• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • About Us
    • FAQ
    • Meet the Team
  • Contact us
  • Guest Content
TLE ONLINE SHOP!
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
NEWSLETTER
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home Politics

The cape on good pope

By Joe Mellor, In house Reporter  When the smoke turned white from the chimney perched above the Sistine chapel I and many others thought “here we go again”. Another Pope who hates homosexuals, cosies up to the wealthy and ignores sexual abuse claims within catholic clergy. How wrong we were. The man who replaced amateur […]

Joe Mellor by Joe Mellor
2013-12-22 15:48
in Politics
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmailWhatsapp

By Joe Mellor, In house Reporter 

Messi Maradona and the Pope

When the smoke turned white from the chimney perched above the Sistine chapel I and many others thought “here we go again”. Another Pope who hates homosexuals, cosies up to the wealthy and ignores sexual abuse claims within catholic clergy.

How wrong we were.

The man who replaced amateur goalkeeper and former Nazi youth member Benedict XVI was Argentina’s Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the first non-European pope for 1,300 years (the last being Pope Gregory III of Syria).

Until very recently, it was hard to find a good word about the Catholic Church in the media. Nuns on the Run was one of the few highs of decades of dismal lows. That has all changed under the new Pope, who has recently been named Time magazine’s person of the year.

He has touched hearts across the globe by embracing people with deformities, reaching out to the mentally and physically disabled, kissing the feet of young prisoners – including a Muslim woman – and launching an attack on the inequalities of capitalism.

But his drive to steer one of the world’s largest institutions could have been a very different story. Apparently, when the Pope was younger he was turned down by a girl he had his eye on and so channelled his grief into becoming the head of the Catholic Church. When I was younger and was rejected by women I used to kick bins on the way home. If I had just got my head down and taken up the sacraments, maybe I could have been the next pontiff! Guess we will never know.

Well, the new Pope didn’t dwell on the past and has used his promotion to raise the issue of the plight of the poor and the disparity in wealth across the globe. His coverage of the unfairness of capitalism is certainly commendable, however, his Argentinian heritage (biggest Catholic market is South America), hiring a former Fox news reporter Greg Burke on media strategy and using the Vatican bank (accused of being the most secretive in the world) to pay for it are classic capitalist methods.

RelatedPosts

Sunak calls crisis meeting as Tory Party face war on two fronts

Johnson receives hefty book advance – but taxpayers will cover ex-PM’s legal bill

Matt Hancock’s I’m A Celebrity fee uploaded to MP’s register of financial interests

Jeremy Vine caller bemoans Tories – but says she’ll vote for them ‘just to keep Labour out’

Mr Burke admitted the church does have a marketing plan, he said: “Yes we have a strategy: kick the ball to Francis and he scores the goals! He’s better than Maradona and Messi combined.”

As the old joke goes; God saves, but Pope Francis scores on the rebound. And so far he has hit the back of the net for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

He shunned the spacious papal apartment in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace to live in a small suite in a Vatican guest house and prefers the Ford Focus (the salesmen’s car of choice, whether it is toilet roll dispensers or a worldwide religion it seems) to the traditional Pope’s Mercedes.

There have also been reports he has snuck out in the dead of night to give money to the poor, raising the question of how much the pope gets paid. Theoretically, the Pope has control of all the temporal goods of the Catholic Church, which would make him the richest man in the world, although he does not choose to exercise this power.So if he just lent a tenner from one of the cardinals, then it kind of defeats the object of his twilight good deeds.

However, the majority of his role involves working in an intimidating building, full of sexually frustrated men who are out of touch with reality; a bit like being an MP I guess. But unlike our esteemed elected officials he has political and personal influence over the lives of at least 944,578,000 baptised Catholics; it’s swings and roundabouts!

Since his inauguration Pope Francis has thrown the Catholic Church a lifeline and it needs to seize this opportunity to reinvent the religion. It will take a lot more than ten hail Marys to alleviate the sins within the church.

But before Catholicism regains its swagger, church leaders need to remember that faith is a wonderful thing, but religion is just the administration.  A church is stationary, but parishioners can carry take their belief away with them at any moment, no matter how detailed the Pope’s marketing plan might be.

Since you are here

Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help.

Journalism in Britain is under threat. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations.

Our mission is to hold the powerful to account. It is vital that free media is allowed to exist to expose hypocrisy, corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of power. But we can't do it without you.

If you can afford to contribute a small donation to the site it will help us to continue our work in the best interests of the public. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point.

To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here.

The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work.

The shop can be found here.

You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER .

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

Trending on TLE

  • All
  • trending
Abdollah

‘Rescue us’: Afghan teacher begs UK to help him escape Taliban

CHOMSKY: “If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”

What If We Got Rid Of Prisons?

More from TLE

Dads who smoke ‘raise the risk of their children developing attention deficit disorder’

Brits using almost twice as much energy as necessary to wash their laundry

Should cannabis be made legal? MPs seem to think so

Muslim convert left his pregnant wife to try and join Islamic State

VIDEO – UKIP Brexit Campaign Song…WOW

UK rents squeeze disposable household income as cost of living rises

Football rumours – Manchester United, West Ham, Cheslsea, Celtic & more

Sickening! Austerity killing 30,000 people a year

Charity launches appeal to fund food programmes for orphans in Africa

How many trans-gender people actually serve in the US military?

JOBS

FIND MORE JOBS

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

Contact

Editorial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Commercial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Address

The London Economic Newspaper Limited t/a TLE
Company number 09221879
International House,
24 Holborn Viaduct,
London EC1A 2BN,
United Kingdom

SUPPORT

We do not charge or put articles behind a paywall. If you can, please show your appreciation for our free content by donating whatever you think is fair to help keep TLE growing and support real, independent, investigative journalism.

DONATE & SUPPORT

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Travel
  • JOBS
  • More…
    • Elevenses
    • Opinion
    • Property
    • Tech & Auto
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact us

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.