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

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-pope-could-it-be-american-c...

Now, Latin Americans living in the US proudly call themselves "Americans"

Edit: Albeit long, the correct gentilice for the US is "Estadounidenses" as in "Estados Unidos de América"

On the other hand, some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days. So it isn’t surprising that we’d be the ones objecting.

If the folks who got us into this mess with label obsession move on to something less charged like USian, that’s probably for the net good.

Which nobody uses. (It’s also meaningful to note that I would call myself an American in English but not in Spanish.)

But also sure, telling Americans to rename things, that hasn't caused ANY backlash now resulting in the renaming of huge bodies of water to stupid things, keep up the cultural dictates, it's totally working!

    1955 born (chicago)
    1977 seminary grad (chicago)
    1982 ordination (->rome)
    1985 canon law doctor (->peru)
    1999 midwest augustinians (->chicago)
    2001 global augustinians (->rome)
    2015 bishop (->peru)
    2021 dicasterate (->rome)

I guarantee less than 1% of Americans feel like this or are even thinking about the issue at all.

No media covered / decoded what that gesture signifies.

/s

What do you think the premise of the motto Make America Great Again is? The difference between Trumpists and others who see a decline is that the former see the 2016 and 2024 elections as reverses in the decline, whereas other see them as sources or exacerbations.

[1] That said, depending on which Orthodox theologian you ask, Orthodoxy doesn't permit remarriage, either. Some Orthodox will tell you that a second marriage isn't a sacramental marriage; that the original marriage is never dissolved. Rather, "remarriage" is a form of "Ekonomia", wherein the community sort of ignores some misbehavior, or withholds judgment, so as to avoid cutting a person off entirely. Pope Francis explicitly mentioned this concept of "ekonomia" when discussing his preference that (civilly) remarried Catholics be permitted the Eucharist. And he arguably had this concept in mind when advocating for the blessing of people in same-sex relationships.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism

I think there are legal implications. Akin to "Washington District of Columbia"

Decades ago, Mexicans refered to the capital as "el DF" But I dont know about more recently.

Traditional papal symbols of Benedict XVI return and that whole speech of “Do not be afraid to evangelize with the truth” gave me a sense of confrontation with the modern ideology.

Not going to lie, I had to check that this was a real name (it is)

In my opinion, the US world order’s decay was unmasked in 2008, and it has been accelerating since. The two economic realities between the poor rural America and the rich coastal cities (and even within them there is so much clear wealth disparity) have only gotten worse, and the political and bureaucratic system isn’t really capable of skillfully dealing with it.

Trump actually speaks to the realities that few politicians will (Bernie Sanders did too in 2016, hence his appeal), though his prescribed solutions are likely just accelerating the country’s demise.

There is a similar situation in Quebec (the province and its capital city are both just called "Québec" in French, whereas in English we use Quebec/Quebec City). However, there is usually no ambiguity because French grammar requires the definite article for (masculine) names of large territories like countries and provinces, but not for cities. E.g. "Je vais au Québec"[1] = I'm going to Quebec (the province) vs. "Je vais à Québec" = I'm going to Quebec City.

I'm not sure if there is any similar grammatical distinction in Spanish.

1: au is a mandatory contraction for à + le

Which I think is a great thing as the representative of a worldwide religion. Born in the US, an English-speaking country in North America, lived in Peru, a Spanish-speaking country in the South America, then in Italy, an Italian-speaking country in Europe.

Personally I don’t believe in nationalism, so he’s just a dude from Chicago if anything.

The cardinal who said 'until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope' died in 2015 (i.e. before Trump's first term)

The bishop who quoted them does hold the post you mention - but they didn't originate the quote, they just quoted it.

and in addition he is also Peruvian.

so he's more than American. hyper American if you will. and now he's the head of state of the Vatican, too.

a triple whopper of sorts ;-)

What would you call Americans? United Statesians?

There are two countries called the United States in North America, there's the United States of Mexico, and the United States of America. People from the United States of Mexico are called Mexicans, and people from the United States of America are called Americans.

And what about people from the continent of North America? There's called North Americans, just like people from South America are called South Americans.

No, actually, there aren't.

> there's the United States of Mexico, and the United States of America.

