• harmsy@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Guys. Joe Biden is Catholic. The Vatican has an opportunity to do the funniest thing ever.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      They are really unlikely to support a non cleric. All the decision makers sacrificed a lot of typical life time activities to be clerics, they aren’t going to lift up sometime who hasn’t also made these sacrifices.

      • harmsy@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I didn’t say they would. I said they could. Jokes aside, I would be VERY surprised if old Joe got picked for this, both for the reasons you mentioned and because of the decline he’s been going through recently.

        • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          For the past 600 years, the pope has always been a cardinal.

          The last time someone other than a cardinal was elected was 1296, they elected some monk who was something of a holy figure. It was a clusterf*"#, lasted 5 months and every decision he made was reversed by it’s successor except for one (the right for pope’s to abdicate). Which kinda sounds like Bidens term in office, but let’s not give him another chance at being useless, ok?

          (There were some other non-cardinals after, but all of them clergy, and mostly during or shortly after the Avignon papacy)

    • Glytch@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      It’s a funny thought, but he’s not a cardinal or even a priest. Not just any Catholic can be Pope.

      Edit: turns out, yes, any Catholic can theoretically be pope

      • bizzinho@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        Uhm, pretty sure being a baptized Catholic is pretty much the only requirement…

        From Wikipedia:

        The pope does not need to be a cardinal elector or indeed a cardinal; since the pope is the bishop of Rome, only those who can be ordained a bishop can be elected, which means that any male baptized Catholic is eligible.

      • Freshparsnip@lemm.ee
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        17 hours ago

        Actually officially any male catholic can be pope, it’s just in practice cardinals always choose one of their own

      • njm1314@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        They once made a monk Pope I know, I’m not sure if he was also a priest. Certainly wasn’t a cardinal though I think that was one of the arguments in favor of him.