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[–] 47 points 1 week ago (16 children)

I don't really have an opinion on this, but it feels really weird. Though elected to the rôle, Pope Leo is one of the world's last absolute monarchs, answerable to no one. Partly because of this the Vatican isn't even in the U.N.

Like I said, no real opinion on it, and I suppose that legally there's no reason to keep an absolute monarch from voting in U.S. elections—it's not like dual citizenship isn't absolutely normal—but it does feel strange somehow to have a monarch vote in a republic's elections.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    answerable to no one

    I guess you don't believe in God then. But anyways.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 week ago

    Does this God fella have an address? A phone number? How does he actually exert control over the real guy with the fancy hat and the throne? When has he actually came around and deposed or even reprimanded a sitting pope in the last 2000 years? For all practical purposes there is no God even if he is real.

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  • [+] -28 points 1 week ago* (11 children)
  • [–] 19 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    The US does recognize dual citizenship. What are you talking about.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago*

    True, according to usa.gov:

    How to get dual citizenship or nationality

    Having dual citizenship, also known as dual nationality, means being a citizen of the United States and another country at the same time.

    Learn about the requirements for dual citizenship

    Whether you were born an American citizen or became one through naturalization, if you have dual citizenship, you:

    • Owe allegiance to both the U.S. and a foreign country
    • Must use a U.S. passport to enter and leave the U.S.
    • Do not have to choose one nationality over the other. As a U.S. citizen, you may naturalize in another country without risking your U.S. citizenship.

    Learn more about dual citizenship or nationality.

    Get dual citizenship

    Your eligibility to become a dual citizen depends on the policies of the second country where you are applying for citizenship.

    Dual citizenship if you are a U.S. citizen

    If you are a U.S. citizen who is seeking dual citizenship, you must find out if the other country recognizes dual citizenship with the United States.

    Contact the other country's embassy or consulate to learn if you are eligible.

    Dual citizenship if you are a citizen of another country

    Some countries allow people to keep their citizenship after becoming U.S. citizens, while others do not.

    Contact the other country’s embassy or consulate to find out if they recognize dual U.S. citizenship.

    If you qualify for dual citizenship, you must first immigrate to the U.S. Then you must become a permanent U.S. resident before being eligible for U.S. citizenship. 

    Learn more about immigrating to the U.S. And find out how to become a permanent resident.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago

    I don’t know whether the Vatican is as strict about giving up other citizenships, but if they are, he’s technically not a US citizen anymore in the eyes of the Vatican

    Huh? He's the Pope. He is the Vatican.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

    it's not like dual citizenship isn't absolutely normal

    The United States doesn’t recognize dual citizenship. When you’re naturalized, you must give up your citizenship to any other country.

    Is that recent? The number of dual American citizens I know in I.T is staggering.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    The US will only recognize them as American citizens but that doesn’t have any bearing on their citizenship elsewhere. There’s nothing in the US that would give you something different or extra if you have citizenship elsewhere so it doesn’t make any difference. The US can see you’re an American/French or American/Indian or American/Nigerian but only care about the American part, you being that other thing is irrelevant to the government. So they only “recognize” the US because it’s the only part relevant to the state, they don’t make you renounce anything or anything like that. You can absolutely be a dual, or more, citizen but the US government only recognizes the one it cares about, its own.

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    [–] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

    Did he vote from St. Peter's Chair?

    a ballot for the midterm elections that will decide control of the US Congress.

    I guess so

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  • [–] 10 points 1 week ago

    I think it's interesting that this thread is split on which way he's voting. Personally I feel like all his public statements clearly show a preference for the Democrats. I understand the association between Christian and Republican. My personal guess? I think he's voting Democrat down the ticket and I'm hoping he picks a few progressives.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (13 children)

    The Pope voting...

    Will he vote for the party that is in support of the values of Vatican regarding underage sex, that, however, is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus? Or the one that is less distant from Jesus's teachings?

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  • [–] 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Do you mean diametrically opposed? I've never heard diagonally opposed used outside of it's literal spatial meaning before.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago

    It sounded kind of funny, but English does a lot of things in funny ways, so I figured that's probably how it's said in English and went with it.

    Thanks for the correction, I edited the word to written correctly now :)

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  • [–] -5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

    The fun part is you could be referring to either party lol

    On the topics of underage sex and the teachings of Jesus, neither party really stands above the other.

    Obviously Trump is a fart.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 week ago (7 children)

    I would actually say that one of the parties is less hostile to the poor and minorities than the other.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

    Less hostile, but still not exactly in keeping with Jesus' teachings. Deportations were going up under Biden, albeit nowhere near as much as since Trump came back.

