re: #197 Dave In Austin

The fact that Francis is a Jesuit is a big deal as far as I’m concerned. I think it opens the faith up. Liberalizing it is prolly not the right term but you get my drift. While not Catholic, I was in awe of John Paul. Francis’s humility is a lesson in itself.

And yet Pope Francis still holds to the same tired theology that condemns contraception and family planning. He no more wants equality for women in the Church than any of his predecessors.

While Francis has called on the Church to address widening income inequality in First World nations, he continues to maintain such archaic ideas that women are not the equal of men, nor that they should be free of the shackles of endless births that guarantee in a poor nation they cannot advance their economic situation or improve their educational standing.

Perhaps the problem is too deep in the Roman Catholic Church: Francis is only one man (even if he is the alleged Vicar of Christ), and powerful forces in the Church seek to undermine his (very) modest reforms.

I liken the Church to the Republican Party: It is too hidebound to its ideology to be a meaningful force for progress.