No, México’s formal English name (which is an exact literal translation of its Spanish name) is United Mexican States (it is Estados Unidos Mexicanos not Estados Unidos de México)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierbattista_Pizzaballa

If there's a political motive in not choosing an American pope until now it's that for most of American history it wouldn't have granted them any influence over American politics. If there's a personal motive it's that until recently they felt insulted that America went for almost 200 years before finally electing a Catholic president.

I don't think they had much control over when Francis died.

As for being completely American: dual citizen of U.S. and another country here. On each April 15, the U.S. still considers me completely American even though I haven’t earned a cent there in over a decade. So in an official sense, that moniker sticks to you like Super Glue.

Granted, the new pope may have a wider scope of cultural influences than many, if not a majority of Americans, it sounds like his formative years were spent in the U.S. so I’d call him American.

I do think we’ve been in a down period when it comes to politics for a while but I am mid to long term optimistic about things getting better. This is not the first time we’ve had crazy massively divisive politics or populist crackpottery. Overall I do not think we are in any kind of terminal decline.

What is happening is that other countries are rising. I think that’s good for us. When America was the only superpower it made us lazy and foolish.

Look at how it works out in the corporate world. Take Intel for instance. They had a near monopoly for about a decade on top performing CPUs and it destroyed the company. Google carved out a monopoly on search and they are complete trash now. Pride cometh before a fall because pride causes the fall.

Do you remember a president from those eras who when asked whether he believed that he was duty bound to uphold the Constitution answered “I don’t know.”?

> It’s funny seeing people talk about the decline of America.

Funny? I’d rather say it’s pretty sad.

I am not sure fascism will take here. Americans might think they want it until the fascists start telling them what to do. We are kinda starting to see that.

We will see more. Wait until some stand your ground red blooded American homeowner guns down a bunch of ICE goons doing a warrantless raid on the wrong house. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been checking the news for it daily. Then Trump tries to confiscate guns. I’ve been predicting for years that it’s MAGA who will try to “come for the guns.” That will be a hoot as they say a few hours South of where I am.

Of course they still have the culture war card. For some reason trans derangement syndrome (TDS) still has a hold on people. I don’t understand why that particular thing works so well, even on some people you would not expect.

  2005 world series (chicago)

What? Speaking from experience, the country you go to after 20s is the one you choose, not the one you were forced to live in. This has a huge factor in your thinking more than the number of years on paper.

If anything, the US has pulled even further ahead since 1990. Back then the USSR was a near-power to the US, but has fallen significantly since then.

Since all power is relative, you’d need to see the US falling relative to another country. And right now, I don’t really see a country on that trajectory.

The drink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini_(vermouth)

The company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini_%26_Rossi

Éamon de Valera was born in New York City in 1882, and served as President of Ireland from 1959 to 1973

Bhumibol Adulyadej was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1927, and served as King of Thailand from 1946 until his death in 2016

That’s just two US-born individuals who became head of state of another country, there may be more.

I assume both were US citizens at birth (de Valera was born into poverty, abandoned by his Spanish father, reputedly an artist; Bhumibol‘s father was a student at Harvard)-whether or not they ever formally renounced their US citizenship, I don’t know

It’s true that the man was born in the USA and was a bishop in Peru. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Peruvian catholics were happy to have a pope who lived their country.

Trump doesn't control him and the pope owes no allegiance to Trump, but as an American pope, I think American Catholics are more likely to listen to him, and I think his moderate views could do a lot of good to the extremism of US politics.

It's a trivial example but Biden trying to unilaterally declare the ERA law was absurd and his student loan forgiveness was obviously going to be found unconditional and he did it anyway.

Those aren't the actions of someone who takes the constitution seriously.

Nevermind the patriot act...

Whether you agree with it or not, at least the Patriot Act was passed by Congress and not simply Executive Orders because it's too inconvenient to work with Congress on legislation.

Bishop Barron is pretty middle-of-the-road as far as US Catholic bishops go - he’s not much of a progressive, but nor is he a traditionalist or hardline conservative. On most issues on which Pope Francis and President Trump disagreed, Barron’s views and instincts are closer to the late Pope (who made him a bishop and then gave him a diocese) than to Trump’s

Google search is only trash to the tech savvy user base, but the normies have no issues with it.

I think it work as good as it does since there are no trans people around most people at all. It is a TV thing.