    Like I say, neither party really stands above the other, on this specific scale. They're both well below par.

    Obviously Trump's Republican party is far worse than the Democrats, overall. But if you're just comparing them on their alignment with the teachings of Jesus and meaningfully doing anything about wealthy people engaging in sex with minors, it's still obvious which one is better but neither party is actually any good.

    It doesn't matter which one is better when both of them fail so hard at it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (3 children)

    Well, one party wants to make trans people feel miserable. The other one wants them dead as soon as possible.

    Both are under par, but one is very very bad, while the other one is unambiguously evil.

    They are doing the same thing, both being right to far right parties, but there's still an immense difference in the magnitude.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago* (2 children)

    I would say both are evil, you're just quibbling over which one is more evil.

    The point I'm making is that the difference doesn't matter much in the grand scheme. Both are wrong, neither should be accepted.

    They're giving us two choices when really we should be punching them in the face.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    I would say both are evil, you're just quibbling over which one is more evil.

    Yes, that is correct.

    The point I'm making is that the difference doesn't matter much in the grand scheme. Both are wrong, neither should be accepted.

    What's important is that the status quo in US politics is evil and needs to be rectified. If Democrats win big time, the evil status quo will remain as it is and it must be changed. If Republicans retain much power, the status quo will change into a much more evil one yet. And it must then be changed, first back to the 2026 status quo, after which we can do what could be done immediately if the Democrats get a landslide victory.

    There's no sense in going through the detour of even greater evil and wasting years to that instead of getting going from the current status quo. But I am worried that many people who could stop things from getting full-scale fascist (the current concentration camp system expanding hundredfold, etc, as happened in Germany) will refuse to vote, thus bringing us past a point of no return where any sort of resistance is made physically impossible.

    When one side winning just ends it all and the other side winning means we still have a fighting chance to topple it, it feels horrible that there are people who are willing to accept 1941 Germany reincarnating in the form of USA in order to hold to their principles. Last time we got lucky and they lost their war for world conquest. There's no being sure we'll get that lucky this time, so we really should not try!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago*

    I don't disagree with anything you've said, but I think we're deviating a long way from "which party follows Jesus' teachings".

    To bring it back, as I said at the top it's obvious which party is worse overall, but on "following Jesus' teachings" and "values regarding underage sex" the difference between the two parties is much less significant.

    Will he vote for the party that is in support of ^the^ ^values^ ^of^ ^Vatican^ ^regarding^ underage sex, that, however, is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus?

    Or the one that is less distant from Jesus’s teachings? [but doesn't support underage sex]

    You could pretty much flip it around either way with this comparison from your top comment. That's all I was really saying.

    Although, to be fair, it's rarely the Democrats who get caught or convicted for underage sex crimes.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    He should vote Dems, but his operation is a hierarchy, the strict bunch of rules and dogma that the namesake taught directly against. The stories mention transcending the ego now in this life, but it got all twisted up to some supernatural thing for later and the hierarchy took over with Rome. It's such a ridiculous subversion of the small, decentralized system it was supposed to be. They didn't have a hierarchy and store riches, and clearly said to turn the other cheek, help the poor and outcast and women are equals. Rome went right back to the high control dogma bs that it was supposedly against.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Yes, Christianity got weaponized (into a centralized, hierachical thing) by the Romans through imperialism as it became the Roman Imperial Cult around about Emperor Constantine (aka St. Constantine).

    The weird thing is when the Apostles asked Jesus about Rome, he kind of shrugged (or perhaps, he suspected it'd spread his message?)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago

    Though if there had been things against Rome in the early new testament, do you think the Romans would have just left that alone?

    Similarly, I wonder if Constantine even really believed in Christianity. Like it's in the historical record that he wanted something to bind all Romans together because it was getting hard to convince Iberian Romans to go fight wars in the middle east after they ran out of land to give away to legionaries. And then, he supposedly had a dream that said he would win a battle if he put a cross on his shield (iirc) and that made him a true believer! Or he picked the Christian cult out of all the cult options at the time and made up a story because no one would go for "I need you to believe this so you'll die to further my imperial goals" if they didn't think he believed.

    Even then, it still took a few more emperors for it to stick, and I'm not sure any ruler prior to Charlemagne actually got to benefit from team Christianity giving Europe unity (at least militarily... Rome continued to struggle to fill legions after adopting it, though obviously it did get quite entrenched culturally before the western empire fell).

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  • [–] -1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    He's just going to vote the way God tells him to! Lol

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