"A merciful heart can share its bread with the hungry and welcome refugees and migrants" Pope Francis

That was brilliant, GK. So far we are in agreement. Now the part you will not like...

Acts of violence against kids - some not even one - prove that there is no God.

If I were God, all-knowing and all-mighty, I would be saving kids and killing their oppressors with extreme cruelty and no forgiveness. To prevent future incidents, I would let the world know that I exist and that I am meaner than Satan at his worst.

So far, God is silent.

Then at least you're a Demigod

Pious and kind... hmm... I wonder what prayer he said before the slaughter of Praga...



... Catherine II was quite happy though...



It is not about applying modern standards to an 18th century military commander. It's about declaring him to be a saint in 2023. It's not about trying to posthumously put Catherine II before the Hague Tribunal - it's about the Pope giving her as an example of greatness to follow.


Strange indeed. And, of course, as you said - it is not something chracteristic only of ROC.

One way or another, Pope Francis' attitude towards the war in Ukraine cannot be explained with his "clumsiness" or ambiguous statements which people misinterpret. He is clearly pro-Russian, just as most Orthodox Churches with the obvious exception of UOC (Kiev patriarchate). As for me, I think that mixing religion with politics - especially with war - emits a rather foul stench, as Anti put it. We are witnessing it in Poland, with the unholy alliance of PiS and RCC, and I suppose we are not unique in this regard. People like to use God to justify their greed, hatred and lust for power.

Oh, well... I suppose the older one gets the more disappointed one is bound to become with major, dripping with gold, churches. Życie.

The pope lost any authority he still had left in my eyes.


It's beyond sad and absolutely disgusting.

I trusted you, since I don't know much about this moment in history :)

However, learning about the "Battle of Praga" on Wikipedia just now, I read the following:

After the battle ended, the Russian troops, against the orders given by Suvorov before the battle, started to loot and burn the entire borough of Warsaw in revenge for the slaughter of the Russian Garrison in Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising in April 1794, when about 2,000 Russian soldiers died.

An eyewitness to the massacre, General Ivan von Klugen, recorded this:

"We were being shot at from the windows of houses and the roofs, and our soldiers were breaking into the houses and killing all who happened to get in the way... In every living being our embittered soldiers saw the murderer of our men during the uprising in Warsaw... It cost a lot of effort for the Russian officers to save these poor people from the revenge of our soldiers... At four o'clock the terrible revenge for the slaughter of our men in Warsaw was complete!"

Apparently Suvorov was so horrified at what was happening, he blew the bridge to Warsaw over the Vistula, to prevent the chaos from spreading.

It's clear, he failed to prevent it, but it's also clear he did his best to put a stop to it.

Also, did you read that the worst atrocities were committed by the Cossacks (a seemingly recurring theme in Polish-Ukrainian relations)?

Regarding Catherine... who do you feel the Pope could have used as a better example from Russian history?

A nice way of underlining how unreasonable Paulina and Pawian's expectations are.

Better not to address Russian Catholic youth at all, from the point of view of the Pope.

Incidentally, I was quite surprised at there being a Russian Catholic Youth forum in St. Petersburg.

So they massacred 12,000 Polish civilians for the death of 2000 soldiers-occupiers??
And you see nothing wrong with that??

"Russian writers and historians have tried to either justify or present this massacre as an revenge for Polish conquest of Moscow in 1612 or the heavy losses Russian garrison sustained during the Warsaw Uprising of 1794."

Source:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Praga


"Polish historians dispute this, pointing out to purely military considerations of this move, such as to stop Polish and Lithuanian troops stationing on the left bank from attacking Russian soldiers"

Source:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Praga


You clearly don't know what my expectations are.

For putin, this is definitely a terrorist organization?

It's not some mathematical model... and it's not about right or wrong.

I have to remind you, this is about whether or not Suvorov was a butcher of innocents. Evidence seems to indicate that what occurred, was not at all what he wanted.

Besides being listed among the best military commanders in history (alongside Caesar, Alexander and Bonaparte), he did much to liberate orthodox Slavs living under Turkish domination. I suspect this last liberation part, is the reason for his potential canonization.


Lol. What do we do then with the millions of Muslims and Buddhists living in Russia?

