Has the pope gone mad?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I wonder how much power does the pope have?

Just imagine that he did come out and say categorically that homosexuality is now absolutely fine and the Catholic church has no problem with it, or gay marriage. Imagine whatever cherry picking and twisting he may say to produce that conclusion from the text, but he doesn't qualify it with disclaimers.

Do you think the average Catholic would accept this? Or would there be some sort of revolt? I really don't know so I'd be interested if anyone has a good idea what would happen.

The pope's chief influence is (obviously) among the more faithful Catholics - southern Europe, Latin American, Africa, etc. USian and most European Catholics aren't quite as dedicated to papal authority as they once were.

I think that if this - or any - pope stated flat out that the Church had no issue at all with homosexuality and gay marriage, you'd see a schism that would make the 1050s look like a tiff over whether to use that shrimp fork or the salad fork.

Boru