The roman catholic church, an institution that has always covered it’s brutal iron fist within a bloody velvet glove. Power and control, this is their mantra.
That’s not what he actually said, according to that report but close enough, it’s inferred.
What did you expect? He’s the autocratic leader of a organisation which has been ineffably corrupt since the fourth century. I use the fourth century advisedly. It was in the fourth century that emperor Theodosius 1 made the sect we call Christianity the State religion.
With Theodosius’ approval and encouragement, the early christians began murdering anyone who disagreed with them, and burning their books. That practice continued for over 1000 years.
The church used its exclusivity to amass obscene wealth and temporal power.
That power is shadow of its former self, yet the church still has great, unfounded influence on people all over the world.
I parted company with the church when I could no longer believe some of their more fatuous claims, beginning with papal infallibility. I also took issue with the sophistry used to claim scriptural authority for the sacraments and the arrogant claim to possess absolute and exclusive truth.
The Catholic has had nearly 2000 years to become highly skilled at convincing the faithful that the bible does not mean what it actually says and is not replete with confusion and contradictions.
PS the good news is that the church needs women priests to survive. In the mean time, the church becomes increasingly irrelevant as affluence and secularism continues to grow.
Women priest in the catholic church doesn’t seem likely in the near future. Their insistence that priest have male genitalia, and not marry, seems to have cost them dearly. Maybe it will contribute to their eventual down fall.