difference the media likes to talk about between "liberal" and "conservative" popes (and candidates) is not in the beliefs but which parts of those beliefs they communicate effectively. Perceptions are also heavily influenced by what the media choose to report (they are far more interested in some topics than others).
He’s perfect.
The prevailing wisdom has been proven wrong on this occasion. He is very much a continuation of Francis's school of thought in spite of the "fat Pope thin Pope" wisdom, and he is an American who has been elected Pope, which was almost unthinkable because of America's economic, political, and mass media domination of the western world. Very unexpected
This (continuing Francis' school of thought) should be rather predictable - Pope Francis appointed the majority of voting cardinals, so it's not a stretch to think this is generally his intended outcome.
It's not as straightforward. Francis was voted by cardinals who were appointed by the much more conservative JPII and Benedict XVI, so it's not that easy to control or direct the outcome of a conclave.
Not just a majority, but I read 80% of Cardinals that voted in the conclave.
Francis was a smart man, and he knew that in order for his policies to continue he would need to ensure a like-minded successor would be elected.
> The prevailing wisdom
I'm so sick of prevailing wisdom with people just making shit up just to fill time on 24/7 news coverage and people can have their talking head shows with diverse "views".
This is basically 99% of it, based on two or three datapoints until suddenly it doesn't matter anymore.
See: "Can't select an American pope until America is not powerful anymore."
If he's on the same positions as Pope Francis but he's American, then this is a great move by the Catholic Church. Many Americans will naturally root for "their" Pope, and this will lead them away from the positions of Trump and the Evangelicals.
I doubt so, Christian Republicans conveniently ignore the parts of the Bible that directly contradict their ideology. How else could J.D. Vance consider himself a Catholic when his actions so directly go against the teachings of Christ?
More generally, I think religion doesn't really inform your political views. It can certainly reinforce them post-hoc, but it certainly isn't the basis of one's morality.
Seems that the new pope has strongly criticized Trump and Vance in the past. This is going to get interesting...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-pope-r...
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Okay, yes, we get it. But the United States as a name even is not unique to western hemisphere countries - the name of Mexico is "Estados Unidos Mexicanos" - or United Mexican States.
We were the first country from the to be recognized by the Western Europeans, and the people at the time didn't anticipate the current situation, so forgive us for having a name in English that is a bit ambiguous, but how many people complain that there's no common name for Europe and Africa combined? Why is everyone so interested in lumping two continents together whose commonality stops with being the result of European colonialism and the consensus of a few mapmakers?
I still want to see someone tell a Canadian that the entirety of the Western Hemisphere's land is America, making the Canadian an American.
My money's on the Canadian taking him down in the first round with a right hook.
South American yes. Not American which coqouially means born and raised in the United States. Strictly speaking pope Francis was South American.
South American
Many Italian newspapers (example: IlPost) and, I suspect, many non-US media, report this as “the second American Pope, the first from the USA.”
Which, I think, is fair, as South and Latin are also America. And so is Canada. And so was Francis.
But I usually find it a hard concept to convey to my fellow local USsians.
This is a straightforward consequence of how continents are defined by various cultures.
In Anglo cultures, there are seven continents, with a distinct North and South America, and Europe and Asia.
In Romance cultures, there are six continents, with a single America, and a distinct Europe and Asia.
In some eastern European cultures, there are six continents, with a distinct North and South America, and a single Eurasia.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong? It’s kind of meaningless; it’s not like these definitions are based on some semi‐objective characteristic like counting tectonic plates. In the Anglosphere, nobody is actually confused about whether “America” refers to the country or the continents. Canadians don’t appreciate being called Americans, and (in my experience) Mexicans don’t desire it either. If one wants to refer to North and South America together, there’s a perfectly normal way to do so: “the Americas.”
USian, aside from its lack of euphony and its general connotation of being used by know‐it‐all scolds, is particularly silly since the existence of two countries named “United States”—two North American countries named “United States”—means it’s just as ambiguous a country name as “America” is claimed to be.
Even though I consider estadounidense silly (why aren’t people of Estados Unidos Mexicanos considered estadounidense, exactly?), I use it when speaking Spanish, because that’s the way people say “American” in Spanish. I don’t explain to Spanish‐speaking people how ignorant they are for using such a silly, ambiguous word. One wishes the same courtesy were offered in the other direction!
>to my fellow local USsians.
I think you illustrated why the concept exists. USA actually has "America" in its name, unlike others - hence 'Americans' and not 'USsians'.
While Americans can mean "from the US", the term "statunitensi" is how people from the US are commonly called in Italy. And in other countries. The two things are not mutually exclusive, and calling Americans for people from the US is just a figure of speech called synecdoche.
that is not completely correct, see:
The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (Spanish: Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata), earlier known as the United Provinces of South America (Spanish: Provincias Unidas de Sudamérica), was a name adopted in 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán for the region of South America that declared independence in 1816, with the Sovereign Congress taking place in 1813, during the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818) that began with the May Revolution in 1810. It originally comprised rebellious territories of the former Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata dependencies and had Buenos Aires as its capital.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Provinces_of_the_R%C3%A...
But then it clashes with the naming of other people that live in America. We south americans also call ourselves Americans because we live in América – taught as a single continent with two subcontinents. We call people from the US Estadounidenses because “Americans” wouldn’t make any sense for us.
There are languages in which the equivalent of "US American" isn't uncommon.
Well, in that case could we call them Statians or Unitians?
Pick your username: Leo
That username had already been taken. How about Leo14?
Fine.
Social media accounts should really go for Roman numerals.
Twitter used to. My first username was "myusernameXII" cuz i thought it looked cool in one of the suggestions
I just like that he was a math major.
He was a substitute science teacher at St. Rita, on the South Side (when we were in 8th grade in Catholic school on the South Side, Rita is one of the high schools that came and pitched to us; Marist and Carmel were the two big draws for boys, McCauley for girls). Can you imagine how weird it would be to have a high school science teacher that went on to become pope?
I dunno, I had plenty of teachers who were monks. Admittedly they didn’t have the LinkedIn grind set to get to pope. Heck our CS teacher in high school was a monk too.
> Can you imagine how weird it would be to have a high school science teacher that went on to become pope?
Soon on Netflix: the spiritual (heh) successor to Breaking Bad.
I mean: THE POPE. Mr. Prevost!
Meaning he is not only an educated expert when it comes to sin!
He also knows cos!
...
I strongly believe the American choice was a strategic decision made by a group of highly intelligent individuals.
My national news agency (the NOS) reported that this happened despite his nationality, not because of. According to their article, the dislike of most of the world against American happenings made him a less likely candidate.
The deliberations of the conclave are secret in perpetuity. It is not possible for your news agency to report on why this candidate was selected. Whatever they said is an outsider's guess.
I consider that as very unlikely, as he wasn't on top of the list of favorites. But of course we don't really know.
They picked an American, who actually lived and worked in Peru, and not archbishop of New York that Trump suggested.
Yep he's more of a citizen of the world than an American, otherwise I don't think he would have ever been considered. It also helps he was held in high regard by Pope Francis.
If they want someone who can effectively oppose Trump, why would they pick someone he suggested?
I mean, the choice of John Paul II was also a "strategic" choice - he(or simply the fact that he was Polish) was credited with contributing to the toppling of communism and Poland, and in a broader sense with the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
Is it possible that this move is to reinstate Catholicism in the United States, given that Evangelicals appear to be gaining influence?
I think Catholicism has much bigger problems in the US then evangelicals gaining tracking.
Like people which by the Wikipedia definition of fascist being fascist using Catholicism as a tool to push their believes which are not at all compatible with the current world view represented by the Church in Rome.
A Pope which is able to say "I denounce ... as unchristian and un-american" which isn't some random person in Rome but someone seen as an American is kinda useful if you want to reduce the reach of such influences.
What do you mean reinstate? The country was founded by the descendants of people who for the most part hated Catholicism.
Same thought could have factored in Francis' conclave for LA, but % of Catholics continued to fall.
To placate or appeal to the current American leadership?
What's the desired outcome? European, NATO, or Ukrainian security guarantees?
To exert political pressure on the current American leadership by influencing the masses and achieve the objectives of the Catholic Church? Have you forgotten what happened with Wojtyła and Solidarność?
> What's the desired outcome? European, NATO, or Ukrainian security guarantees?
that would be pretty dump to try, I don't think there are any such goles
> To placate or appeal to the current American leadership?
only we speak about "appealing to them to be more human", "appealing to them to follow christian values", denouncing people which claim to represent christian values in their action which in fact are opposite to what the Roman Church things Christian values are etc.
if we speak about directly influencing politics, especially geopolitics that seems very unlikely to be the intend, or doable
From what I read, the new pope is much like Francis on human rights and political topics, but a bit more conservative about church doctrine. Perhaps it's to have a counterpoint to Trump in America, to show that not all American-born leaders are trash? Time will tell, I suppose.