Outside of big cities I have never seen anyone. Prevalence measures varies but in my 30k pop county there should be like from 3 to <1.

US-Americans

1. Does the Pope have significant personal income? 2. Does, which what I think you are getting at, the law apply to a head of state?

I think this would translate to Mexican United States ; you're mixing up the word order.

If Estados Unidos existed in Spanish as a compound, non-proper, noun phrase—that is, if "a united states" was a generic name for a thing—rather than Unidos and Mexicanos both being adjectives that modify Estados, then that would be a plausible translation. But that's (1) not the case, and (2) even if it was the case, that's not how it is used in the actual official name of the country of México.

> you're mixing up the word order.

To be clear, you are asserting that the government of México messed up the word order in its own official English name.

Tangent: Protestantism is not a religion. The religion is called Christianity. I have seen this trend for quite a while of Protestants (or people born in Protestant countries) of referring to Christianity branches as religions. I find it very segregational. The whole point of all the branches is the same guy whose name begins with C.

But yes, given the state of America today, having an American pope will definitely be an interesting development in the context of many lobbying groups wishing for a vaticanised America.

Are you suggesting that the decline has only been apparent since Trump's re-election? For some (myself included), America has been in obvious political decline for some time - highlighted and spurred along by some significant events (Trump's first election and the nature of US involvement in Gaza to name a couple).

There is no generally-agreed-upondefinition for “continent”, in the same way that there was no generally-agreed-upon definition of “planet” prior to the IAU 2006 General Assembly.

Continents are identified by convention (and there are a few competing conventions) rather than any strict criteria.

I was taught (in Europe) that there are 6 continents, 1 of which close-to-uninhabited: Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, America, Antarctica. This convention is the same as the one for the UNSD “continental regions”. The five interlocking rings of the Olympic flag represent these five inhabited continents.

There’s another convention that considers Eurasia to be a single continent. And another that even considers Afro-Eurasia to be a single continent.

As a European, the election (and then re-election) of Trump was an aberration, but that's because I didn't know about/follow US's internal problems.

Personal motto: Sufficit tibi gratia mea ('My grace is sufficient for you')

This guy is a baller.

> Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City

It'd be like saying "Talking about Rust is segregational. It's just all branches of programming languages starting with C". Technically true, but not a useful distinction.

Anti-Catholicism runs deep in America, but the particularly weird issue is the converts. People who convert into Catholicism tend to be much more conservative than those born into it, often much more so than actual Church doctrine. Hence the Vance controversy.

It's mostly compatible and people keep confusing them.

Gorsuch was raised Catholic, and thus the Catholic Church still considers him a member. Gorsuch hasn't publicly stated whether he considers himself Catholic or not. In 2017, one of his friends said:

>Trent, Gorsuch’s close friend, said he believes Gorsuch would consider himself “a Catholic who happens to worship at an Episcopal church.”

https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/18/politics/neil-gorsuch-religio...

I was just commenting on the fact that adjective order in Spanish is usually reversed vs. the English one, and the adjective closest to the noun remains closest to the noun.

Wikipedia mentions that an alternate official name is Estados-Unidos Mexicanos:

> All three federal constitutions (1824, 1857, and 1917, the current constitution) used the name Estados Unidos Mexicanos[29]—or the variant Estados-Unidos Mexicanos,[30] all of which have been translated as "United Mexican States"

Interesting that it's still translated this way. I'm wondering if there are some political considerations there (eg to avoid being called the "Mexican US"). Thanks for your response. I learned something today.

Especially with how quickly some of the Trump EOs have been turned down.

Monthly income for pope US$32,000 equivalent.

> Does, which what I think you are getting at, the law apply to a head of state?

I don’t know if he will exempt as head of state, but as ordinary US citizen he will be paying taxes to US as his income exceeds FEIE exemption threshold.

It seems that the baptist subsection of Christianity already have a bunch of different interpretations of Christian scripture. Historically it's only a matter of time before the inevitable schism, and then they also get to claim to be a different religion.

It's not their responsibility to present themselves to you for enumeration and measurement, festoon themselves and their cars with trans pride tattoos and flags and bumper stickers, or allow you to sexually assault them by inspecting their genitals before playing sports or taking a shit.

Maybe they're just ordinary every day people, going about their ordinary every day lives, all around you, without you even knowing about it, because it's none of your business.

