nice pronouncement from a man who has no control over determining what a crime is anyway.

Figurehead of the largest, most demented cult in the world.

.......Still need to be 18 years old and over though

Reddit loves shitting being cynical and ragging on religion, but it is nice having a guy who sets the agenda for a billion followers say stuff that makes them more likely to be inclusive and compassionate. Hasn’t always been the case with Catholics and we shouldn’t take it for granted.

The problem is that he's making a moral statement, while the Vatican has been shielding and enabling pedophile priests for decades (centuries?). He seems to have forgotten, or is ignoring, that whole "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" thing.

he is the absolute monarch of the vatican.

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All vast institutions that span millennia are going to have done both good and evil. Institutions consist of people, and people are flawed. The idea that we judge institutions based only on the evil they have done is all the rage as critical theory spreads, but viewing history through the lens of hyper-criticism is as myopic as viewing history based only on the good things institutions have done. Institutions, like people, are mixed bags of good and evil. Focusing on evil to the exclusion of good is not only unproductive, it’s also detrimental to society. What message do we send people knowing no matter what they do in the future, one sufficiently evil act will taint them forever? We all do evil over the course of our lives. When we are at our worst, is that evil the only thing worthy of mention for the rest of our lives? Not only as an asterisk, but to the exclusion of anything good a person might accomplish in their life? This is true for institutions as it is for people.

When someone like the pope does something good, can we not look at the merits of that action alone, or does every action he makes, no matter how meritorious, ultimately have to end in condemnation?

Also, I think you’ve missed the point about the phrase “he who casts the first stone. Pope Francis isn’t throwing a stone by saying homosexuality isn’t a crime. In fact he is lowering the arm of some Catholic stone-throwers. That’s a good thing. Why not celebrate good, just as we condemn evil?

Yea, but /u/large_big1660 doesn’t live in the Vatican, so what clever retort do you have for that, smart guy?

Scientology might not be bigger, but I think they would have something to say about who is the most deranged cult.

The Vatican is a city with a population of under nine hundred people.

not even a proper country