First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

> my duty is to interpret and lead via "the holy scriptures"

Said scriptures also says that a woman can be sold to her rapist after he violates her. I think a more modern interpretation would not be a bad idea.

What do you mean? There are plenty of "modern" interpretations. New scholarly commentaries come out almost every year. My point is that, among these, the prevailing assumption continues to be one that doesn't support same-sex marriages in the church.

What is lacking, from my perspective, are scholarly interpretations that swing the discussion the other way. The best I've seen simply just exclude the problematic scriptures which really isn't within the Catholic tradition (inerrancy of scripture and all).

contexnt: I've studied religions (and still follow the topic) and have a basic understanding of where things are, but take it with a grain of salt.

Not the New Testament. Christianity has the luxury (compared to some other religions..) of having very few "divinely ordained" rules. The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament (the one with all not very nice things) however they are rather vague and undefined.

So various churches can freely pick/discard almost whatever they want besides the 10 commandments while Muslims can't exactly just throw away the Quran or Hadith (which are much more specific)..

I think the crux of the problem is that with all the statements the Bible makes, at a plain reading of the text, who are we, as mere humans to decide which parts should be strictly adhered to, or which parts should not, or which parts mean something completely different from the plain reading? As far as I can tell there is no consistent application of logic and understanding what parts matter and which parts do not. And depending on who you talk to, those parts change.

I understand that as part of the faith, it is not our place to know the reason God has chosen. However, I believe that there are very serious concerns about the intentions of the people 'qualified' to interpret the texts. Relying on "just trust us" gets us into big trouble, fast.

As the saying goes, the devil may quote scripture too.

> The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament (the one with all not very nice things) however they are rather vague and undefined.

Except Jesus said that he didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and not one stroke of a letter of the law will pass away. So he didn't change anything about slavery, mistreatment of women, etc.

Prooftexting is not a good idea. If you think you have a gotcha, then you should get in line with the multitude of teenagers who think they've bested the Church with a verse, and from a bad translation at that.

Think about it. It's been thousands of years. A little humility is called for. You're not the first or the last to make flippant remarks like this without understanding.

He also said 'Love your neighbor as yourself' and a bunch of similar things. Which kind of makes it complicated. I guess selling other people to slavery is fine as long as you also sell yourself (just like mistreating others).

> didn't change anything about slavery, mistreatment of women, etc.

The "fulfill" bit is rather ambiguous. AFAIK the most popular interpretation (certainly when it comes to ceremonial rules like not eating pork/shellfish/etc.) is that his intention was to "bring the law to its intended goal/purpose" rather than to maintain it in perpetuity.

But none of that ever applied to gentiles. Not before Christ, not after. Jews today do not claim that non-Jews are obliged to, or even ought to, perform any Mitzvot whatsoever -- and that's despite generally acknowledging that there are universal moral laws which bind all "children of Noah".

So if the remaining Jews continue following the Old Covenant, but others choose to rather follow Jesus' 'New and Eternal Covenant', then where would this obligation towards Old Testament law come from?

> The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament

And teachings of Paul supersede the stuff from Jesus.

To be fair modern Jews don't really follow the laws from the book of Deuteronomy (the one with rape -> marriage thing..) either due to other (but in a way kind of similar) reasons

That's not exactly a "gotcha." The church's official stance on women has changed drastically over the last couple millenia. It's reasonable to suggest that its stance on same-sex couples might eventually change as well.

Jesus never said he was superseding a single thing. His entire ministry was about railing against the legalistic structure of the Pharisees, who were more interested in following "the Law" than having common sense or taking care of people. His ministry was about Jews, for Jews, and had nothing to do with gentiles at all. The grifter Paul is the one who opened up their cult to gentiles.

> As far as I can tell there is no consistent application of logic and understanding what parts matter and which parts do not

I would disagree. The art of hermeneutics has been around for a _long_ time and has been refined over time as we develop new understandings about the ancient cultures that wrote these documents. So, yes, things do change, but I would argue they do not _dramatically_ change. For example, the message of "the gospel" has been the same since the founding apostles. But our understanding of something like Genesis 1 has changed dramatically over the years as our understanding of the sciences, history, etc. increase.

For much of Christian history the Bible was largely interpreted as being pro slavery and against interracial marriage. Most people now disagree with those interpretations. There is growing support for LGBT within the church. Here's one example https://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/introducin...

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished”

For some added context, Prevost is an Augustinian. Augustine of Hippo himself was not a biblical literalist.

I don't think you understand what that means. There are 3 types of Jewish laws and only one (the moral law) still applies.

You aren't bringing up the moral law.

Germans love Paul

The Bible doesn't even have the concept of race as we understand it today, because that concept is a very recent invention (to my understanding). Anyone using it to support anti-interracial marriage positions would be doing so anachronistically, rendering their own claim invalid.

Yup. He said that in the Bible. But he also fed people on the Sabbath because there were people needing to be fed, not because the recognition of the Sabbath day was abolished, but because the ridiculous legalistically dogmatic adherence to the Law was harming people. Just like today, where we've got ICE agents rushing parents and leaving their children alone in the backs of their vehicles. Also, his fulfillment was about being the sacrifice that sinners couldn't make for themselves, not about ignoring Old Testament laws.

Interesting that you should mention the Old Testament. 2025 is a year of Ordinary Jubilee. I'd invite you to research what a Jubilee Year meant to the Jews, and what it currently means to Christians. Because Jubilee Years have never been abolished.

Hint: there's parts about freeing slaves, about repatriating foreigners, and about fallow fields. It's really sort of awe-inspiring how our secular government is implementing Jubilee by fiat.