In fact, maybe that's what transphobic bigots with Trans Derangement Syndrome most fear, that they are surrounded by everyday normal trans people going about their everyday normal lives, but they don't even know it, and that is why they are so obsessed with inspecting other people's genitals and denying them human rights.

Any transphobic bigots with Trans Derangement Syndrome want to chime in and explain exactly why you're so obsessed with other people's genitals, which are none of your business? Or Trump voters who support him and his normative gender role enforcers grabbing women and children by the pussy to judge whether or not they're allowed to play sports or use public restrooms, all in the name of "protecting women", at the same time as they celebrate taking away women's right to abortion? Care to share your browser history, so we know if you're jerking off to the same secret obsession that gets you so hot and bothered in public?

NORTH CAROLINA: Anti-trans Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for North Carolina governor Mark Robinson called himself a 'Black Nazi,' admitted to liking trans porn:

https://www.advocate.com/election/mark-robinson-black-nazi-t...

>“I like watching [transgender slur] on girl porn! That’s fucking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson wrote in one comment verified by the outlet. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!” -Mark Robinson aka "minisoldr"

Unjustly confronting women, accusing them of being men, and expelling them from the bathroom just because they don't look stereotypically feminine enough for you is not "protecting women". It's as sexist and bigoted as it gets.

WASHINGTON, DC: Lauren Boebert & Nancy Mace confront woman they thought was trans in ‘predictable’ Capitol bathroom incident:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lauren-boebert-nancy-mace-confron...

>A misguided attempt to enforce Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s discriminatory anti-trans bathroom policy at the Capitol led to an embarrassing misstep by GOP Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina who were involved in an incident on Thursday that transgender Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride's office called “predictable.”

>The pair confronted a cisgender woman in the restroom, mistakenly believing her to be the Delaware Democratic lawmaker, who is the first out transgender member of Congress. McBride had previously said she would follow House rules after Johnson banned transgender people from using the bathroom in line with their gender identity. The incident has reignited criticism of Johnson’s anti-trans bathroom regulations, which critics say endanger and harass all women.

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Woman says Boston hotel guard told her to leave bathroom because she ‘was a man’:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/06/boston-hotel...

>Same-sex couple says they were appalled after being confronted and wrongfully accused in women’s restroom.

>A couple visiting Boston says they were left confused and appalled after being forced out of the Liberty Hotel during a Kentucky Derby party on Saturday, following what they describe as being confronted and wrongfully accused in the women’s restroom.

>Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, both cisgender women, said a hotel security guard entered the women’s bathroom and demanded Baker leave the stall she was using, claiming she didn’t belong there.

>“All of a sudden there was banging on the door,” Baker recalled to CBS News.

>“I pulled my shorts up. I hadn’t even tied them. One of the security guards was there telling me to get out of the bathroom, that I was a man in the women’s bathroom. I said: ‘I’m a woman.’”

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA: Cis Woman Mistaken as Transgender Records Being Berated in Bathroom:

https://www.advocate.com/news/2022/11/01/cis-woman-mistaken-...

>A woman in Las Vegas says she remains shaken from her experience last week when another woman berated her in a public restroom for being transgender. The problem is that she's not trans, and, as she puts it, regardless of whether she had been, the entire situation was plainly wrong.

>In Las Vegas, Jay, a 24-year-old cis woman, was driving with her boyfriend on Thursday when she said she had to use the restroom.

>Jay says the couple stopped at Rampart Casino after being out all day to fix a seat belt on their car.

>Because she knew she would take longer, she gave her boyfriend some money to gamble while he waited and she went to the bathroom.

>"As soon as I got in, I went straight to a stall," Jay tells The Advocate. "About a minute or so in, I start to hear a woman being extremely aggressive. At first, I wasn't hearing exactly what she was saying until I started hearing her say, 'Trans, figure out your identity at home ... they better not come out of there. .. that's not allowed ... that's a boy, [and] they think this is [OK] because it's being taught in schools.'"

Wikipedia is helping, though.

It says (I didn’t know this) that the “single American continent” model was mainstream in the US prior to WW2, so even if there is now a single definition in the Anglosphere, that’s a relatively recent development.

I remember as a kid believing that the Americas contained three continents-North, Central and South. I’m sure I’m not the only person to have ever thought that, and given how conventional these definitions are, can it really be said to be wrong?