Rev. P. Robert Francis PREVOST, O.S.A. (now Pope Leo XIV), Address to the Synod of Bishops, 2012
https://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/sinodo/documents/...
At least in the contemporary western world, if not throughout the entire world, the human imagination concerning both religious faith and ethics is largely shaped by mass media, especially by television and cinema. Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel.
However, overt opposition to Christianity by mass media is only part of the problem. The sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyle choices that mass media fosters is so brilliantly and artfully engrained in the viewing public, that when people hear the Christian message it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel by contrast to the ostensible humaneness of the anti-Christian perspective.
If the “New Evangelization” is going to counter these mass media-produced distortions of religious and ethical reality successfully, pastors, preachers, teachers and catechists are going to have to become far more informed about the challenge of evangelizing in a world dominated by mass media.
The Fathers of the Church, including Saint Augustine, can provide eminent guidance for the Church in this aspect of the New Evangelization, precisely because they were masters of the art of rhetoric. Their evangelizing was successful in great part because they understood the foundations of social communication appropriate to the world in which they lived.
In order to combat successfully the dominance of the mass media over popular religious and moral imaginations, it is not sufficient for the Church to own its own television media or to sponsor religious films. The proper mission of the Church is to introduce people to the nature of mystery as an antidote to spectacle. Religious life also plays an important role in evangelization, pointing others to this mystery, through living faithfully the evangelical counsels.I am sure a certain somebody is going to claim credit for bringing the papacy home to America to make it great.
It's only a matter of time before that same person gets called out by the new pope and responds by calling him a loser. If we're lucky, that will be the catalyst that finally erodes any remaining support he has.
Don't hold your breath. My whole family are staunch Catholics and disliked Francis because of his more "liberal" leanings. Some Catholics believed he was the "anti-christ" and loved Trump. Seriously.
The tariffs will stay!
https://religionnews.com/2025/04/07/president-trump-imposes-...
I can't comprehend this. Surely it must be some Onion style article:
“Why should we import indulgences from the Vatican when we have domestic producers like Paula White who offer products that are much better,” said a White House spokesperson.
Some jokes I saw on Reddit:
He is to be referred to as, "Da Pope."
"Ketchup to be banned in the Vatican."
"He's going to replace Communion Wine with Malört."
Deep dish pizza, I'm not so sure is going to find many fans in Rome.
Just put a cover on top of it and call it a calzone, I guess.
He's a South Sider (Dolton) and South Side Chicago pizza is cracker-thin.
Do people actually think deep dish is the only kind of pizza people eat in Chicago? I thought that was a meme.
I hope they bring Fred Armisen in for the SNL impression.
Dislike Chicagoans ketchup?
Yes, it's very much anathema to put ketchup on a hot dog, at least among Chicago hot dog enthusiasts.
For those unfamiliar, Chicago is also one of those American cities with its own style hotdog, so it's something of the local culture:
> All-beef frankfurter, on a steamed poppy seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, and a dash of celery salt.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_hot_dog
Obviously, this is only as serious as you take hot dogs, but they are very good and compared to deep-dish pizza, the Chicago-style hot dog feels almost healthy.
Yes. I think at this point it's more of a meme than a trend, but tbh I will not take Ketchup on my Hot Dogs / Red Hots just as a shibboleth signal.
That said, there are exceptions (my sister is dead to me though...)
they certainly don't appreciate it on their hot dogs.
Daaaa Pope.
Coulda been Pope Ditka.
Also... Bears fan from [deepest darkest] Peru could've gone with Pope Paddington? (I kid because I love)
I liked calling him the "Ope Pope"
I'm born and raised in Chicago and I only started hearing "ope" last year.
I'm not a catholic but I decided to watch the new Conclave movie as well as a Tasting History by Max Miller to learn a little bit about it. Very interesting but I'd love a historical movie on some of the past conclaves when the pope managed a standing army.
Edit: The Max Miller video was about the baby back ribs cooked in proto-bbq sauce made from grapes that was eaten by a conclave.
The movie “two popes” is pretty good, which some strong acting performance. (Not really historical since that was about a decade ago)
> when the pope managed a standing army.
In the past wasn't the church basically a political entity, there was even a period when some kingdoms didn't recognize the Vatican pope... (I suppose it's still is very much a political organization)
AIUI, Vatican City is still its own political entity. (I do not claim to understand how that interacts with the Catholic Church in general.)
The Church isn't a political entity per se since the Church didn't hold the power over the Papal States or Vatican City. It is the Pope who held both church and secular power.
Also a very old bank
The field of candidates in this conclave was relatively open compared to the past few conclaves, so it is a little surprising that the cardinals were able to come to a consensus by the fourth ballot. That suggests that one of the initial front runners (likely Parolin or Tagle) was able to generate momentum early on and get the 2/3 majority pretty quickly. But we'll see in about 30 minutes if the cardinals have surprised us all with someone completely different!
Given the number of cardinals Pope Francis appointed, I would imagine there's a fairly strong consensus at least on the direction of the church, which in theory would eliminate a strongly divided conclave, at least.
It's not quite so obvious that all of Francis's appointees were lockstop in line with his vision. Up until the last consistory he tended to appoint cardinals from the "peripheries," places that did not historically have a strong presence in the Church. (For instance he appointed a cardinal from Mongolia and one from the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Australia.) These cardinals are a bit of wildcard.
But given that the conclave was so short that does suggest that there was not much division over direction.
I'm rooting for Sarah, but Tagle seems pretty decent.
The brevity of the conclave election seems to signal a continuation of Francis' policies
"Pope Bahhb? Oh yeah, used ta take communion from him down at da Catlick Church off Wacker Drive." - Some guy in Chicago right now, probably.
>Prevost earned his bachelor’s in mathematics from Villanova University
go birds
> His educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Villanova University
Huh. Career counselors take note, new path opened up.
Francis had a degree in chemistry if I'm not mistaken.
Damn, you're right. He'll be going by Leo XIV.
So, it this the Church setting up a confrontation with Trump?
Maybe the selection didn't consider Trump in any way. Disappointingly for Trump, the entire world doesn't revolve around him.
Is Pope Leo eligible to be voted President of the United States?
Is he the first US Citizen to be head of a foreign state or have their been others?
Edit: Did some googling and found Toomas Hendrik Ilves was a naturalized US citizen who renounced his citizenship before becoming an Estonian ambassador and later President of Estonia. Not seeing any who actively held US citizenship while being head of state.
Boris Johnson was also born an American citizen, but renounced it before coming prime minister. Not technically head of state (the queen was), but close enough.
If my memory doesn’t fail, there has also been an American adventurer called William Walker who doubled as president of Nicaragua back in the 19th century
Golda Meir was the Prime Minister (head of government) of Israel after having naturalized in the US when she was 19.
This is some excellent trivia. Thanks!
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
That just prevents the awarding of titles by the US, and prevents people already holding an office of the US from accepting a title. It doesnt seem to me to prevent anyone already holding a title from being eligible for office.
Does that mean a president could be knighted, as long as it's a queen or princess doing the knighting?
This doesn't seem to comment on preexisting titles if I'm reading it correctly?
FWIW this has been read out of the Constitution. I doubt it would be applied in practice.
Why would that even be a good thing? Religion is inherently above politics. Politics is concerned for the temporal good of its subjects.
Religion is concerned for the ethical and spiritual good of its subjects. Politics are short sighted and can never produce a paradise. Religion can produce a paradise in the soul of one even in the worst political and economic circumstances.
Jesus was homeless and broke.
That doesn't seem to mesh with the fact that religion has historically been deeply tied to politics and governance. Meddling in political affairs is a routine thing for organized religions. The very existence of the Pope is a power play designed to make the Church's power seem more legitimate and justified than politicians.
Examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur...
sure, why not?
Because he is the head of a foreign nation, and will hold that office till death. You cannot be head of multiple nations at once.
To be president you have to be a resident for the previous 14 years, so he wouldn't be eligible unless he moved here today and waited 14 years. He'd be 83 at that point.
I think he was chosen because people elsewhere don't likee American isolationism. They wanted to support the America that believes in the good, and we need support in these times. Maybe this Pope will be a strong advocate of peaceful co-existence, which is what we need.
Will he be taxed on his foreign Papal salary? Or will he forego the salary , like Francis did?
Apparently heads of foreign states are exempt.
What's your source on that, at least in the case when the head of the foreign state also remains a US citizen?
There's also the interesting question of whether he will remain a US citizen after all, or whether taking the office of pope will count as him relinquishing US citizenship under INA §349(a)(4): https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/L... In the latter case, the tax question would not arise.
Existing US Department of State policy applies an administrative presumption to most cases of accepting foreign government employment that the person does not intend to relinquish US citizenship unless they affirmatively state otherwise, but they don't apply any such presumption to becoming a foreign head of state or a foreign head of government. They actively analyze such cases individually with no default presumption.
Pope Leo XIV will lose his US citizenship due to his acceptance of the papacy if and only if he intended to relinquish US citizenship by that act, based on the standard of proof of the preponderance of the evidence (the same as in civil lawsuits). He has the right to dispute the question in court if he and the US Department of State disagree on the answer, but I imagine this would in practice be handled more quietly for such a high-profile case.
