Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ the Pope

April 4, 2019 • 9:00 am

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “claims,” came with this email note about the Vatican’s treatment of women.

Pope Francis makes some noises without actually saying very much.

An excerpt (but the NY Post article has much more):

Pope Francis said Tuesday the Catholic Church had to acknowledge a history of male domination and sexual abuse of women and children, and repair its reputation among young people, or risk becoming “a museum.”

But, in a major document in which he mentioned an array of scandals and again admitted significant failings by clergy, he also said the Church “could not agree with everything some feminist groups propose,” a clear reference to the Church’s ban on a female priesthood.

. . .And while he said the Church should be “attentive to the legitimate claims of those women who seek greater justice and equality” and that young people had complained of a “lack of leading female role models,” he offered no new ideas. Only a handful of women hold positions of authority in the Vatican.

This month the all-female staff of the Vatican newspaper’s monthly magazine on women’s issues resigned, saying a new editor sought to put them “under direct male control.”

Meet the new boss: same as the old boss.

 

30 thoughts on “Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ the Pope”

  1. Meet the new boss: same as the old boss.

    But one thing we can be sure of – the religious will get fooled again.

  2. Catholics rank side by side with something like the Trump base. Everything you do is bad for me but hey, we love it. Lets just pray on it.

    1. It reminds me of the summing up on another Jesus and Mo cartoon, which goes: “Besides, it’s not really discrimination if it’s against chicks.” (Mo)

        1. I’ve got a copy of the cartoon. I’ve used it on my site. I’ll try and remember which post and let you know. Or, I’ll email it to you if I can’t.

  3. I’m a bit disappointed in the headline on the linked “newspaper” piece.

    I mean, it’s The New York Post for chrissakes; it should be something like:

    <blockquote?"POPE DOES ROPE-A-DOPE ON DISTAFF HOPES"

  4. I find it astonishing that American Catholics are enthralled by their cognitive dissonance, believing in spooky anatomical relics, exorcising invisible demons, and kowtowing to a virgin ambassador to the heavens yet mostly use contraceptives and being supportive of gay rights.

    I guess the Catechism isn’t a revered piece of literature for these cultists. And this is coming from the sect that claims they don’t believe in the literal Bible.

    1. Perhaps they use the right hemisphere of the brain to keep right with the Church, and the other to do whatever the hell is left.

  5. So what about women priests? What arguments do the Catholics make (if at all) against it?

    2. Yet during the Black Death, and in the absence of a priest, anyone could hear a dying confession – “even a woman”.

        1. I think they’d got that message from the, errrr, Black Death.
          What’s that additional set of verses for “All Things Foul and Repulsive”?
          Each little bot that burrows,
          Each little insect that stings ...           And lots more couplets.

    3. Some estimates put the proportion of gay in the higher levels of the Vatican as 80%. I suspect they don’t want to run the risk of uncovering the hypocrisy.

    4. I wrote this three years ago:

      https://www.heatherhastie.com/female-deacons-in-the-catholic-church/

      Pope Francis was going to make some small changes. However, there have been a few changes since then. He’s constantly receiving huge push back from the conservative arm of the church, who remain very powerful.

      A writer for the US conservative Catholic magazine even manages to blame Pope Francis for the sex abuse in the Church. The fact that it’s been going on for almost two millennia under other popes seems to have escaped their notice.

      1. My wife was Catholic many years ago and the priest of the church she attended was a liberal. He allowed girls to help with the service(serve as alter boys), which, I think was verboten at the time. But, he was sat-on by the hierarchy until his token gestures became isolated, unable to make any wider influence. Gradually, like the days of our lives, the church began to back off. However, they still wrote that: “it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar”.

  6. This Pope is a friendly joke! No addressing the rape of sisters by Bishops and Priests,no attempts at addressing the 50 countries where Priests are still happily raping children and being protected. This crisis is only beginning in the more advanced countries. It will spread. The whole Catholic Church is a joke.

    1. Unfortunately, nuns, too, have a lot to answer for re the way some of their number (more than people would like to admit) have physically, sexually, and emotionally abused those in their care. I think of the Magdalen Laundries, for starters. If this sorry business is to be firmly and fully dealt with, no perpetrator, regardless of sex or sexual orientation, can be given a pass because it isn’t seemly and one doesn’t want to think of women as capable of such outrages.

      2. At lease some of them were called to account in Australia by the royal commission there.

        I remember as a kid (aged 11-12) being scared to walk past the nunnery on my own because of tales from Catholic kids at the school it was in the grounds of and they taught at.

    2. There has supposedly been a female pope, though historians think she’s probably a legend. The story goes she followed her lover into the church, disguised as a man, and rose up through the ranks due to her own abilities. She was apparently discovered when she went into labour during a parade.

  8. I cannot be persuaded to agree with the Catholic dogma or ideology. The reasoning part of my brain just does not allow me to think like that.

    The big issue I have with the Pope is his mishandling of the Islamic conquest in North Africa, and the attempts to do the same in Europe.

    There are a lot of downsides to supporting the apparatus of the church in our countries. It is expensive, and pretty hard on the kids. In return for this imposition, we get some nice architecture to look at, some structured and comforting rituals to mark births, deaths, and weddings, and they are supposed to organize opposition to the Islamic hordes when they attempt to enslave or behead us. Or at least speak out against it.

    It is not like this is a new thing. It has happened pretty regularly since 711. Even the most secular of us would suffer if Rome went the way of Antioch.

    1. ‘…they are supposed to organize opposition to the Islamic hordes when they attempt to enslave or behead us.’

      That job is for God and government.

      1. God has a pretty poor track record in preventing human suffering, natural or human-caused.

        It would be nice if governments would step in and act, but they tend to collaborate. Or at least they don’t seem to act when doing so can be done administratively and peacefully.

        Also, politicians seem to lack any historical perspective. If Hitler had been more like Merkel, the allied forces could have showed up in thousands of little boats and just claimed to be seeking better lives.
        I don’t see that there has been a big change in ideology or ultimate goals since 711, just different tactics.

        Historically, the Church (capital C) has been the prime motivator behind successful efforts to get European countries to stop fighting each other for a little while, and cooperate against existential threats like the Huns and the various Caliphates.

        1. “politicians seem to lack any historical perspective”

          Some do lack any perspective at all and are driven by crude self aggrandizement(bottom of their class, but willing to work at it). Then others have plenty of perspective, but come to realize their constituents are mostly clods, and end up going with the flow. They call it democracy. I keep trying to think of a better system.

  9. ‘…they are supposed to organize opposition to the Islamic hordes when they attempt to enslave or behead us.’

    That job is for God and government.

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