One still occasionally hears “yanks”, but it is quite rare. “Seppos”, one more often hears joking about calling Americans that than anyone actually doing so-and the rare occasions the term is used (as opposed to merely mentioned), are (in my personal experience) self-conscious exercises in derogatory jocularity-related jocular coinages are “Sepponians” and “Seppostanis”

Of course, it is a big country, and terms which have fallen out of general use may be retained or revived in some pockets-I can only describe my own personal experiences

Protestantism, by definition, is Christianity. The very nature of protestantism is that the Catholic church needed to fix errors and discrepancies. If anything, protestantism advocate that they do christianism right, whereas the Catholic church is a tad sloppy.

That analogy is not valid. Protestants argue that catholicism does christianism in a sloppy way, whereas they do it right. If you're going with a programming language analogy, it's like a C++ programmer arguing that onboarding cppcheck and --Wall --pedantic is the only acceptable way to work with C++, and everyone else is doing it wrong.

The $32k seems suspiciously close to the monthly €2,500 reported by other sources multiplied by 12.

There also seems to be some confusion between the assets and income of the pope and the papacy.

It's unlikely that Protestants (including all the weird splinter groups/cults/sects in the US), Catholics and Orthodox will ever reunite into the same church again, so calling them separate religions is fair I think.

For starters, there is a Catholic Church corresponding to every Eastern/Oriental Orthodox Church in existence. Belarussian Orthodox Church/Belarussian Catholic Church. Including some unique outliers: Melkites, Maronites, Chaldean Catholic.

These Catholic Churches "returned" to communion when their head bishops decided to rejoin after centuries of schism. Thereafter, these churches are open to new individual converts, as well as entire parishes or eparchies coming into communion anew.

Furthermore, the Personal Ordinariates were erected quite recently to accommodate conversions from the Anglican church. It began long before that: the Catholic Church has received Anglican priests, with their families, ordained them as Catholic priests, and set them to parish ministry. Yes, even the married ones. Some Anglican priests or bishops became prelates, and entire parishes converted to the Catholic faith. They even retain their own liturgy, "Divine Worship", which is based on the Book of Common Prayer. If you're a fan of the old Tridentine liturgy, just imagine if that were presented in English instead!

Today there are no fewer than 24 Catholic Churches in communion with Rome, including a brand-new Eritrean Catholic Church, corresponding to the split in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

So I disagree with your pessimism because we have plenty of examples, in the distant past as well as quite recent history, where Protestants and Orthodox alike have come back into communion with the Catholic Church. Thanks for bringing it up!

I'm as critical as anyone, but GP's point stands.

Well, as per parent's logic, that claim is out the door ever since the Suez was dug out.

But ye the line between bisexual and transsexual have been blurried lately. Or maybe better put, I am not keeping track of the trends since I am no longer a student.

Come on. That is not what I meant. I recognise almost everyone my age that went to school here. People talk.

There are some sources indicating that children of foreign sovereigns would be exempt from automatic citizenship, but Bhumibol's father wasn't the king, just the king's brother.

Éamon de Valera's case is unambiguous.

There are surely other world leaders who spent significant time in the US - Benjamin Netanyahu spent some time in the Philadelphia area as a child, for example. And a little bit of research turns up Naftali Bennett, prime minister of Israel in 2021-22 - he was a US citizen (born in Israel to US citizen parents) until he had to renounce his US citizenship when elected to the Knesset.

Famously Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel (which is a largely ceremonial post), which presumably would have come with Israeli citizenship, but he turned it down.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/08/pope-leo-xiv-p...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewdl4e57v7o

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/for-us-pope-is-peruvi...

and, unsurprisingly, the Peruvian-Americans:

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/paterson-nj-new-pope-le...

Yeah, they do, don't they? And because of that, it's really tough to be trans or gay or whatever in a small town. And that drives people into the closet, and drives them to leave.

How much do you really know about those people you never saw again after high school?

If only there were numbers we could compare.

I don’t really see that from the articles you linked.

It’s all quotes about how the Pope is Peruvian (definitely true as he indeed has the Peruvian nationality) and how Peruvian people feel blessed in that.

Even your last article reinforces that he is a dual citizen with knowledge of both culture which obviously makes people joyful.

I have yet to see people argue if he is more American or more Peruvian apart from here.