Apparently Popes don't receive a salary, all expenses are covered by the church. Neither is there a retirement package since it's a job for life.
I couldn't imagine a Pope applying for a pay raise. Or rather, to whom would the Pope got to get a pay raise ... hm ;)
He's a religious priest which means he cannot own anything other than personal accoutrements. Even if he were to take paid employment before becoming pope, he would have to give it away.
If he is taxed, he should renounce US citizenship as he's very unlike to move back to the US.
Very unlikely is an understatement. Francis never even visited his home country of Argentina after being elected as Pope.
Notably, in that case he might end up no longer being able to enter the US at all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Amendment_(immigration)
Is he a Cubs or White Sox fan though?
He's a Cubs fan, according to ABC News.
(Interesting given he's a south sider).
I used to keep two ball caps in my car and switched when I crossed Madison.
The quote I heard was “You hear him described as a quiet, humble man. That’s perhaps how he survived growing up on the south side while being a cubs fan”
Sounds like that was incorrect:
https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/05/08/pope-leo-xiv-is-a-cu...
> But later in the day, an ABC7 reporter caught up with one of the pope’s older brothers, John Prevost, and asked him to confirm the report.
> He said it wasn’t true.
> “He’s a Sox fan,” John Prevost told ABC7.
Do the White Sox still have any fans?
...yes :(
I was ~8(ish) when my parents took me to their last World Series. Now, I'm a fan fueled by nostalgia and a deeply ingrained belief that 'THIS is the year they will go ALL the way!'
One day it'll pay off
Well, he's Catholic, so I think White Sox is more likely.
Many MANY many north siders are catholic as well.
He’s a far south sider. 99% chance of being a Sox fan.
EDIT - apparently a Cubs guy
Incidentally, the steel mill very close to where he grew up was idled due to the effects of Trump tariffs this week.
I thought an American pope would be the last thing Vatican wanted (to avoid being seen too close to US)
Sure. That's how it could have happened.
If you think the Catholic Church isn't a sharp institution with a pulse on humanity around the globe.
Sometimes institutions know that they are simple shells. That what is truly important is the people that they represent and how they can serve those people.
There are both theological and political implications to that view above.
Maybe serving those people can best be accomplished through humility and throwing a US pope, and their current papacy, under the bus.
That's an incredibly cynical view of Church politics. But then again my first bank account was a Catholic Credit Union and I still remember my days in Sunday School.
That's not an indictment of my upbringing. Nobody gets blamed for funkyness with tying finances to religion or lost accounts or any of that.
That's me saying regardless of what happens with the current pope, whether my views are too cynical or not cynical enough:
There will be no blame or anger for how I was raised and treated. I met beautiful family and friends through the church, and my parents found community.
This pope has consistently criticized Trump, though in fairly mild terms. This brings the Catholic church closer to the US since American Catholics love it, but it's still a choice that opposes Trump.
The whole Catholic aesthetic is amazing. Really is the tops.
It has a close rival in the Bulgarian Orthodox church, from which seemingly the entire metal aesthetic derives
Ah, schemamonks. If you are even a little interested in obscure mystical traditions, you really should look into this.
It's certainly intentional. Before even museums, you local church probably had the highest concentration of man made beauty and opulence of any place you'd visit in your lifetime. It's a source of awe, and gives hope that if you believe, maybe you can get a little piece of it, if not in this life, then surely the next.
The average European peasant was exposed to more beauty than a rich American.
Seems like Protestants and people in majority-Protestant countries are struck by the bells-and-smells but I think the Catholic Church isn't especially distinctive in this regard. Catholics favor a pretty muted look to things compared with the Eastern churches.
No it's the opposite. The eastern churches are very thread bare. Catholics have icons statues and every other kind of art whereas the eastern church went through iconoclasm. A lot of the eastern stuff today is due to influence from the west. This is especially true of the eastern Catholics.
For example, the Kerala church was so against statues and images that basically all the art we have from them are crosses. This was characteristic of the church of the east. The eastern Orthodox went through iconoclasms and some even have issues with statues still.
They've had 2000 years to perfect the show, of course they know how to make one.
yeah Catholicism is kind of cool. I'm a lapsed Catholic myself (haven't been to church since I was like 12, except for weddings) but for occasions like this I feel a little bit more Catholic.
You’re always welcome to come back.
I might be atheist by now, but credit where it's due. Catholicism is not Evangelicism, where anything goes. Without a central doctrine, many American Evangelics just became... creepy as hell.
It truly is. As is the Ancient Roman aesthetic.
There's a reason why Final Fantasy, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and many more fantasy series lean heavily into the look and feel.
I'm glad we have so many diverse cultures with such rich artistic depths and backgrounds to draw from.
When you're under its thumb of oppression, all of the aesthetic takes on a very dark and sinister authoritarian tone and becomes symbolic of a lifetime of repression and coercion. Source: raised by an extremely abusive Catholic deacon.
That's true of literally everything though. No matter the environment you were raised in, having abusive parents will cause instinctive emotional repulsion to the things they filled their life with.
Very good point, and I agree completely.
My source: Warhammer 40,000
When you're embraced by its grace, all of the aesthetic takes on a very bright and uplifting inspirational tone and becomes symbolic of a lifetime of guidance and empowerment. Source: raised by an extremely loving Catholic mother.
religions aren't an aesthetic. they're more than that.
funny how one downvotes a comment whenever it sounds contrary to the presumed aesthetic.
Congrats to the Americans on winning the World Christian Championship!
Finally, a Pope who'll stand up for the 2nd amendment!
I know you probably were being sarcastic but this would amuse me greatly if true.
Only in the Latin Orthodox division.
Of course, but the Protestant division had trouble organizing a World Championship and instead they have hundreds of Regionals.
Most Christians are Catholics.
Please call it by its proper name, the "Top Christ Following Nation of the Year Award".
An American pope!
I love his accent. It really feels like an American visiting Europe.
Not sure I like this.
I wonder if this is just merely coincidence with the shared picture of Trump a couple of days ago
The conclave had the opportunity to do the funniest thing
Yes, they could have elected me, but I'll expect that they'll come to their senses, and have another chance to do the right thing a decade or two from now.
Have you ever heard of the question: "Is the Pope Catholic?"
They should have picked Trump. He wanted to be pope anyway and he can do far less damage there :)
Chicago: known for wind, one of the world's largest furry conventions, and the first American pope.
Actually not known for atmospheric wind, but for bloviating in a windy way.
With the construction of tall city blocks and the breezes off of Lake Michigan, the atmospheric use has become somewhat more true. No more so than most USAmerican cities though.
This seems to be a matter of some debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windy_City_(nickname)#Etymolog...
Pope Leo made it easy for the furries to pick his fursona.
What happens if Charlie Stross meets the Pope?
Another conclave obviously
Please, correct the stupidly wrong title: the last Pope was an American!
No he wasn't.
Argentinia is in America, you know. Maybe not in North America or the US, but certainly in America.
> In common English usage, America is a short-form name for the United States of America.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(disambiguation)
Since we're using English, Argentina is in South America. People in Argentina speak Spanish and would call themselves americanos or sudamericanos. But in actuality they call themselves argentinos because everyone on earth understands that American unambiguously refers to citizens of the USA.
Hello no! If we are speaking English, Argentinians are Americans and so am I, from Brazil. The only thing that is unambiguously an US thing is the concept of calling people from the Americas latinos. Even many Europeans find it stupid.
But when you introduce yourself, do you call yourself Brazilian or American? I think almost everyone would use their nationality, not their continent, to avoid confusion. In English, the two continents are just that: two continents; North and South America, not "America."
> The only thing that is unambiguously an US thing is the concept of calling people from the Americas latinos.
Latino is a term for people with Latin American heritage, meaning those with Spanish or Portuguese linguistic and cultural roots. You're fine with calling yourself American in English but not Latino?
> You're fine with calling yourself American in English but not Latino
Exactly! Latino is a thing created my the US to separate themselves from us. But we all have a very similar history, colonized countries, native Americans almost eradicated then assimilated, slavery, migration from Europe and Asia. The only difference is that the US got richer.
> In English, the two continents are just that: two continents; North and South America, not "America."
In Portuguese too so most of the times I refer to us as South Americans but we are as Americans as people from the US. This is all linguistics/sociology so if/when the pushback is big enough we might be able to eradicate this stupid "latino" concept (that is wrong because there are countries included that speak English, dutch, creole and other languages that are not latinas)
> Exactly! Latino is a thing created my the US to separate themselves from us. But we all have a very similar history, colonized countries, native Americans almost eradicated then assimilated, slavery, migration from Europe and Asia. The only difference is that the US got richer.
Maybe I'm off base here, but are you aware that most Hispanic people in the US proudly call themselves Latino? It's not a term that Americans use as a mark of separation, it's a cultural/identity thing. You can be Latino American and American American (like from the US), they're not mutually exclusive.
