To me it seems they are also using the pope to play the game of having their cake and eating it too. For example, the Vatican's stance on evolution is that they don't acknowledge it, while the Pope is "Ah, you know, whatever, maybe it's real"; or the gay people where Vatican is against them while many people are under the impression that the pope is even in favor of gay marriage; or Vatican is pro enriching itself, while many people were under the impression that the pope was secretly sneaking out of the Vatican at night and feeding the poor people.
Anyway, it seems that the papacy today is completely useless in the best case, and contra productive at it's worst (like when Ratzinger was telling people not to use condoms while AIDS was raging around them).
Anyway, it seems that the papacy today is completely useless in the best case, and contra productive at it's worst (like when Ratzinger was telling people not to use condoms while AIDS was raging around them).
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