Despite claiming that they follow Christ, our and their definition of "following" is so different that what they do and believe often looks unrecognizable.

The same can be said about the difference between Catholics and Protestants. Despite our disagreements, the Orthodox and Catholic churches still share a lot theologically. The same cannot be said about Protestants (although, that also depends on what denominations you consider).

It's not to say that we don't share any values. We actually do and there are many individual Protestants that behave in a more Christian way than some members of the Orthodox Church.

However, that is not a highly relevant factor. For one reason or another, there are many atheists and members of other religions that do as well. But those still remain clearly separate and would never be classified as Christians.

Also, in most countries (the US included), one’s status as a citizen/national is legally independent of whether one tries to “claim” it.

And of course they vary widely in rites, practices, and liturgy.

People think they are closer than they are. The difference between the protestant denominations, catholic denominations, mormans, jehovah's witnesses, etc are quite major and in a very real sense the separation between these different sects of Christianity are essentially only a few steps removed from the separation Islam has from Christianity.

That said, looking back there were a couple problems with the protestant viewpoint: one is that there's no attempt at explaining god's apparent 2000-year vacation and another being that the bible was effectively nonexistent until the council at Nicaea and I'm not sure what legitimacy there is in them having any authority to decide what is and is not canon unless you accept the catholic church's authority.

Deciding what is a “branch” of a religion versus whats is an independent “religion” is more subjective than objective. This might become clearer if we move away from Christianity for a moment, and look at the same question for some non-Christian religions

Consider the southern Indian religious movement of Ayyavazhi - most people, both in India and outside it, consider it a branch/denomination/sect of Hinduism, including even many followers of Ayyavazhi - but some of its followers and leaders insist it is a separate Dharmic religion [0]. The question is (in part) political - Dravidian nationalists and Tamil nationalists are more likely to call it a separate religion, Indian nationalists (Congress) and Hindu nationalists (BJP) want to view it as part of Hinduism

Meanwhile, most people consider Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism to be separate religions from Hinduism - but the British courts in India decided they were branches of Hinduism, a classification still followed by the Indian legal system to this day. Many Hindu nationalists promote the idea that these traditions are branches of Hinduism, even though most of the Indian followers of those religions reject the idea.

It is standard to classify the Alevis in Turkey as an Islamic sect - yet the Turkish government wants to insist on the idea they aren’t even a sect, just a “cultural movement”, to promote the fiction of a homogeneous Turkish Islam - but while some Alevis are fighting for government recognition as a separate sect of Islam, there is a movement among Alevis (Ishikism) which claims it is a separate pre-Islamic religion, and its Islamic content is just a superficial distraction (dissimulation) to prevent persecution. Meanwhile, many hardline Sunnis around the world agree that Alevis are a non-Islamic religion - and some of the most hardline Sunnis will even say that of mainstream Twelver Shi’a.

So, the boundary between “branch of a religion” and “separate independent religion” is more subjective (theological and political) than objective.

[0] https://m.economictimes.com/news/elections/lok-sabha/tamil-n...

hoo boy, be careful who you say that around, some of the jewish denominations have some very strong opinions about Christians calling themselves jews lmao.

anyways, I think beyond there being a major disagreement on whether there's any legitimacy to jesus being worshipped as a messiah or the new testament as a whole, the primary reason why they're considered separate religions is that judaism is ultimately centered around the fathers of the jewish/Israelite ethnic identity making a sacred covenant with God that cements them as his chosen people, whereas christianity's basis lies in Jesus' sacrifice forging a new covenant between God and all peoples (jewish and gentile alike). The reason why there's so much undying support for israel among modern evangelicals is that they believe judaism is still a legitimate religion because in their view there's no reason why the old covenant shouldn't still be valid for Jewish people who never partook in the new covenant.

my cheap excuse is that Europeans learn en-uk ;-)

Suez and Panama channels created other continents.

Every sect within a religion is going to argue that they are the ones doing it right and the others are either wrong or at least suboptimal depending on the state of inter-sect relations. I would peg the Protestants as C and the Catholics as C++ in this analogy, as the chief defining feature of protestantism is that they do not acknowledge the legitimacy of just about everybody who has ever claimed to speak on God's behalf past a certain point; thus, like C, their view of religion is inherently stagnant. They don't necessarily deny that God continues to interact with his creations, but they've realized that statistically speaking any given prophet or saint has an approximately 0.0 probability of actually conveying messages from God so they'll just stick with the ones that are so old that just about everybody [who calls themselves christian] already agrees on them. This is similar to the way that many C programmers are really C++ programmers who got tired of all the dumb new C++2x bullshit and just want to write computer programs.