I might be missing your point though, are you saying that the US uses the term differently than the rest of Central and South America?
> I might be missing your point though, are you saying that the US uses the term differently than the rest of Central and South America?
At least the people from Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia don't use the term latino to identify (South) Americans. I guess it is more common from Colombia to Mexico.
> because everyone on earth understands that American unambiguously refers to citizens of the USA.
With the exception of the Oxford English Dictionary and several others, of course.
You're using a dictionary, its literal job is to show you every possible definition of a word — not the most common sense definition. Maybe try urban dictionary or even Wikipedia?
You claimed: " everyone on earth understands that American unambiguously refers to citizens of the USA "
This is false. As you have just acknowledged in your own comment.
The OED has multiple on record in major print publications examples of use of the word american in multiple contexts. One of those is specific to the United States of America which is the more common usage.
Not the only, and not always unambiguously so.
> As you have just acknowledged in your own comment.
I didn't acknowledge that. Instead you told me to check the dictionary which is not at all relevant to what I said. If somebody holding a dictionary came up to you and told you they're American, would you assume they meant they're from the US, or somewhere across two vast continents? Which is more likely? I think you know the answer even if you want to be pedantic about it.
I would have expected an Eastern European or American pope for obvious political reasons (think Karol Wojtyla). The political commentators will go wild in the next week.
We could have had a Pope Bob, missed opportunity.
Pope Bobby Frank I
not about this conclave, but those who find papal elections interesting should look up the election of the Doge (duke) of Venice.
Not a catholic but I kept a tab on the process because the Catholic church seemed to lean towards a very conservative candidate and i was interested to see how it pans out. Turns out we have an American Pope and he wasn't even a top contender.
He was listed among 10 leading candidates in the Guardian, yesterday: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/07/who-next-pope-...
Whenever we get a new pope, I'm reminded of the prolly but proud headline in the German newspaper "Bild", when the German Ratzinger became pope: "WE ARE POPE" Congratulations, USA, now you're pope :-)
Yes, it's all over the mainstream news. Why post it on a tech-news site?
(from BlueSky)
"You know who else was from Chicago and on a mission from God ...."
> He most recently led a powerful Vatican office for bishop appointments.
Maybe I'm jaded but when I read that line I kind of assumed maybe that had a little to do with getting elected Pope.
The correct title should be "Habemus Papam".
"Habemus Papam, iter faciet"
Is it Pizzaballa?
Chicago style Deepdishballa
Unfortunately, no.
I hope this Pope recognizes that the only way to lead is a personal martyrdom of self interest.
A true leader must pave the way, not merely point to it. "I must decrease so that my children can increase" in the words of St. John the Baptist and the actions of St. Joseph, who St. Luke calls the father of Jesus, and who is the living image of the father.
St. Joseph's staff only sprouted the life of lilies because it was dead first (Hebrews 9:4, which book the Blessed Virgin Mary probably wrote).
(Also Chicago represent!)
Thank goodness. We wouldn't want the Catholic Church to lack leadership
Looks like he’s a compromise candidate between the Church’s liberals and conservatives [1]. (American and African Catholics are on the conservative end.)
[1] https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/evidence/cardinal-prevo...
How appropriately disconnected from the church to elect an American.
How so? The U.S. is the third-largest national Catholic population in the world, and it's by far the single largest national contributor to the Church’s global finances. Plus, anything that can bend the arc of U.S. history toward the Catholic missions of social justice and human rights is going to matter more in the next four years than it ever has.
It kinda has a shitty reputation right now, especially in Europe. This will embolden the clown in Chief and that isn't good for anyone.
you're wrong. This election was made EXACTLY because the Church feels there's a need to counterbalance the influence of the current american president with a strong local voice american catholics will pay attention to. They did the same when the Soviet Union was a thing by electing Carol Wojtyla (John Paul II)
It's possible. My take is that a Pope who's relatably "like them" will be more effective at reminding U.S. Catholics that they may need to choose between their faith and Trumpist idolatry.
> My take is that a Pope who's relatably "like them" will be more effective at reminding U.S. Catholics that they may need to choose between their faith and Trumpist idolatry.
I mean... they clearly already have. If Trump supporting Catholics haven't changed their mind by now I don't think an American Pope is going to convince them. And unless we're assuming a third Trump term I don't see what the point would be. The damage has been done.
You're probably talking about Peter's Pence collection contribution which is just pocket change (a few millions). Dioclesian revenue, lease income, Vatican's wealth fund generate billions. Lets not forget state support which the US doesn't have - for example if you register as a catholic in Germany 8-9% of your income tax goes to the church directly - to the tune of about 6 billion per year altogether.
> You're probably talking about Peter's Pence collection contribution which is just pocket change (a few millions).
Pocket change for sure (13.6 million/28.1%, says https://zenit.org/2024/06/30/the-ten-countries-that-made-the...), but there's also U.S. congregational giving of ~$20 billion, and the U.S. is the source of most large Catholic hospital, university, and foundation endowments.
How much real estate does the Catholic Church own in the US, and how much appreciation has that seen since 2020?
Why was John Paul II elected? Because of politics.
This could be a factor here too. To try to mend, or keep America in faith, according how you look at things.
I'm wondering one thing - how will this affect Catholics in countries like Russia or China. I imagine their leadership will not like this at all, China especially. I know, not many of people there are Catholic, but still.
The New Pope Robert Prevost is a registered Republican https://x.com/TheCalvinCooli1/status/1920534168301130101
This doesn't seem terribly surprising given the church's position on hot-button issues like abortion. But it's also worth noting that registering as a republican doesn't mean you've voted for every republican on the ticket (and vice versa).
I'm also a registered Republican despite bleeding blue so I can steer the primaries toward more Moderate Republican candidates.
Illinois doesn't have party registration and the entrt reflects voting in a Republican primary. That might indicate a Republican preference, or it might indicate perceiving the potential stakes in the Republican primary contest as higher, because, e.g., having a much stronger preference that a particular Republican not win than any preference among Democratic candidates.
Illinois does not have party registration.
Great time to watch the movie "Conclave"
"Whereas Francis said, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay clerics, Cardinal Prevost has expressed less welcoming views to L.G.B.T.Q. people.
In a 2012 address to bishops, he lamented that Western news media and popular culture fostered “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel.” He cited the “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.”"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/world/americas/pope-candi...
The quote is very similar to https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/cardinals/robert-franci... (“Summary” footnote 1), but missing the second part:
> However, regarding the Vatican’s 2023 document Fiducia Supplicans, which permits non-liturgical blessings for couples in irregular situations (including same-sex couples), Prevost emphasized the need for national bishops’ conferences to have doctrinal authority to interpret and apply such directives in their local contexts, given cultural differences.
So it’s ambiguous.
Curious, do you think he's wrong that it's at odds with what was taught by the apostles? It's obviously unpopular, but I have yet to see a convincing argument (based in the teachings of the Bible) that promotes same-sex marriages.
If I were in his position, and part of my duty is to interpret and lead via "the holy scriptures," then I would probably want to be as accurate as possible.
My understanding is that the Catholic church does not actually take scripture as the sole source for church doctrine. “Sola Scriptura” is a thing for some — perhaps even most — Protestant denominations. But not for the Catholic Church.
That is true, but doctrine does need to not violate scripture. So if the Bible prohibits something (which IMO it pretty clearly does prohibit gay relationships), the church can't say "well actually it's ok now". If that did happen it would cause quite a crisis for the church, since it is a Catholic article of faith that God guides the official dogma of the church as he guided the humans who wrote the books in the Bible. So if the two are in disagreement, the whole faith kinda collapses.
The Old Testament said to not eat pork. The church today says it's okay. It also says not to keep the festivals of the pagans specifically one where you cut down a tree and adorn it with ornaments, yet it is now top two "holy" holidays
If you're genuinely interested in learning more (and not just sneering at your outgroup), then I would suggest reading "Hard Sayings" by Trent Horn. In that book, he attempts to tackle some of the more difficult (to modern minds) passages in the Bible and explain why things that may seem contradictory are not necessarily so. This is definitely a topic where theologians and apologists have thought about it and tried to come up with answers.
This is usually taught within the first year of any seminary or religious study of Christianity. It's widely understood _why_ people are now permitted to eat pork. A good place to start is reading modern commentary on Acts 11:4-6 and basically all of Romans 14.
And the New New Testament could come out and say that same sex is not taboo and there's plenty of people in the world now to not be concerned about shallow gene pools.
The point is that the canon of writings assembled into the book is based on how people think at the time. Things change and evolve. A book canonized today would probably undo even more of the old testament teachings as archaic and no longer relevant with their version of Romans 14 and Acts 11:4-6. Francis 2:8-10 or from a series of letters sent to the people of Americas instead of Corinthians. These writings are just a snap shot in time
But I don't know why we are playing hypotheticals here. Such a dramatic change (i.e., introducing Francis 2:8-10) is far outside of the bounds that have been set for thousands of years within the Catholic tradition. The original discussion was why it might be more appropriate for a Pope to have a view that reflect's the biblical understanding of marriage rather than one that fits the modern times. If he is leading the global church through interpreting scriptures and maintaining the traditions, such a dramatic change as introducing new teachings that would seemingly contradict our prior understanding of marriage would completely step outside the bounds of his office.
