Tiwtter, Sexism, and Heresy

If you want to be totally scandalized, just follow the Twitter feed of someone you respect, and you will instantly lose all respect for them. I very recently made the mistake of following someone on Twitter when I saw this person (whom I had looked up to for decades as a moral person) was following me. I saw this person was liking and responding to a lot of anti-Pope Francis stuff, and that they follow a person whose motto on Twitter is something along the lines of: “I am more Catholic than the Pope, but then so is [Prosperity Doctrine Preacher].” That particular person had retweeted a poll that asked if women should be allowed to vote, asking that only men vote in the poll. Over 75% of the men thought women should lose the right to vote, and judging by the comments, most of them think only white men should be able to vote. Don’t they think about how unfair that is? I am not advocating that only women should be able to vote, although there could be an argument made that we should have more than a century of that to make up for the time when we couldn’t vote. So why do these men want to take away my right? Now I realize that the original person I had highly admired until last night is not responsible for this Twitter thread, and they may not have voted in the poll or may have voted that women should retain suffrage, but just the fact that they would follow someone so anti-Papist gives me pause. If you no longer consider the Pope Catholic, it seems to me that you have made yourself a Protestant by definition. Now I am starting to wonder about myself – if all the “Catholics” I know hate Pope Francis (and it seems for the very reasons I love him, his focus on the poor and the environment), am I the one who has ceased to be Catholic? I no longer consider myself the same religion as so many of the people I go to church with, but what exactly am I as someone who is obedient to the Pope? Wouldn’t that make me Roman Catholic? So what does it make them?

Famous Hat