15h ago

Pope Francis was a great Christian pastor

72 comments

The use of "pastor" is totally normal and not worth noting.
The "interesting" part is how this fascist refuses to talk about how he completely opposes the politics of the former pope.
- Yeah, just like using three fingers and not the thumb to indicate three is totally normal and not worth noting.

Can someone explain for the non-religious folk?
- Calling someone a “pastor” is a Protestant thing. You wouldn’t hear a Catholic call The Pope a pastor.
  Vance, like a lot of tradcaths, is LARPing because the rituals look cool. Sorta like how Andrew Tate is a “Muslim” because he thinks it’s all about controlling women, but at the same time unabashedly drinks in public.
  Like not all Catholics are obsessed with the Pope, but like I have merch of the man from my Vatican visit. I have some conservative Catholic family critical of the Pope’s more progressive views, but they would never talk like this.
  
  Thanks!
  
  JFC who's upvoting this nonsense? Are bishops catholic enough for you?
  https://www.usccb.org/news/2025/global-pastor-word-and-deed-pope-preached-mercy-outreach
  https://eu.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/local/2025/04/21/bishop-david-ricken-remembers-pope-francis-as-strong-pastor-leader/83195098007/
  https://www.wlky.com/article/louisville-archbishop-remembers-pope-francis-as-a-great-pastor/64542751
  Etc, etc, etc
  
  Pastor as a job title is specific to some denominations but the metaphor of a pastor tending his flock is common in all denominations. The roots of all Abrahamic faiths are the Jewish peoples who were largely herders in ancient times.
- "Pastor" is the term for the person that leads a church / church congregation. The general ranking of the hierarchy is:
  Deacon (not yet a priest, are usually all volunteer, but can do some ceremonies)
  Pastor or priest (ordained, usually employed by the Church itself, they're allowed to hold all ceremonies and conduct mass or church service)
  Bishop (management level, must be 35, must be a priest for 5 years)
  Archbishop (oversee multiple churches and run the archdiocese; there's 196 in the US. Wyoming has a single archdiocese)
  Cardinal (upper management, only cardinals are allowed to vote on new popes)
  Lastly - Pope. The man at the top, there's only one.
  J.D. Vance is Catholic, and referred to the Pope as a 'pastor'. This would be like somebody saying "(insert American President) was a good mayor".
  
  there's only one.
  unless
  
  "Pastor" is a Latin word that means shepherd. Francis would appreciate the title of pastor, because for his entire papacy he put the pastoral concerns of guiding the congregation before theology and nearly any other concern the church might have.
  
  JFC... Does nobody one this site use a search engine?
  https://www.usccb.org/news/2025/global-pastor-word-and-deed-pope-preached-mercy-outreach
  https://eu.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/local/2025/04/21/bishop-david-ricken-remembers-pope-francis-as-strong-pastor-leader/83195098007/
  https://www.wlky.com/article/louisville-archbishop-remembers-pope-francis-as-a-great-pastor/64542751
  Etc, etc, etc
- I think pastor is for the Protestants.
  I'm assuming priest orr something similar. Please understand I am also non-religious. So I'm basically just guessing
- OP seems to not understand that the pastoral metaphor is common to all christianity because they are focused on “pastor” as a title. The job title of “pastor” is used by specific protestant denominations but the overarching metaphor of the faithful being a flock of sheep that God/Jesus/the faith tends to is common.
  
  No - it’s more that this isn’t the way that Catholics talk, because Vance doesn’t give a shit about Catholicism and is only one because he thinks it gives him street cred.
  Vance told Dreher that he’d converted because he “became persuaded over time that Catholicism was true” and had observed that the people who meant the most to him were Catholic. Vance said his conversion would have happened sooner if not for the clergy sexual abuse crisis, which “forced me to process the church as a divine and a human institution, and what it would mean for my 2-year-old son.”
  Compelling testimony. He’s very aligned with the intellectualism of his patron Saint.
  And one of the subtexts about my return to Christianity is that I had come from a world that wasn’t super-intellectual about the Christian faith. I spend a lot of my time these days among a lot of intellectual people who aren’t Christian. Augustine gave me a way to understand Christian faith in a strongly intellectual way. I also went through an angry atheist phase. As someone who spent a lot of his life buying into the lie that you had to be stupid to be a Christian, Augustine really demonstrated in a moving way that that’s not true.
  I totally believe he had an angry atheist Richard Dawkins phase.
- Pope's are Catholic. Christian don't have pope.
  Years and years of Christianity and Catholics hating or just tolerating each other. I know first hand. My Dad Catholic, follows the Vatican and the pope word for word... tries to at least. My Mum raised Baptist and now, I have no idea. It's all the same to me at the end of day. My family is a rainbow of all Christian/Catholic depending on the side of family.
  
  Catholics are Christian, but they aren’t Protestant.
  
  Now that there is some classic American anti-Catholic sentiment.
  
  Christian is actually a fairly new all encompassing word. Like Muslim there's actually a ton of different "Christians"

Vance sucks but there’s nothing wrong with his comment. The metaphor of the clergy having the role of pastor to their flock is incredibly common. The ancient Jews were largely herders so this isn’t an uncommon religious metaphor.

Who gives a fuck?
Most Americans can't keep the various Christian church leader names straight.
There's so much shit worse they're doing. And more important going on...
But some Jesus freak somewhere got mad you didn't call his sky daddy's bf the right label?
- Imagine if someone bragged about how big of a Star Wars fan they were, and they referred to Jar Jar Binks as a Jedi.
  
  or that star trek was their favorite show, and when presented with different versions of the enterprise asked, in earnest, which one was the millennium falcon
  
  When we all know he's a Sith
- That's....not the point.
- This man's name is a lie!
  But in seriousness, your apathy is what they want. Keep calling them on thier hypocrisy. Keep pointing out when they look dumb. Keep being the thorn in their crown
- When you're trying to pander to a certain demographic you don't want to call their most important guy by the wrong title
  
  Hey, what do I know?
  I thought growing up in a place that's voted >90% Republican (with the exception of 08 Obama) populated exclusively by different flavors of Christians would give me unique insight into how much the Republican base would care the wrong title was used.
  Which is not at all because everyone uses their own title because it's confusing as fuck and no one has ever given a single fuck.
  But apparently I was wrong, because it's obviously not people down voting what they don't want to hear, that would never happen.

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