You keep ignoring the main point in that the canonized book was done so by men that selected writings that they felt represented the views they held. For thousands of years, pork was bad. Suddenly pork was good, so writings they felt supported that decision were included. If there were writings that taught otherwise, it was very convenient to leave them out. Look at the writings of Enoch as an example. It didn't toe the line, so it was omitted. A decision made by men.
> You keep ignoring the main point in that the canonized book was done so by men that selected writings that they felt represented the views they held
No, you're trying to trivialize changing the canon of the Bible. It's a pointless argument if you're not going to adopt the understanding of the Catholic tradition and then argue within it as the subject of this conversation is the Pope.
I was under the impression we were arguing why it's important for the Pope to have an accurate view of the Bible. Instead it seems like you're just wanting to say that it's all man-made anyways so might as well change it which is a completely foreign thought process to a genuine Catholic.
The catholic tradition of changing the canon? They modified the 10 commandments to allow for idols. Moses's own brother got in trouble for making an idol. You think that was some small change? They did it to increase their membership and income streams. Allow the pagans with their mother/son idols to keep them with a Mary/BabyJesus rename, and bada-bing, new members. So excuse me if I don't hold their respect for canon quite so sacrosanct as you apparently do.
> I don't hold their respect for canon quite so sacrosanct as you apparently do.
That's fine, it just makes it pointless to make a argument for what the office of Pope should and shouldn't do. It's like going into a Muslim country and telling everyone how stupid their views are because you don't respect their holy texts. Why bother?
That was my point, you're not interested in having an actual conversation. Which is fine. That's why I said I had a misunderstanding of what was going on here. But it's clear now.
The Bible is a book used by a much wider audience than the Pope's followers. The pope at the time just tweaked the book to increase his followers. A very convenient reasoning from the Pope's perspective. So you seem to not be accepting that on why would a pope should and shouldn't do.
Since the time of the canonizing of the book, lots of history has happened where the pope of the time has softened some of what was traditional practices. Again, not sure why it is okay to accept some pope from historical time could canonize the bible, but a future pope would not have similar authority to make further amendments. He is the Vicar after all, and is infallible. Unless you do not believe that about modern popes??
I said you were trivializing it, not that it was impossible. My original comment is it's "far outside the bounds" of what has been traditionally done by Pope's. To suggest that the answer to the question on marriage is to introduce an entirely new canon to the Bible that appears to contradict previous books of the canon (I supposed he'd have to remove those at the same time) is simply unprecedented and has never once occurred in the history of the church since the Bible was canonized.
> You keep ignoring the main point in that the canonized book was done so by men that selected writings that they felt represented the views they held
No, you're trying to trivialize changing the canon of the Bible. It's a pointless argument if you're not going to adopt the understanding of the Catholic tradition and then argue within it as the subject of this conversation is the Pope.
I was under the impression we were arguing why it's important for the Pope to have an accurate view of the Bible. Instead it seems like you're just wanting to say that it's all man-made anyways so might as well change it which is a completely thought process to a genuine Catholic.
Biblical interpretation does not work like that. Later texts cannot abrogate earlier texts. Whatever they say must dovetail with the things said earlier, not contradict them. That actually doesn't leave a lot of manoeuvring room (as in, any room) for changing core beliefs.
> “Sola Scriptura” is a thing for some Protestant denominations.
And, infamously and comically, isn't exactly well supported by the text itself.
Indeed. You can find yourself in some very frustrating loops, down to the parsing of words back to the original languages they were translated from, when trying to argue the Bible as a sole foundation for literally everything.
Source: grew up in churches that tried to do just that.
Memories of using Strong's reference to do this very thing.
OMG I haven't thought about Strong's Concordance in so long. Memory unlocked, haha.
For the (fortunately) uninitiated:
Which leads to many Protestants saying the Bible is infallible, but which books belong to the Bible is not infallible. Which, don't tell them, means they have no clue if the books they think are infallible are actually infallible.
Yes, this is accurate, they have a whole element of "tradition" that gets encompassed into teachings. However, I may be wrong, but these "traditions" mostly came out of areas where the Bible wasn't super clear. I suppose that's where the debate is, then, because it seems to be a minority view that the Bible doesn't have a clear definition of marriage.
> my duty is to interpret and lead via "the holy scriptures"
Said scriptures also says that a woman can be sold to her rapist after he violates her. I think a more modern interpretation would not be a bad idea.
Not the New Testament. Christianity has the luxury (compared to some other religions..) of having very few "divinely ordained" rules. The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament (the one with all not very nice things) however they are rather vague and undefined.
So various churches can freely pick/discard almost whatever they want besides the 10 commandments while Muslims can't exactly just throw away the Quran or Hadith (which are much more specific)..
> The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament (the one with all not very nice things) however they are rather vague and undefined.
Except Jesus said that he didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and not one stroke of a letter of the law will pass away. So he didn't change anything about slavery, mistreatment of women, etc.
He also said 'Love your neighbor as yourself' and a bunch of similar things. Which kind of makes it complicated. I guess selling other people to slavery is fine as long as you also sell yourself (just like mistreating others).
> didn't change anything about slavery, mistreatment of women, etc.
The "fulfill" bit is rather ambiguous. AFAIK the most popular interpretation (certainly when it comes to ceremonial rules like not eating pork/shellfish/etc.) is that his intention was to "bring the law to its intended goal/purpose" rather than to maintain it in perpetuity.
But none of that ever applied to gentiles. Not before Christ, not after. Jews today do not claim that non-Jews are obliged to, or even ought to, perform any Mitzvot whatsoever -- and that's despite generally acknowledging that there are universal moral laws which bind all "children of Noah".
So if the remaining Jews continue following the Old Covenant, but others choose to rather follow Jesus' 'New and Eternal Covenant', then where would this obligation towards Old Testament law come from?
To be fair modern Jews don't really follow the laws from the book of Deuteronomy (the one with rape -> marriage thing..) either due to other (but in a way kind of similar) reasons
I don't think you understand what that means. There are 3 types of Jewish laws and only one (the moral law) still applies.
You aren't bringing up the moral law.
Jesus never said he was superseding a single thing. His entire ministry was about railing against the legalistic structure of the Pharisees, who were more interested in following "the Law" than having common sense or taking care of people. His ministry was about Jews, for Jews, and had nothing to do with gentiles at all. The grifter Paul is the one who opened up their cult to gentiles.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished”
Yup. He said that in the Bible. But he also fed people on the Sabbath because there were people needing to be fed, not because the recognition of the Sabbath day was abolished, but because the ridiculous legalistically dogmatic adherence to the Law was harming people. Just like today, where we've got ICE agents rushing parents and leaving their children alone in the backs of their vehicles. Also, his fulfillment was about being the sacrifice that sinners couldn't make for themselves, not about ignoring Old Testament laws.
Interesting that you should mention the Old Testament. 2025 is a year of Ordinary Jubilee. I'd invite you to research what a Jubilee Year meant to the Jews, and what it currently means to Christians. Because Jubilee Years have never been abolished.
Hint: there's parts about freeing slaves, about repatriating foreigners, and about fallow fields. It's really sort of awe-inspiring how our secular government is implementing Jubilee by fiat.
> The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament
And teachings of Paul supersede the stuff from Jesus.
Germans love Paul
What do you mean? There are plenty of "modern" interpretations. New scholarly commentaries come out almost every year. My point is that, among these, the prevailing assumption continues to be one that doesn't support same-sex marriages in the church.
What is lacking, from my perspective, are scholarly interpretations that swing the discussion the other way. The best I've seen simply just exclude the problematic scriptures which really isn't within the Catholic tradition (inerrancy of scripture and all).
contexnt: I've studied religions (and still follow the topic) and have a basic understanding of where things are, but take it with a grain of salt.
For much of Christian history the Bible was largely interpreted as being pro slavery and against interracial marriage. Most people now disagree with those interpretations. There is growing support for LGBT within the church. Here's one example https://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/introducin...
The Bible doesn't even have the concept of race as we understand it today, because that concept is a very recent invention (to my understanding). Anyone using it to support anti-interracial marriage positions would be doing so anachronistically, rendering their own claim invalid.
I think the crux of the problem is that with all the statements the Bible makes, at a plain reading of the text, who are we, as mere humans to decide which parts should be strictly adhered to, or which parts should not, or which parts mean something completely different from the plain reading? As far as I can tell there is no consistent application of logic and understanding what parts matter and which parts do not. And depending on who you talk to, those parts change.
I understand that as part of the faith, it is not our place to know the reason God has chosen. However, I believe that there are very serious concerns about the intentions of the people 'qualified' to interpret the texts. Relying on "just trust us" gets us into big trouble, fast.
