There are conservatives and there are conservatives. He's at least got some solid social justice credentials AFAICT, though I noticed that B16 didn't get a lot of attention in the US when he, e.g., pushed back on the death penalty. That whole "life is sacred from conception to natural death" is far more often used against abortion and assisted suicide than against capital punishment.
He certainly seems to have social justice creds. Apparently he lives in a small apartment, cooks for himself and uses public transportation. Those things alone are probably sending chills down the spines of a bunch of the Rome establishment.
I can understand somebody taking the life from conception stand, even if I don't. I don't remotely understand the 'natural death' argument on any level. I've several Doctor friends, one of whom recently had to deal with a parent with terminal cancer, and there really isn't anything natural about death.
It shocks me that on the whole we treat our pets with more humanity than humans.
The Church has an acknowledged place for ascetics as long as they are heterodox in their beliefs. I doubt he would or could enforce asceticism on his ex-fellows in the College or attempt to sell off the Vatican silver to feed the poor.
What would it take to be a bishop who wasn't involved in covering up abusive priests, given the widespread nature of abuse and priest-transferring and the lack of any bishops having gone public?
You might find some people who had 'weird' roles in fairly remote locations? But I'm actually drawing a blank. I suspect there isn't a bishop left who hasn't moved a priest due to suspicions they don't want addressed.
Without in any way excusing the "transfer to avoid scandal" behaviour, we should probably take note that this isn't restricted to the Catholic church (or even religious bureaucracies) by any stretch. You'd probably be hard pressed to find a school-board, hospital, government bureaucracy, or large corporation where the executive layer of management hasn't engaged in this kind of behaviour to one degree or another, especially where the possibility of actually bringing criminal charges to bear would be tricky and potentially very public.
It's even worse than the Supreme Court. Justices can always try to hold on until the next presidential election, but Cardinals effectively have a mandatory retirement age.
As I understand it they've also pushing priest and cardinal retirements too because they're concerned about numbers... Of course, there's always the horizontal retirement option too.
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There will be a new pope inside of a decade I suspect, and they'll probably be a conservative, but then things might start to shift.
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I can understand somebody taking the life from conception stand, even if I don't. I don't remotely understand the 'natural death' argument on any level. I've several Doctor friends, one of whom recently had to deal with a parent with terminal cancer, and there really isn't anything natural about death.
It shocks me that on the whole we treat our pets with more humanity than humans.
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http://rfmcdpei.livejournal.com/3398074.html
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It's like the Supreme Court in the US really.
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