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  1. Vouthon

    Pope Francis uses transpeople’s preferred names and pronouns

    "VATICAN CITY — Sea gulls soared over St. Peter’s Square as Laura Esquivel, clad in tight leather pants, aimed herself toward the high walls of the Holy See. “It’s not too much? My makeup?” she asked, self-consciously touching a rouged cheek. “I don’t care what people think. But this is the...
  2. Vouthon

    Pope Francis uses transpeople’s preferred names and pronouns

    In an address published as a document on the Vatican website, Pope Francis has taken the opportunity, in response to a question by an interviewer, to clarify his understanding of Catholic doctrine and pastoral practice towards transgender people...
  3. Vouthon

    Celebrating St. Brigid - Bridging Paganism and Catholicism

    When I was a "wee" lad, the primary school I attended was called St. Bride's, the Gaelic original of her name. She was our patron saint. At every school assembly we used to sing a hymn to her, written for the school itself long before I was born. It went like this (me singing just now from...
  4. Vouthon

    Why So Much Trinity Bashing?

    Agreed, it was early - I think starting with Cerinthus in the late first century. We can see in the second and third Johannine epistles that the community of the fourth gospel had been split between Incarnationists (divine from birth) and Adoptionists who believed that the human Jesus had been...
  5. Vouthon

    Why So Much Trinity Bashing?

    I think we should separate the later "ontological" theology of Trinitarianism, on the one hand (which was a case of Latin and Greek speaking Gentile theologians of the second and third centuries trying to make sense of the apostolic doctrine of Jesus's divinity), from the question of: does the...
  6. Vouthon

    New Papyrus With Early Sayings of Jesus is earlier than any New Testament manuscript...with material from the Gospel of Thomas

    This tiny fragment of Greek text titled P.Oxy 5575 from the latest volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri made waves late last year in early Christian scholarship. Dated by papyrological experts to the second century, it potentially revolutionizes our understanding of the textual transmission of the...
  7. Vouthon

    What Part of Your Religion or Worldview Brings You the Most Comfort or Reassurance?

    I have always found Jesus's parable of the pregnant woman in the Johannine farewell discourse very reassuring: https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/explore-the-bible/read/eng/NRSV/John/16/highlight:21/ Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain...
  8. Vouthon

    Hey, nice to hear from you Brick - hope you're well!

    Hey, nice to hear from you Brick - hope you're well!
    • Vouthon
    • Profile post comment
  9. Vouthon

    Did the Buddha exist?

    On Muhammad, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragment_on_the_Arab_Conquests Fragment on the Arab Conquests are fragmentary notes that were written around the year 636 AD on the front blank pages of a sixth-century Syriac Christian manuscript of the Gospel of Mark. The fragment depicts...
  10. Vouthon

    Did the Buddha exist?

    Someone, a very insightful peripatetic spiritual seeker with direct experience of altered states of consciousness and a keen understanding of the human mind, was in my opinion the source of the oral traditions that lie behind the earliest layer of Buddhist literature in the Pali canon (such as...
  11. Vouthon

    Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (not marriage)

    Again, footnote 329 from Amoris Laetitia [2015]: And that's a judgment that only individual Catholic couples in "irregular situations" can make, by consulting their own consciences and considering their own lives, relationship and circumstances. As Francis again noted in Amoris Laetitia...
  12. Vouthon

    Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (not marriage)

    Correct but as Amoris Laetitia noted on this doctrinal point back in 2015, it's not just about invincible ignorance. More is involved, you may actually know the rule full well (i.e objectively that gay sex is not sacramental or approved) but be unable in a given set of circumstances to really...
  13. Vouthon

    How do we overcome tribalism?

    To answer the OP, by following the ethics illustrated in Jesus's Parable of the Good Samaritan and conversation in John chapter 4 with the Samaritan woman at the well. I would say that these two ancient narratives are the "gold standard" on overcoming a tribalist mindset. And any other...
  14. Vouthon

    Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (not marriage)

    It would not be an "irregular situation" at all if celibacy were involved.
  15. Vouthon

    Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (not marriage)

    Bishop Bätzing, President of the German Bishops' Conference 'I very much welcome this document and am grateful for the pastoral perspective it adopts. In Fiducia supplicans it is explained that, in principle, it is possible and permissible for the ordained pastor to respond to the wishes of...
  16. Vouthon

    Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (not marriage)

    Whilst that is true, the blessing actually is recognising and seeking to nurture everything that, from our standpoint, is good and holy and laudable in the relationship even if objectively it involves something that our Doctrine doesn't accept (but subjectively that doesn't imply any...
  17. Vouthon

    Vladimir Lenin: A Monster or a Product of His Time and Circumstances?

    Impossible to say, however I think that the Treaty of Versailles by itself and the Great Depression would have spurred a revanchist dictatorship in Germany, wedded to the fact that the judicial system let Hitler's putsch off lightly in 1924 at his trial, because it was riddled with far right...
  18. Vouthon

    A day after the pope’s announcement that Catholic priests may bless same-sex couples, one New York couple receives theirs.

    Here are some relevant paragraphs from document: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20231218_fiducia-supplicans_en.html III. Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex 31. Within the horizon outlined here appears the...
  19. Vouthon

    Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples (not marriage)

    Further to my above, from a Reuters article: The document, whose Latin title is Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust), said the form of the blessing "should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage". It...
  20. Vouthon

    A day after the pope’s announcement that Catholic priests may bless same-sex couples, one New York couple receives theirs.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/us/catholic-gay-blessing-pope-francis.html As a Jesuit priest for more than two decades, the Rev. James Martin has bestowed thousands of blessings — on rosary beads, on babies, on homes, boats, and meals, on statues of saints, on the sick, on brides and on...
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