As the saying goes, the devil may quote scripture too.
> As far as I can tell there is no consistent application of logic and understanding what parts matter and which parts do not
I would disagree. The art of hermeneutics has been around for a _long_ time and has been refined over time as we develop new understandings about the ancient cultures that wrote these documents. So, yes, things do change, but I would argue they do not _dramatically_ change. For example, the message of "the gospel" has been the same since the founding apostles. But our understanding of something like Genesis 1 has changed dramatically over the years as our understanding of the sciences, history, etc. increase.
Prooftexting is not a good idea. If you think you have a gotcha, then you should get in line with the multitude of teenagers who think they've bested the Church with a verse, and from a bad translation at that.
Think about it. It's been thousands of years. A little humility is called for. You're not the first or the last to make flippant remarks like this without understanding.
That's not exactly a "gotcha." The church's official stance on women has changed drastically over the last couple millenia. It's reasonable to suggest that its stance on same-sex couples might eventually change as well.
For some added context, Prevost is an Augustinian. Augustine of Hippo himself was not a biblical literalist.
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> Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.
Christianity has been comfortable with fairly sophisticated realpolitik since day zero.
It would be hard to argue that the bible actively promotes same-sex marriage, but I think you could reasonably argue that it says nothing on the subject and so leaves it for the church/community to decide.
There are places where the bible gives guidance for heterosexual marriages, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all other marriages are prohibited. Most people are heterosexual, so it makes sense that the bible would talk about marriage in a heterosexual context.
There are also several verses that condemn gay sex, but I think you could make the case that it's not talking about the types of loving, committed gay relationships that we have in mind today. And also, even if gay sex is forbidden, you could still hold that gay couples are allowed to get married and adopt children, but that they should remain celibate. That's rough, but Christians commonly hold that heterosexuals aren't supposed to have non-procreative sex either. For comparison, the American Jewish Conservative movement holds that male-on-male anal sex is biblically prohibited, but all other aspects of gay relationships are permitted. And even though the sexual act is forbidden, it's also forbidden to invade someone's privacy by questioning whether they're doing it.
> It would be hard to argue that the bible actively promotes same-sex marriage, but I think you could reasonably argue that it says nothing on the subject and so leaves it for the church/community to decide.
This is where I've yet to see convincing evidence. The whole meta-story of the first few chapters of Genesis was about creation. Not just creation of the universe as we know it, but the pro-creation between a man and a woman in the sanctimony of marriage.
Whether you have an overly-religious view of Genesis or not doesn't really change the fact that the original authors were clearly "sanctifying" this act of pro-creation (the "meme" if you want to use Dawkins' terms). Other cultures and tribes obviously had their own ways of sanctifying it, but in a large, almost universal majority of cases, it was always between a man and a woman.
Changing the gender to same-sex more or less destroy's the original intention of the meme. I mean, you can do it, but I don't think you're walking away with the authentic thought that was being communicated by the authors.
I'm purely speaking from an academic sense here (the art of understanding what someone wrote a long time ago). Sure, we can choose to ignore and/or change it because it's "out of date" but that leads back to a point I made elsewhere about how it's not usually within the Catholic tradition to so blatantly alter scripture.
> The whole meta-story of the first few chapters of Genesis was about creation. Not just creation of the universe as we know it, but the pro-creation between a man and a woman in the sanctimony of marriage
I find this to be a very strange reading. I never got that from the creation narrative at all. Looking through it, I only see two places that seem to be about marriage. First there's Genesis 2:22-24:
> 22. And God YHVH fashioned the side that had been taken from the man (adam) into a woman (ishah), bringing her to the man (adam). 23. Then the man (adam) said, “this one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman (ishah), for from a man (ish) was she taken.” 24. Hence a man (ish) leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife (ishah), so that they become one flesh.
This doesn't mention procreation at all! It seems to say that men and women come together because they have a common origin, not necessarily because it produces offspring. You could still say that this supports heterosexual marriage, but I don't see any particular reason to read it as prohibiting other types of marriage. And in fact, it seems to work fine with gay marriage – two men or two women are also presumably from the same flesh and bones as Adam and Eve.
Then there's Genesis 3:16:
> And to the woman [God] said, “I will greatly expand your hard labor—and your pregnancies; in hardship shall you bear children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.
This says something about bearing children and about male-female relationships, but it doesn't really draw the line saying that the purpose of marriage is to produce children. It also presents all of this as an unfortunate state of affairs.
I guess there's also 1:28-29:
> 28. And God created man (adam) in the divine image, creating them in the image of God—creating them male and female. 29. God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.”
That talks about reproduction, but it doesn't say anything about marriage.
> I'm purely speaking from an academic sense here (the art of understanding what someone wrote a long time ago).
Right. I think whoever wrote the creation story was trying to provide an explanation for why the world was the way it was: why the world exists, why there are seven days in a week, why there are men and women, why they have dominance over the animals, why there's suffering, why snakes have no legs, and so and so forth. I don't think they meant for the creation story to give instructions at all, except a moral that one should obey God. I don't get the impression that the author was trying to sanctify marriage or procreation at all. If they were, it seems like they would have described Adam and Eve's wedding, they would have spent more than one sentence on the birth of their first child, and they wouldn't have presented pregnancy as a curse.
> That talks about reproduction, but it doesn't say anything about marriage.
Later in chapter 2, God is quoted as saying:
> Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh
Jesus himself then comes back and quote this exact verse in Genesis in the context of divorce being bad (Matthew 19). It's clearly referencing marriage within the context of creation.
You may not agree it's the central thrust of the text, and perhaps I overstated the position, but marriage between a man and a woman is certainly a major theme in these first two chapters. I'd be impressed if you can find Rabbinical texts that support a different theory.
If you're basing everything on the Bible, then you must understand that the Bible was canonized by men in a way that fit their beliefs. Even the beloved 10 commandments are different for Catholics than from the Old Testament. After getting to an age to understand this, the holiness of the scripture just lost its bling for me.
> Even the beloved 10 commandments are different for Catholics than from the Old Testament.
What differences are you referring to specifically?
The catholic version makes no mention about idols. It then splits covet into 2 separate commandments; one about neighbor's wife, the second about neighbor's things. There are many websites with much more details easily found with a simple search comparing differences of the catholic ten commandments
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/exodus/20 verse 4 starts with "You shall not make for yourself an idol". And yes, different denominations number the commandments differently, but with the exception of Samaritanism, all Abrahamic faiths agree on what the whole of them are.
The 10 commandments are the same. Catholics just order and number things differently than Protestants. Both have the same commandments, unfortunately, some Protestants can only read a sentence and don't
My argument based on the teachings of the Bible would be that Jesus said to judge a tree by its fruit. When I look at Christians who oppose LGBTQ people their fruit tends to be... not great. On the other hand, those who support LGBTQ people tend to be much more Christlike.
It's important to realize that while the pope's main role is to guard revelation from corruption and manipulation, the teachings on same-sex attraction and the gay lifestyle do not require revelation. They rely solely on the natural law. Ethics rooted in unaided reason suffices.
> I have yet to see a convincing argument (based in the teachings of the Bible) that promotes same-sex marriages.
Here you are.
When did Jesus say ANYTHING about homosexuality?
Jesus travelled around the land healing the sick and helping the poor. He didn't travel around the land with a sign saying "God hates fags".
There are just a few (oblique) mentions of homosexuality in the New Testament. It clearly wasn't a main concern. Pope Francis' interpretation always seemed completely consistent with scripture. It's the extremely heavy emphasis on homosexuality that's inconsistent with it.
Also: being gay and gay acts are two different things. Catholic priests are not supposed to engage in any sexual acts, so in that sense, it doesn't really matter if a priest is gay.
Christians can't agree on pretty much anything in the Bible, which is why there are thousands of different sects, and a Wikipedia entry for "schisms in Christianity" that is dozens of entries long.
I think "progressiveness" isn't necessarily a good metric to judge an entity that believes itself to be a moral guide. It's very job is to deal moral teachings, rather than follow the crowd.
That's not to say the teachings are right, and of course no one has to follow the teachings. But it'd be a bit like saying, dunno, dismissing a judge's verdict on the basis of it not reflecting popular opinion. It's not meant to reflect popular opinion, but be consistent with the law.
How men of cloth treat gay people is a good litmus test for whether they’re following the Christian tenets of love and forgiveness. Like, you’re dealing with one of God’s creatures, per the Christian worldview. You can’t claim to respect God’s plan and then turn around and say you know better when it makes you feel icky.
> job is to deal moral teachings, rather than follow the crowd
An American Catholic hating and despising gays is very much following their crowd.
Nobody said "progressiveness" except you. People can judge it on its moral grounds.
If we dismiss criticism as being invalid because it happens to be another person's idea of "progressive," then that's surely the opposite of ignoring the crowd. That's using political labels to distract from the actual thing being discussed.
