Before I begin, I should clarify 1) I firmly stand against the transphobia that has seen a rise since yesterday 2) I don’t condone violence like what happened either, and 3) I don’t fully know how the papacy structure currently works
When the Bolsheviks killed the Romanovs, the pope at the time instantly canonized the Romanovs and that was the biggest PR blow to the Bolsheviks. Today there’s a pope who people show pride in as being from America, specifically Chicago. And he even speaks English. Anything he or even a top cardinal says on the Minneapolis matter is going to have weight when it comes to trans individuals. I guess my question is, if I am to say I fear that the shooter awakened a sleeping giant, how do we, you know, put the giant back to sleep without it misstepping anywhere? This isn’t just a worrywort talking, I’ve seen shit happen and know how things can go downhill fast. There must be some emergency “halt papal discussion of the topic” button somewhere.
The pope right now seems staunchly anti-Trump. Unless you mean in the sense that this fuels him (the pope). I don’t know. The possibility of the norms being broken does feel like it could be at play. Some saints have become saints without the typical rules. The Romanovs are a good example of this. It was almost instantaneous, and they’re explicitly not even Catholic to my knowledge. To cite another one, there’s a muderous conquistador who is relevant here too, though I forgot his name. He slaughtered two hundred indigenous people and was by no means “practicing”, yet he was on a Catholic mission, so poof, he had started climbing the ranks. Saint Tekakwitha might be a recent third (but more innocent) example. She too challenged what it means to be Catholic, but the story goes the papacy was so desperate to penetrate the Haudenosaunee that they were like “she’s extremely lowkey, but we’ll take it”.
well zar nikolaus II is a saint of the russian orthodox church since 2000. i couldn’t find anything abt this in a catholic context. (and even if so, he was a geopolitically important person. not a kid from highschool)
the canonisation of kateri tekekwitha took centuries and on the basis, that she was already revered in northern america. i don’t know the details.
there are undeserved saints. i just dont think that the catholic church, will muddy their image as an eternal institution by throwing themselves into the usa’s culture war news-cycle. thats not to defend the church, but to focus on those who actually threaten democracy and freedom, like the king in orange.
Let us hope. Not defending either of these two individuals, but Pope Leo wasn’t afraid of throwing shade on Donald Trump due to his practices involving ICE at the most vulnerable moments, which follows Pope Francis who was equally political but more about social progress (e.g. climate change). Both of these popes, as well as Pope Benedict, always used to stop just short of declaring full tolerance towards LGBT practices while trying to appeal to the LGBT crowd, so let’s hope this is their limit.