After having their legs humped by Benedict for a decade, bigot Catholics are angry because Pope Frank is paying attention to poor people:

“It seems he’s focusing on bringing back the left that’s fallen away, but what about the conservatives?” said Ms. Kurt, a hospice community educator. “Even when it was discouraging working in pro-life, you always felt like Mother Teresa was on your side and the popes were encouraging you. Now I feel kind of thrown under the bus.”

Yes. Having someone not mention your American political concerns explicitly for a while, as he focuses on THE STARVING, is just like what Jesus suffered on the cross.

Also? We only ever have one pope at a time anymore (which, I gotta say, BORING) so this is gonna be a thing for everybody from now on.

“There have been bad popes in the history of the church,” Mr. Skojec said. “Popes that murdered, popes that had mistresses. I’m not saying Pope Francis is terrible, but there’s no divine protection that keeps him from being the type of guy who with subtlety undermines the teachings of the church to bring about a different vision.”

There have been popes who, for example, protected child molesters (all of them, actually), who conspired with dictators and tyrants, who hoarded gold like Smaug the Terrible, who were banging everything that moved, who participated in atrocities, saith this dick. By not giving a couple of obligatory speeches calling poor women whores, gay people abominations, and atheists hell-bound, this pope is the second coming of Pius XII.

I can’t really blame Francis for not wanting to hang out with these folks all the time.

Some conservative Catholics are sharing prophecies online that foretell of tribulations for the church. In one, an Irish woman predicted that Benedict would be held hostage. Others cite the German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, who wrote of a “relationship between two popes,” one who “lives in a palace other than before,” which some now see as a reference to Benedict, who resigned as pope early this year but still lives in Vatican City. During this time there arises a “false church of darkness.”

These people are batshit and need help. I don’t know where I come down on mysticism, exactly, but I’ve read enough to know that taking prophecies literally isn’t a bright idea.

“When a pope makes a statement off the cuff or in an interview, it’s not an infallible statement,” said Chris Baran, the president of the clinic’s board. “What he said in a statement does not change any teaching of the church that’s been around over 2,000 years.”

Yeah, and when any liberal Catholic says the same thing, you authoritarian fuckwads scream about cafeteria Catholics and how the only way to be a good follower of the LAWD is to slavishly repeat everything said in the Bible (except the begats, because of all the screwing). Y’all shriek about papal infallibility when it suits your purposes, but this guy wasn’t pope for two seconds before you were wondering, just wondering mind you, what would happen if Benedict changed his mind and raised an army to take back the Vatican.

(Dude. Best movie idea ever. If he led the charge while riding a velociraptor.)

As far as what Il Papa said being taken out of context, I read his entire interview most of these people are yowling about and what he was basically saying was get over your provincial shit, across the board, and stop using your interpretations of doctrine to bludgeon people into certain behaviors. Reading comprehension apparently isn’t something they cover in CCD.

A.