Considering there were literal pedophiles given more grace than openly gay bishops, it's a disheartening to hear "progressive" used like such a dirty word. But I guess the Overton window has shifted that much.
"Moral guides" are perhaps the most worthy subjects of moral scrutiny.
The Francis quote "Who am I to judge?" is misleading, as it is quoted out of context by the media from what was one of many fuzzy off-the-cuff remarks he made during his pontificate. The media almost certainly quoted him out of context intentionally. Note that Francis also said there was “too much frociaggine” in the seminaries.
This is perhaps difficult for people to understand, but while the Church's pastoral approach toward people with same-sex attraction can change, its teachings on same-sex attraction and the gay lifestyle will not.
> In a 2012 address to bishops
Even Obama opposed gay marriage in 2010.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-still-opposes-same-sex-ma...
President Barack Obama didn't support same-sex marriage until May 9, 2012, three days after Vice President Joe Biden announced his support for it.
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/obama-comes-ou...
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/us/politics/biden-express...
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but this answer by Francis was wildly over-interpreted. He simply cited the Catechism that the church should be welcoming to gay people, and not marginalize them. However, in no way did he ever mean by this that the church should be accepting homosexual relationships. What he was saying is that the church should see this as a sin like any other, and that the church needs to be open to sinners that search for God and show them the way. There is nothing revolutionary about this, it's literally in the Catechism.
You can read his original answer here
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/ju...
He further expanded on this in his books, see for instance
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/33231/pope-francis-e...
> "Whereas Francis said, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay clerics,
He also called abortion doctors assassins and described genderideology as "the ugliest danger of our time" (or the 'greatest danger' according to some other sources). He wasn't really all that progressive.
Sources:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-03/pope-francis...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/10/pope-francis-c...
Of course he was a pope. It's in line with his church's doctrine. But I wouldn't call him progressive by any means.
Idk killing 73 million people actually doesn't make you a hero in my book. 73 million souls, approximately a year.
There will probably be a time for this debate. But in general, this is the church line, not really surprising.
If you are a cleric, you are not supposed to be involved in any romantic partnership and sex outside of marriage is not allowed. As such it makes no difference if you are straight, gay or anything in between.
It's particularly nasty to me that he called out same-sex partners with adopted children. Why focus on families even if you are yourself homophobic?
It’s a dog whistle. You do it for the same reasons anyone draws on hate. And it works. Look where it’s got him.
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I know nothing about him recently or have any interest in Catholicism really, but 2012 is a long old time ago. 13 years is more than enough time for someone to have changed their opinion on something like this, so I'm not sure how valuable it is to look at statements that long ago.
Is there an accessible link?
> In a 2012 address
Almost every American public figure was anti-LGBT in 2012. The majority of the Democratic Party including the Obama, Clinton, and Biden families were against it. It sounds ridiculous now but Donald Trump was the most LGBT friendly president in history at the time of his first inauguration.
Wait to see what he does now or find a more recent position.
But but, does he defecate in the woods?
Anyone interested in st. malachi prophecy of popes, one should go on google books to find it and read it.
In essence, it foretold last pope was francis, as peter the roman....
Missed opportunity for Pope Ditka. :/
The first american was Pope Francis
I wish him wisdom and good luck to take the task. Hope he continues the great work Francis was doing to help the civilian palestinians facing IDF massacres and starvation in Gaza. Francis called the parish there every day, and even donated the Popemobile to be turned into health clinic for the children of Gaza. See https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-05/the-popemobi...
I really wonder if he's converted to neapolitan pizza at this point.
Unexpected. Good luck to him.
A Pope and a Trump. Countries divided. Holy Roman Empire again? Trump would make quite acceptable Habsburg - lots of resources and uncanny ability to waste good potential and situations.
Theo Vonn walks onto balcony.... lol
His full name is Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski III, I think it fits.
Posted on the other thread as I thought it was pretty interesting:
>Roughly 0.5% odds on him on polymarket before he was announced
EDIT: I was wrong, he was quite down the list! He only appears in the chart because he ultimately won, so higher contenders dropped off.
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He seemed to hover around 1%, which was the second highest behind Tagle (~20%)
https://polymarket.com/event/who-will-be-the-next-pope?tid=1...
That link isn't showing most of the options. I believe there were at least 10 above him. Just individually look at the lines for Zuppi, Pizzaballa, Sarah, etc.
I don't understand what people were basing that on; the conclave is a completely secret process?
The winning lottery numbers are a secret too before they're drawn; people just like to gamble.
Smart play for the Vatican to go with an American Pope to avoid tariffs!
(Credit: https://x.com/ArmandDoma/status/1920530249567056056)
Yes, everybody knows that Vatican is the industrial heart of the world
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lol, the most typical terminal online American response you could ask for
Didn’t most tradcaths ask for Cardinal Sarah from Guinea?
I thought it would have made sense too because Africa is basically the only place Catholicism is growing in the world.
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I've further narrowed down the breakage point to between these two items, at least when initially checked (both now fail).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42937148 (works)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42937147 (fails)
(Also via email.)
This suggests an item-count or time-based sliding window to me.
As I write this, earliest accessible content is <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42937674> ... and that's just become inaccessible as I'm updating this comment.
And I've identified that it's the 1,000,000 most recent comments/posts which are accessible:
I just checked against oldest accessible article (at this writing), and subtracted that from the newest comment (from the "comments" titlebar link):
43938990 - 42938990 = 1000000
Others can confirm this by going to the newest comment, and subtracting 1000001 from the contentID to find the first inaccessible comment.
Mods heard from, it's a known (and deliberately inflicted) issue.
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find an African candidate who isn't waaay to the right of Benedict on social issues
[As an American] How could somebody's nationality seem "tacky?" Since we're both Americans, that's the sort of thing that we'd both consider a faux pas, at the very least, to say about anybody else's nationality.
Work on your self hatred and open your mind please. There’s nothing tacky about an American pope. What are you talking about?
I love America, but America is hardly a very Catholic nation and this seems like a clear cut case of political pandering besides. I'm not a catholic but when I think Catholic I think ancient gilded and extravagant. America is the land of hamburgers, pickup trucks and Protestant megachurches. The two don't fit.
An Italian would make a better pope because the Roman Catholic Church is fundamentally Italian and it has been too long without an Italian pope. An African would be a good pope because they've never had one, despite a huge number of Catholics, present and future, being African.
> America is hardly a very Catholic nation
Interesting Fact: There are about as many—if not more—Catholics in the United States (~45-72 million [0]) than there are people in Italy (~60 million [1]). American Catholic theologians, priests, and bishops have a larger impact than many seem to realize.
I'm generally sympathetic with the idea that it is ideal to have an Italian pope—I recall hearing that Pope Benedict XVI thought having a close connection to the diocese of Rome was important—but I also don't mind having popes from different parts of the world so as to better represent the catholicity (universality) of the Church.
I also think an American pope might have a fuller understanding of the global impact of American media and political power. I felt that Francis often did a poor job of navigating the media landscape—oftentimes being represented as saying things which he did not really say or intend, so perhaps an American pope will be better in that regard.
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0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_the_United_... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Italy#Populati...
When I think Italy I think pizza and Mussolini and Ferrari. When I think Africa I think radical Islam and fufu and the slave trade and colonialism and the lion king. I believe an American pope is a good choice and you don’t have an accurate view of America.
I saw someone on the Internet describe it as serving McDonald's at a wedding. I'm not sure snark is warranted, but I don't think it's unfair to say that USA's global image has been greatly reduced.
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This is such petty semantics, most of the world understands that is is a shortening of The United States of America. In fact most everyone uses some version of “Americans” [1]. 96% of the world refers to America as a continent and I’m sure 96% refer to the US as America too. It’s all about context. I don’t think anyone is genuinely confused most of the time.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_Stat...
You are an editor on CNN.
A person from the US has been elected as the Pope, you have to come up with a title for this news piece.
You have these two options:
A) First American Pope elected ...
B) First US Pope elected ...
A is ambiguous because "American" means a country for 4% of the world and a continent for 96% of the world. Also, the pope that just died happened to be from Argentina, and also happened to be the "First American Pope" for 96% of the world, adding to the ambiguity.
B does not have any issues and is correct from whichever angle you want to approach it.
Which one do you choose?
"American" means from the country USA for most of the world.
Ask foreign speakers if you don't believe it.
But “US” is not an adjective? It’d be like saying “First Brazil Pope elected”
"US Citizens"
"US Economy"
"US Job Market"
"US Military"
"US Policy"
And many other examples ...
But now that I read about it, when you use it as adjective you have to write as "U.S.".
If you want to throw the whole argument to the trash because it's missing two dots, well ... up to you.
Well I don’t think much of the OP’s argument. “America”, whether we like it or not, has come to be popularly synonymous with “United States” among English-speaking audience. There’s little risk for ambiguity because Western news agencies almost never use “America” alone when referring to the region or continent — they would say “American continent” or “North/South America”
In 50 years, when the U.S. has decided to call itself something else, then yes, this CNN breaking news headline will be ambiguous. But breaking news writes headlines for its current audience, it’s not meant to be a taxonomically accurate index.
