Pope Francis Does Further Awesome

I like this picture because he looks really happy and like a
genuinely good guy, but he also looks like he could frown
 at any moment and then shoot lasers from his eyes and
watch emotionlessly as you burn and die in front of him.

So its not new news that the new(ish) Pope is pretty freaking amazing (except he's still pretty anti-gay, but you know, you can't ask for everything!). I mean, any Pope that can inspire me to right not one, not two, but now three badly worded and poorly written rants about how awesome he is, must be about the greatest Pope ever¹. Pope Francis is so awesome that the freaking Vatican corrects him when he is too accepting of others (such as atheists, in this case).
He's even better than Pope John XII, who not only had an affair with his niece, and many other women, but was also accused of a) turning the Vatican into a whorehouse, b) blinding his confessor, c) castrating and then murdering a subdeacon and, d) (my personal favorite) "invoking demons and foreign gods."
So compared to that, even that always evil looking Pope Benedict XVI was a saint!

Anyways, back to my more upbeat rant about Pope Francis' awesomeness.

Back in October, he had this to say:

“In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements. The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people. But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh?”

This quote shows that Francis is incredibly aware of how ridiculous, stupid, and terrible a portion of his church is, the crazy, out there, looney toons portion, something no one else in the Church seems willing to do.
Also, the way he ends the quote is amazing. "It is an illness, but it is not new, eh?" That line is profound but also somewhat humorous and upbeat. It acknowledges that parts of the church have sucked for a long time, while also laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. It's just great.

Even though I still dislike the whole idea of organized religion as a whole, and disagree with several of the Church's core beliefs, I have an incredible respect for this guy. He is almost exactly what a Catholic Pope should be, and it makes me really happy to see him be Time's Person of the Year.

So yeah, in conclusion, Pope Francis is a pretty cool guy. That's really all I had to say today.

1. Though he still does sort of cooky things like this.