[skwirl]

Exactly. If your life is lived online, especially in the tech community echo chamber, Snowden is going to mean a lot more to you than he does to most people.

There are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. I attended Catholic church growing up, and the pope has a lot of influence on Catholics. Many of these people have portraits of the pope (at the time it was John Paul II) in central areas of their homes. If you aren't part of that community, maybe it is hard to see how much of a difference the pope can make, although I think this pope has been hard to ignore, no matter who you are. When he speaks, hundreds of millions closely listen. And action happens.

He may not really have changed the church on the topics of contraception and abortion, but that's also not what he is really out there talking about. The topic is humility, compassion, and charity. When is the last time these topics really had a globally influential champion?

[basch]

And for everyone who is angry about this, Snowden took first runner up. They clearly acknowledged him as hugely influential.

Am I the only person not shocked by each new leak? As in "What were you expecting. It's nice to have evidence, but did you really believe spy agencies were NOT spying. On everything."

[yapcguy]

> The topic is humility, compassion, and charity. When is the last time these topics really had a globally influential champion?

Er, since the last pope?!

What makes this pope special from the others?

[dragonwriter]

> > The topic is humility, compassion, and charity. When is the last time these topics really had a globally influential champion?

> Er, since the last pope?!

No. I mean, to be sure, humility, compassion, and charity are topics that the Church has discussed under every Pope, but not ones for which the Pope has been a visible model the way Francis -- both as Cardinal Bergoglio and since becoming Pope -- has.

[andrewcooke]

he's significantly more liberal. that is the whole point, really. maybe you should read the article?

[bowlofpetunias]

"significantly more liberal" in this context means he's a slightly less hateful reactionary bigot.

If the pope ran for election in the average western democracy he would be far right, next to the neo-nazi's and the anti-immigrant parties.

But because it's the catholic church we even use the word "liberal" to describe his ideology.

[dragonwriter]

> If the pope ran for election in the average western democracy he would be far right

The fairly harsh criticism of modern capitalism in Evangelii Gaudium is hardly consistent with the far right. Certainly, the Church has right-wing positions on some issues -- which are in many cases the issues Francis has said the Church tends to excessively focus on and needs to not overemphasize -- while on others it has fairly left-wing positions.

[andrewcooke]

this simply doesn't make sense. i live in a catholic country with extreme right-wing parties. they are to the right of this pope. they are worried by him.

also, try learning how the word "more" modifies an adjective. 1e99 is "more small" than 1e100.

i despair at the level of comments here.

[yapcguy]

If being "liberal" automatically equates to being "good" and you want to pick someone who has the maximum impact, well, there's probably at least one Muslim cleric out there who wants to ban the stoning of women, hanging of homosexuals and Saturday afternoon be-headings.