Both the protestant religion and the C programming language have viewpoints that make sense given the histories of their respective subjects, but the major drawback of these viewpoints is that they have chosen to limit themselves to only iterating through new interpretations of old ideas; both of them are fundamentally incapable of innovation because being incapable of innovation is the fundamental core of their belief systems. Thus, if God ever really does try to leave the protestants a voicemail or if bjarne stroustrup ever does come up with an idea that isn't terrible and needlessly complicated, both the protestants and the C programmers will miss out on it.

I will not even attempt to speculate as to which programming languages should represent islam and judaism in this analogy because i do not want to die or have my account banned.

When you engage these sorts of people and ask the right follow-up questions, there's some common underlying concerns that underpin the polite fictions.

I've found that for men, they are scared that the next woman they look at covetously might have been AMAB. Even if they understand that there is a difference between sex and gender, they are scared that their acquaintances aren't, and are terrified of the prospect of being "tricked" into being attracted to someone who they see as a man. For women, I've found that they see men as biologically and intrinsically dangerous, and that a tiger doesn't change its stripes just because they are alienated from masculinity.

Not that I agree with either viewpoint. Being worried about being "accidentally gay" speaks more to underlying insecurities surrounding masculinity, and "men are inherently dangerous" is just misandry. But I'm no longer surprised by TDS.

America is not gaining power, that part is pure wishful thinking.

The reason I said "four months" is because America's media establishment has been pushing this narrative that the tariffs and the argument with zelensky have somehow ended american hegemony overnight; I personally believe it's impossible for these events to cause a noticeable decline on such a short basis because there's far more to america than merely not taxing imports and giving limitless amounts of free stuff to ukraine with no strings attached, but I have developed a pavlovian response to the phrase "America's in decline" because it really is all about Donald Trump with these people.

I would personally put the origin of "America's Decline" at 9/11 because that was the beginning of America's self-doubt about what their place in the world is and what it should be. Everything since then has been the five stages of grief on a nationwide scale. Currently we're somewhere between Depression (stage 4) and Acceptance (stage 5) which is why we gave up on Afghanistan, and also why so many people are opposed to funding Ukraine; there's a legitimate fear that arming the Ukrainians will in some way come back to bite us in the ass 20 years later just like arming the mujahideen did.

Why? Is there any reason for anyone in the world to think this behavior will change suddenly? Is there a reason the church wouldn’t think the US has a crisis of faith if those in power and their followers are so willing to commit sin against their fellow man? Clearly we all know how Jesus proclaimed, “Gather ye the masses of immigrants and send them to another country, lest they not be tortured for their grave sins of migration.”

Anyways, nothing can end America on such a short timescale. Even if Donald Trump's recent decisions will cause the downfall of America's global pseudo-empire we are not anywhere near a point of no return and he could give up on playing "5D chess" and fix this all within a month; some opportunities would be lost which leads to some unrecoverable economic damage but we'd still be largely in the same position as we were six months ago; consequentially, any fears they may have had about appointing an American pope during a period of global American hegemony are still valid.

Nit: "Christ" is actually a title, not a name — it's the English version of the Greek Χριστός (christos), from the Hebrew mashiach (in English, messiah, anointed one).

His name was Yehoshua (or Yeshua or Y'shua, "Yahweh is salvation" — in English, "Joshua") whose Greek version is Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous, anglicized to "Jesus", although the Spanish pronunciation hay-sooss is closer to the Greek).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus#Name

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_(title)

I can't speak to men but women are so much more comfortable around me since I came out. Most of my partners and friends have been cis women. One of the best parts of transitioning is random women will come up and talk to me when I'm running errands. This started happening early in my transition when I was very much visibly trans. People can be weird around me if they haven't met a trans person before but the people who are hostile tend to be terminally online.

In order to sue, you have to prove standing and in order to have standing, you have to know you were harmed. It's hard to prove you were harmed if everything is top secret.

