Blog Post #12 - Church in the Present

“Pope Francis Washes Feet of Refugees on Holy Thursday.” CatholicHerald.co.uk, 24 Mar. 2016, catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/03/24/pope-francis-washes-feet-of-refugees-on-holy-thursday/.

I choose a picture of Pope Francis washing and kissing a lady’s feet because I think it’s an amazing representation of what he’s all about.  Pope Francis stresses the importance of loving your neighbor as you love yourself and he shows us ways in which we can do that everyday. We don’t have to do such big tasks like washing and kissing feet as Jesus did on the Last Supper but we can start by doing small things to make our community as better place.

One of the main points in “What Makes Us Catholic” by Thomas Groome is that all denominations of christianity should unite as one. Instead of bringing enemies with one another we should learn about everyone's beliefs and unite under one house. I also agree with the fact that God loves everyone regardless of their gender, nationality, height, sexuality, and even religion. Nowhere in the bible did God say that all gay people are going to hell. God preached to the prophets to love and care for everyone regardless of their sexual orientation and religion. As a religion we want to continue to grow and learn more and accept people of all walks of life just like Jesus and God preached to us.

I learned a lot of new things about Pope Francis from the video. I knew that he was a very humble man and someone who cared for the weak but I never knew the extent of how much he cared about the weak. By washing and and kissing peoples feet just like Jesus did during the last supper shows how much he wanted to embody the ideals of a true catholic. I also personally love soccer and just knowing the Pope is also a huge fan of soccer makes him so much more amazing to me. Pope Francis is someone who is the first to volunteer themselves to help the poor and elderly. He’s so kind and genuine and never doubted his faith or trust in God even when times were hard.

Popes are normally very traditional and follow the same guidelines and teachings as the Popes before them. They stick to the same ideals and ways the church should be runned. But Pope Francis is different because his goal as Pope is to modernize the church. He started by communicated the word of God through social media so that it can spread even more. He recognizes sciences teachings of evolution unlike all the popes before him. He wants people to be aware of the impending doom our world is facing if we stay on the path we are right now using all our natural resources up. He isn’t going against God’s teachings but rather adding to them and that's what makes him such a unique Pope.

I think there's a lot of things we need to change in the catholic faith. I’m not saying it’s all catholics who do this but a majority of them are not in anyway accepting of people who aren’t traditional like them. I can see that many people are changing their views and learning to accept LGBT people but many catholics strictly believe that people will go to hell for loving people of the opposite gender or for changing their sexual orientation. God tells us to love your neighbor as you love yourself and if your neighbor so happens to be gay, lesbian, bi, or trans than you should with no hesitation love them just as much as you would someone who is straight. People have the freedom to express themselves in anyway the deem necessary. We also have no right to force a man to love a women if that man loves another man. It’s not right in any way, shape, or form . The idea of accepting LGBT people is becoming more common and I think as a faith we need to continue growing and learning how to accept all people.