Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Al Jazeera — Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina elected new pope

First Latin American and first Jesuit elected leader of the Catholic Church to be known as Pope Francis I.
He got the name right. That's a good sign. Amazing to me that no one took that name before.

Al Jazeera
Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina elected new pope

3 comments:

David said...

He got the name right. That's a good sign. Amazing to me that no one took that name before.

That is interesting. I kind of figured it was because St. Francis was kind of a non-hierarchical, left-libertarian mystical hippie type. That said, I suppose the Franciscans were co-opted a long time ago.

Tom Hickey said...

I suppose the Franciscans were co-opted a long time ago

Much more quickly that one might think. The order grew enormously during the lifetime of Francis and as it grew more found it exceedingly difficult to follow the strict rule of Francis, so it was relaxed, and those who subsequently wished to follow it were prohibited from do so and even prosecuted if they did.

And what was it over? Ownership of private property, which Francis himself had strictly forbade iaw the biblical teaching that Jesus and his followers held all things in common. The authorities of the time (pope) decided that was a dangerous idea for an institution.

googleheim said...

Deconstruction of private property can and will take lives.

However, it is more important to get rid of private property of owning slaves which was really weird during Roman times

Jews had Christian slaves
Christians had Christian and Jewish slaves
Romans ruled all the above

until things changed 3rd CE