However, effective propaganda needs an audience willing to listen and accept the things they're being told. I don't think that propaganda turns good people hateful. Instead, I believe it gives people predisposed to certain hateful beliefs a socially acceptable excuse they can repeat for feeling the way they do.

This is demonstrably true in many scenarios. Such as, males being transferred to women's prisons because they say they are women. As a consequence, female prisoners have been sexually assaulted and raped by these men. Drawing attention to this isn't misandry, it's reality.

Trying to argue the "facts" with anonymous internet denizens is pretty much useless, because especially in today's post-truth landscape, you can find justification for any horrendous opinion if you dig deep enough. That is even assuming the person you're talking to is even real and not an AI, a bored sociopath on an alt account, a paid shill or otherwise.

Thankfully, spaces like these are very much not representative of real life, where most individuals are nice, decent people minding their own business, and "saving face" isn't seen as such an imperative away from the public scrutiny of the internet.

In the real-life conversations I've had about this issue, most people are horrified when they find out that men, transferred to women's prisons due to trans activist policy, have been sexually assaulting and raping female inmates. Keeping in mind that this isn't a hypothetical about what might happen but is a direct result of harmful policy, and involves documented cases and real victims.

It tends to prompt a rethink about this whole topic.

Pope Leo is obviously not going to represent any american interests, just like the earlier popes not representing german and argentinian interests as that would be blatant and absurd.

Acknowledging and prioritizing similarly marginalized people in poor countries, or at least in countries less tetchy about their failings and political pieties, carries less political risk. (Which is not to claim Prevost cynically avoided American ministry to the poor.)

That said, that such ministry is qualification at all seems to me more a product of Francis’s remaking of the college of cardinals with a notably Franciscan philosophy. The majority of post-WW2 popes have been European, of the first or second world. Benedict was German and John Paul Polish.

You should look into the history of choosing a pope, it’s wild.

If we made another small rut parallel to either Suez or Panama, would we add 1 to the count of continents?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It is true that certain protestant sects are effectively "the catholicism we have at home [in england]" and you are right that those probably can be convinced to rejoin the catholic church but the majority of protestant sects have a firmly-rooted belief that the church is an organization created by humans to worship god and there is nothing inherently sacred about it. They also tend to reject anything outside of the old and new testaments compiled at nicea as being canon.

There's a fascinating bit of cognitive dissonance wherein they believe that God is still actively involved in the world and has been for the past 2000 years yet they haven't made any attempts at recording them; I think the logic is that they'd need the church to have some sort of divine authority to add to the bible and they've already ruled out the church having that authority so the bible is effectively set in stone forever. But that's irrelevant, I'm getting off-topic here.

Anyways, as far as unification goes it doesn't really matter that nobody knows or cares about ancient wars between catholic and protestant kingdoms and it doesn't matter that they can all get along and be neighbors and even have their churches work together on charity projects because the schism between the catholics and protestants is rooted in ideology not animosity. There's no compromise between the pope being a direct line of succession from peter and the pope being "just a guy in rome who makes great sermons" and I can't imagine they're going to want to take 1700 years of catholic lore and add it into their canon like its no big deal either.

Another roadblock is that the protestants themselves are highly fractured, often due to minor disagreements over pedantic minutiae that at least 99% of their members don't care about (IIRC one of the disagreements was over whether Jesus meant it literally when he said the bread and wine are his flesh and blood or rather that was a figure of speech, i think the calvinists and the lutherans are on opposite sides of that disagreement) but they've all had a long history of peaceful cooperation and they've never let that turn into an actual conflict yet still they never even try to unite. They don't see any point as long as they can coexist peacefully as separate churches because the only thing that would grant them is consolidation of power, which they are largely disinterested in. So even putting the ideological debates and factionalism aside, they'd need to be convinced that there is even a point in unifying with the catholic church when they can continue to peacefully coexist as separate organizations.

Or are you referring to some other type of hypocrisy?

What the actual hell?

If you believe the city too small, then please consider Italy - which require asylum applications to be submitted while in a third country, the "Cutro Decree", limits on number of non-EU citizens who can enter, non-EU citizens need work permits, nothing given for "family reunification" - laws that are strictly applied or you are kicked out with little fanfare and 1000% less drama than in the USA.

Yes, the hypocrisy is mindbogglingly astonishing. I can say even more firmly: What the actual hell ?