A radical change for the Catholic Church.
The new Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, has made a number of surprising announcements that will take the Catholic Church in a very progressive and liberal direction. The ministry of the 266th pontiff, it appears, will be founded in reason and rationality.
In a significant break with the tradition of the Church Pope Francis will be addressing the crisis in global population expansion by promoting homosexuality throughout the world. “There are too many people in the world, for the available resources,” he said in his address. “So, by encouraging homosexuality fewer children will be born thus alleviating poverty and deprivation throughout the world.”
The other core points he brought up, which also raised eyebrows amongst the mostly conservative members of the flock were:
- Although he was still against gay marriage, he stated that he was against marriage in all its forms. It was clear, he stated, from scripture that the institute of marriage came about as a way for men to legalise the oppression and slavery of women, and had no place in the modern world.
- He has vowed to dismantle the financial privilege, excess and extravagance of the Vatican and the leaders of the Church by liquidating assets to the value of billions of dollars to pass over to the poor and vulnerable throughout the world.
- For the first time in 2,000 years women will be welcomed into the Church on an equal status with the men and will be allowed to become clergy, and even Pope in the future.
- He will be fundamentally changing the stance on contraception. The use of condoms will be actively promoted in order to halt the transmission of HIV/AIDS and to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Where unwanted pregnancies do occur abortion will no longer be opposed as the souls of the unborn, he said, are innocent and so will go straight to heaven, and they should not be deprived of that opportunity.
- As most people were able to look at the Bible and decide for themselves what in it was good or bad it must be the case that their morality was independent of the scriptures, the Pope declared. In the near future then the Bible would rewritten to contain stories of more relevance to the 21st Century.
Finally, in another upset to the established practice of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian religion he said there was no need any longer for the global congregation to pray or worship Jesus and God. The reason was that no supernatural supreme being would be so insecure that it required homage and adulation from the beings it created.