Of course it is. It should be not only for regular people, but the more so for a pope - the head of a Catholic Church, responsible for guiding 1.3 billion people.


I have no idea if this is what he wanted or not. RuSSians have a tendency to falsify history in such a way as to whitewash themselves. So I don't know if RuSSian sources can be trusted... I'm not sure if I remember right, but I think that either I read it somewhere or it was theorised at a history lesson at my school that the civillians were massacred on purpose in order to terrorise Warsaw into surrendering (and that's what happened) and that Suvorov sent Cossacks on purpose to do the dirty job or sth.

When I recall comments made by you, Velund and that Serbian Putinist - being in favour of terrorising Ukrainian population in order to break their spirit, I wouldn't be surprised if that theory about Suvorov was right.

It's best to send them on a crusade... to Ukraine. This was certainly Cyril's advice.😇

They seem reliable, as are the Chechens, at doing things in an especially dirty fashion. Why's that?

Probably, because they don't need any encouragement.

Remember how the Germans had to step aside in awe, when the Baltic nations got to the work of exterminating Jews? For some reason, the Cossacks relish butchering Poles. Now you're bosom friends with their descendants - ENJOY.

Don't ask me - ask yourselves. After all, it was RuSSia that had all of those peoples under its rule for quite some time.

Polish Wiki says that Suworow took no action to prevent it nor did he punish any of the perpetrators.

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obrona_Pragi


Oh, poor holy man. Poor saint. :) Were the soldiers under his command or not? Did he give an order to stop the slaughter?

Anyways, don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to say that he was either better or worse than any other military commander of his time. All I'm saying is that declaring such man to be a saint is bound to get varied reactions (to put it very mildly).


Ukrainian SS units in Warsaw Uprising proudly continued this tradition. I wonder when they will be pronounced saints!

I'm sure he would be the first one to be surprised.

Alright, you've convinced me!

Absolutely nothing wrong with it if those Polish civilians were annoying the Russians by deliberately spelling Russia the wrong way as an insult.
I bet NKVD was upset about something to give you Katyn. After all, killing 20,000 was a lot of effort.

The Pope to r*SSia: "You are the proud heirs of Catherine and Peter the Great"

The Pope to Mongolia: "You are the proud heirs of Genghis Khan"

Germany to the Pope: "Unfortunately we are unable to organise a papal visit at this time"

He was standing in front of a massive gold statue of Genghis Khan at the time and his actual words were praising Mongolia's religious freedom dating back to the times of Genghis Khan, so in other words a long time. So it's very easy to take the most uncharitable interpretation of his words. But ultimately the people of Mongolia clearly loved his visit and that's all that matters. So it's another success story for the great Pope Francis.

There is certainly no positive interpretation.


As the orcs of r*SSia loved his weaselly praise of their own tyrants.

I'm fairly sure that his words enraged Putin and his supporters more than anybody else.

A communist getting elected to be a pope is indeed a great achievement...

Haha yeah that's a very strong undercurrent in YT videos, and I can see where it comes from but remember YT does not equal reality. It offers a highly skewed view of reality, often amplifying the most uncharitable interpretations of reality that is possible because it is this that gets your views. Go to the original sources to make your mind up about Pope Francis, don't rely on third party information from clickbait merchants on YT.

I didn't rely on YT to form an opinion about Pope Francis.

When he dispenses his leftist, anti-US advice on matters that are none of his damn business he tells me directly what he is - a globalist idiot who wants us "to build bridges, not walls". If he really loves America as much as he claims, he would help fund the meanest wall ever - like the one in Israel or better.

That image made me laugh, can you imagine Pope Francis helping to build the wall...'we've got to keep these people out!' More bricks!! Quickly!! I don't care if they've got children with them!!

The funny thing with "children"...They grow and happily become MS-13 rapists, murderers, and thugs...

Yeah those guys scare me to death as well to be fair! The US is in a tough spot for sure so I can understand the hate for Pope Francis with his comments about bridges not walls in this context.

He will never do it, Pope Francis supports his sheep.

....because the lying hypocrite already has his own wall and more Vatican cops than citizens.

Not really but just because his sheep are on the other side of the wall. He comes from South America, after all.