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I invite you to visit Poland. One of the most - nominally - catholic countries. A few months ago there was a radio show, with a quiz. "What town was the Pope born in ?". Naturally, Wadowice, because there's implicit understanding that John Paul II from Poland was the Pope. People rarely even mention Francis except to rant on him. There's full-blown denial. Most catholics seem to pretend Francis doesn't exist. Poles like to brag how Catholic they are, but they're Catholic in name. Most don't follow teachings, they just went to church to avoid ostracism. Case in point: there was a media outrage when a prominent figure said Jesus was a refugee. When my brother was in primary school around 30 years ago, he was regularly beaten by his peers because he didn't want to attend religion lessons (in school, no less). People bend over backwards to justify their xenophobic, homophobic, misogynist etc. behavior. A major hierarch in Polish Church, Tadeusz Rydzyk, is 70% businessman 30% priest. He commands his own "schism" while pretending he is catholic. He has much influence among old, helpless, angry people. Despite blatantly engaging in politics (like many other priests), numerous instances of hate speech, antisemitism and other transgressions he remains in power, and Church doesn't expel him. The word is they deem him useful, because - although highly controversial - people listen to him. Geothermal energy, media schools, his own TV, and especially the radio station. His total income was recently estimated as 55,000,000 PLN (15.1184 million U.S. dollars). He's 88th on the list of the wealthiest Poles. And since autumn 2015 he received 26.5M + 139.6K + 250K + 710K + 200K + 105.2K + nearly 3M + 70.6K + 59.3K + 120K +11.6K + 216K PLN from various government institutions. Under various pretexts, like payment for coaching of judges, for his media school, newspapers. That's not counting tenders he regularly wins, or land he (and other priests) often buy at 10% or so of nominal value. His radio station doesn't run on advertisments, except ads of his own products and services. It runs on donations. And he constantly complains how little money he has. https://oko.press/o-rydzyk-twierdza-ze-dostajemy-miliony-a-g... (polish) Teachings of Jesus are hard to live by and demand self-sacrifice. Relatively poor (to the rest of Europe) and thus highly materialistic, envious, petty Poles don't like that. Love thy enemy ? If someone hits you, expose the other cheek ? Charity ? NO WAY. Once upon a time I had a twisted ankle, and walked slowly with crutches. Suddenly a car stopped by and the driver offered to give me a ride. Then it hit me - I've never received a similar offer before. You see, the driver spoke in English. It's hard to notice something is missing in your country until you've seen the difference. |