96% of the world does not consider "America" to be a continent. A large chunk of the world considers North America and South America to be separate continents. Similarly, some countries teach that Europe and Asia are distinct continents while others teach that Eurasia is a single continent.
Spanish speaking countries tend to treat America as one continent. English-speaking countries tend to treat North America and South America as separate continents, which is convenient since when speaking English, America means "the United States."
Sure but most of the world, when they say America or American, they mean the USA, otherwise they'll say "the Americas" or "North American" or "South American" or refer to a specific country. It's just a reality that a lot of people don't want to face, but you have to be pragmatic in life for the most part.
> Sure but most of the world
Not really. (Also we call English Channel 'La Manche' - even if we do not understand French).
> Also we call English Channel 'La Manche' - even if we do not understand French
Do we? I've literally never heard it called anything other than the English Channel. After some quick googling and gpting, I can't find any reference to it being referred to as "La Manche" outside of France. The closest I got was "Canal de la Mancha" in Spain.
> most of the world, when they say America or American, they mean the US
Ehh no. In school in Argentina you are taught that the whole continent is called America, then you have subcontinents in it (North/central/south), and I would guess other south american countries are the same. If you want to say citizen of the USA in Argentina you would call them yankees.
OK, but English speakers are under no obligation to follow conventions and vocabulary used by Spanish speakers. Similarly, the Poles, French and English all have their own words for Germany that look nothing like "Deutschland". (The Polish word for Germany is Niemcy. The French word is Allemagne.)
Sure, but the op said "most of the world", which is not true, I gave a counter example.
giving a single counter example does not mean "most of the world" is not true here
Do Argentinians regularly refer to themselves as Americans?
I can't think of the last time I needed to describe myself as being from the continent, but if you really want to call yourselves Americans, I say go for it. People can call themselves whatever they like.
Still, I can't help but notice Argentinean newspapers using americano to refer to refer to things from the US.
For the pope, La Nacion and Clarin, the 2 largest newspapers in the country, are referring to him as "Norteamericano"(north american), and "Estadounidense" (USAian?/from the USA).
In general, we use north american when referring to the USA. America is used to note the continent, like the south american soccer teams cup, "Copa Libertadores de America" (liberators of America cup).
For the article on the pope, Clarin seems to have used estadounidense, norteamericano and americano to refer to things and people from the US, though americano in reference to "imperialismo americano." Well, I'm assuming that's the US given the mention of the CIA, but perhaps they are referring to some sort of pan-continental imperialism I'm unaware of.
La Nacion uses americano, but has to specify "continente americano" as if simply saying "americano" wouldn't be clear to readers. They otherwise also use estadounidense and norteamericano.
Neither appears to ever use "americano" by itself to refer to people from the continent, but if you're telling me that if you walked up to someone on the street and said you were an American and they would interpret that as you from the continente americano, then I believe you.
I'm still going to use the demonym American for myself (as everyone gets to pick their own demonym in their own language) and use it to refer to people from the US, but if you to call you an American, who am I to say no? You can call yourself an American, I can call myself an American and everyone is happy.
I see the same thing in lots of Spanish news, but some people will never believe it, so I usually just make my statement that I know is true and let the other commenters have their say as well, and leave it up to dear readers to make up their own minds.
>Sure but most of the world, when they say America or American, they mean the USA.
Nope. People from the US really need to get out of that bubble.
> People from the US really need to get out of that bubble.
Maybe you live in a smaller bubble.
India: "Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old American, has been elected as Pope Leo XIV, making history as the first American to head the Roman Catholic Church." https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/10-facts-ab...
Denmark: "For første gang i verdenshistorien er paven amerikansk." https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/fra-missionaer-i-peru-til-n...
Brazil: "Papa Leão XIV é americano e tem cidadania peruana" https://www.estadao.com.br/brasil/papa-leao-xiv-e-americano-...
Nigeria: "America’s Robert Francis Prevost announced as new pope" https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/05/breaking-americas-robert...
Slovakia: "Lev XIV. je prvý Američan na pápežskom stolci." https://svet.sme.sk/c/23488126/novy-papez-lev-xiv-profil.htm...
When using the English language, "American" means, "of or from the US", and always has.
> which has real name that is different
Always saying "United States of America" would be rather cumbersome.
But it's the reward for being the first country on the content to become independent. Everybody else afterwards had to pick more specific names tot avoid any confusion.
BTW Columbia was also frequently used as a generic name for the American Continent back in the 1700s and 1800s. The modern country of Colombia co-opted it in a very similar way (well originally "Gran Colombia" was supposed to include entire Hispanic America it just didn't work out that well...)
> Well always saying "United States of America" would be rather cumbersome.
Then they should have chosen another name
I guess Columbia was an option? But that had similar issues...
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That's rather purposefully obtuse? Obviously the none of the pre-Columbian states ever used the name "America" to refer to the continent.
Pakistan and Bangladesh are on the Indian subcontinent, do you correct people from the country of India every time they say they are Indian?
As I understand it, the people from Pakistan and Bangladesh mostly prefer the South Asia denomination and don't consider themselves Indians, while South Americans do consider themselves Americans, so it's a different case.
> South Americans do consider themselves Americans, so it's a different case.
I have a hard time believing people in South America actually call themselves Americans or are remotely confused about where someone identified as American is from.
This all seems pedantic.
Yes, everyone from the Americas could conceivably be called an American, but the lack of any shared continental cultural identity largely removes any need to self-identify as an inhabitant of the continent. But hey, if people desperately want to call themselves Americans, I say go for it.
do you really think that if I said "he is american" that 96% of the world isn't going to think I mean the USA?
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You cannot post inflammatory, escalatory comments like this on Hacker News, and we ban accounts that do it repeatedly. I'm not banning now as you've been a community member for a while and have posted some good comments, but please take care to read the guidelines and avoid posting like this in future.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43929357 and marked it off topic.
I appreciate the clemency, and will change my ways.
Why are topics like this not considered Off-Topic by the guidelines?
Why are topics like this not considered Off-Topic by the guidelines?
A recent tomhow (and why) explanation:
Thank you for sharing that link.
I figured only the deaths of people relevant to topics discussed on this forum, but I suppose it is extended to any death of great importance.
It’s roughly “sufficiently big or interesting real world events” for some value of sufficiently big or interesting.
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A week or so ago there was a thread about the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and a discussion about why it was disfavored by Francis. This is the kind of thing I was talking about there.
You had me up until Jesus dash Christ.
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I had to look up your comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedevacantism
Maybe they are a conclavist, and have elected their own pope?
Congratulations on becoming a Protestant
My first thought ...
Well Donald Trump will be pleased.......
So, he's Bob Pope?
...I'll see myself out.
Why is this on HN?
A historical event of potential cultural significance.
So we can have a dozen threads arguing about what the term "American" means.
This post was resting on 666 comments, so I’m doing my duty.
"He is the first North American to be elected pope and, before the conclave, was the U.S. cardinal most mentioned as a potential successor of St. Peter."
Is that a typo?
St Peter was the first Pope; all Popes after are successors to him
If they're constructed as ordinals, then, why do they call them cardinals?
Cardinals are cardinal and Popes are ordinal. It's math.
Ah, I see. Thanks.
No, St. Peter passed away several years ago.
Where?
Successor of St Peter?
They are referring to Peter the Apostle, who was the first bishop of Rome [0]
Yes, the “on this rock I will build my church” guy.
No.
François was born in Buenos Aires, how is that the first american pope ?
At least in (USA) American news sources, "American" means from the USA. Francis was the first pope from the Americas.
See Wikipedia for deeper discussion of the use of the term in English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_(word)
Well the markets are up, that must mean something :) More importantly , the conclave did not overshadow any new AI model releases.
Lots to learn about the Pope Leo XIV. I liked his speech
He is not a US citizen. He might have been born in the States but he is a fully naturalised citizen of Peru.
Being born in the US means you are a citizen. He holds dual citizenships
I stand corrected.
I'm seeing a lot of shade thrown at the new Pope just for opposing Trump and his policies. Some even go as far as to call him a "woke Marxist Pope". Not very christian.
im comfused how that extends from that you didnt think he was a citizen?
disagreeing with trump is a suggestion of non-citizenship?
Slightly related: the movie "Conclave" (2024) is a great and surprising thriller. Critics consensus from RottenTomatoes:
> Carrying off papal pulp with immaculate execution and career-highlight work from Ralph Fiennes, Conclave is a godsend for audiences who crave intelligent entertainment.
[video trailer] https://youtu.be/JX9jasdi3ic?si=sYwqRlK-4hYUnsAa
This seems to be a very clear signal that Catholics think that US is having very serious issues which in turn endangers the world. I'm an atheist but assuming Catholic church justifies itself through "greater good" sort of mentality this move is such an obvious one and I don't think there could have a been a better one.
Excited to see the drama as the US-circus is already delivering briliant lines like "why didn't he speak English".