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While the Church is still undeniably eurocentric, throughout the last decades the representation of non-European Catholics in the College of Cardinals has gotten better all the time. Used to be not so long ago that more than half of all cardinals were Italians. When John Paul II got elected Pope, he was actually the first non-Italian Pope for 450 years. The size and structure of the local hierarchy plays a role here, too - whereas many European countries have a ration of somewhere between 500-1,500 laypeople per priest, in many parts of Africa for example it's more like 10,000 or even more; the local churches simply can't afford to send many priests to Rome. Finally, it's also a question of power of course: the number of cardinal-electors is restricted to 120. Most of those are bishops and archbishops of prominent sees that in some cases have received the cardinalate continuously for centuries. There are quite a lot of dioceses in Europe that have such a claim and obviously would be rather miffed if they had to give it up in favour of a comparatively young non-European diocese. The European (and North American) dioceses are also where most of the money comes from, so angering them wouldn't be prudent. In light of all this, I'd hesitate to call this "racism" (which for me includes the consciously or subconsciously seeing the other party as inferior): it's a systemic disparity that dates back millennia, has many reasons (none of which being "gently caress those non-Europeans" anymore) and has been directly adresses for some time. It's no coincidence that the current Pope is not from Europe, I'd expect many more non-Europeans to enter the college and become Pope in the coming decades!  Map depicting the demographic shift of the Church away from Europe  Ecclesiastical map of Italy. Keep in mind that only the ecclesiastical provinces are depicted, with each of them consisting of a number of smaller dioceses. Italy has all in all 225 particular churches (most of them dioceses, but also some territorial abbeys and whatnot) administering to ~52 million Catholics. For comparison: Spain has 42 million Catholics and 70 dioceses, and Germany 25 million in only 27 dioceses. The ecclesiastical map of Europe is a pretty good window into medieval politicy and demographics, generally speaking; this is why dioceses tend to get bigger the further north you get (because those used to be mission territory with preciously few baptised people), why you'll find plenty of tiny dioceses especially in the South which centre around what used to be important cities centuries ago and so on. One example for this sort of anachronisms: my home diocese of Augsburg stretches on both sides of the river Lech, even though this river has been an important cultural and political borderline for at least a millennium - the formation of the diocese dates back to at least the 9th century and gives historians a glimpse in what the cultural and demographic situation of the early Middle Ages was. Another example: the diocese of Passau played an important role in christianising the eastern Alps during the early Middle Ages and therefore extended across state borders all the way to Vienna, even long after the now thoroughly Catholic Austria had gained independence, losing those territories only in the 18th century. I guess what I'm trying to say is: history and maps are neat 
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Nov 27, 2013 00:53
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ronya posted:To be fair, the enthusiasm for tying your church to the Roman Curia is probably heavily tied to your church's actual local threats. If you are in an area where being Roman Catholic is as controversial as breathing air and drinking water, then there's not much point trying to nab the support of Rome. You'd just as easily get Roman interests trumping your own instead. As Buttery Pastry pointed out, the Church in Latin America has actually been losing a lot of ground to evangelical churches in recent decades. The lower classes in particular are susceptible to their proselytizing. Now that almost no one in Europe cares about the papacy anymore, they're practically forced to adopt a more global vision. Took them long enough.
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Nov 27, 2013 07:48
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Phlegmish posted:As Buttery Pastry pointed out, the Church in Latin America has actually been losing a lot of ground to evangelical churches in recent decades. The lower classes in particular are susceptible to their proselytizing. I'm the one who posted it in the UK megathread, where I speculated that the present stance of the Vatican is part of a pivot to the said Latin American churches. Which, as you say, are facing threats for the first time in a while.
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Nov 27, 2013 08:02
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ronya posted:I'm the one who posted it in the UK megathread, where I speculated that the present stance of the Vatican is part of a pivot to the said Latin American churches. Which, as you say, are facing threats for the first time in a while. The entire Catholic Church has been facing threats for quite a while (15ish years...maybe more?) in the US/Ireland also I think, I'd like to see a map of where their money comes from, which will never happen of course. I grew up Catholic during at the end of the kiddy-doodling stuff and last time my family made me go to church for xmas there were a shitload less people there (we got seats and were 15 minutes late in a growing suburb). Plinkey fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 08:21
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quote:If your community of Catholics is ideologically rather different from the ideology of Catholics worldwide If you don't agree with and reject the teachings of Rome, you're simply not Catholic, but a bunch of heretics. Plinkey posted:The entire Catholic Church has been facing threats for quite a while (15ish years...maybe more?) Try throughout its entire existence. Roman persecutions, heresy, Islam, the reformation, secularism, etc... quote:I'd like to see a map of where their money comes from That's not a secret. Catholic countries, especially in Europe, collect church taxes.
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Nov 27, 2013 09:30
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Riso posted:If you don't agree with and reject the teachings of Rome, you're simply not Catholic, but a bunch of heretics. That might nominally be the case, but I'm pretty sure 95% of Catholics would in that case be heretics and I don't think the church is inclined to shout away 95% of the flock. I mean I was raised Catholic yet I don't think I've ever known a single Catholic who 100% agreed with everything that's come out of the Vatican, not even the 7-kids-because-the-only-birth-control-is-the-rhythm-method family.
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Nov 27, 2013 09:47
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For those of you unaware, Riso is a WH40K markov chain generator with a filter that changes "Xeno" to "Catholic".
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Nov 27, 2013 16:11
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SWITCH HITLER posted:For those of you unaware, Riso is a WH40K markov chain generator with a filter that changes "Xeno" to "Catholic".
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Nov 27, 2013 16:19
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Wait, Xeno, not Man? His latest posts makes him seem more like a dogmatic Catholic than anything else. I might be confusing him with someone else, but he has a tendency to take it... weird places. Heretic isn't a word you hear used earnestly every day.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:22
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SWITCH HITLER posted:I might be confusing him with someone else, but he has a tendency to take it... weird places. Heretic isn't a word you hear used earnestly every day. Might be talking of Kyrie Eleison? He apparently dropped the gimmick, though.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:47
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SWITCH HITLER posted:I might be confusing him with someone else, but he has a tendency to take it... weird places. Heretic isn't a word you hear used earnestly every day.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:57
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quote:That might nominally be the case, but I'm pretty sure 95% of Catholics would in that case be heretics and I don't think the church is inclined to shout away 95% of the flock. Benedict XVI seemed to have wanted exactly that, a core church of true believers. Trying to appeal to everyone is certainly not working for Protestants; they're losing believers at even greater rates than Catholics. But I was actually more thinking of groups demanding changes on the Church views on abortion, homosexuality, and women priests. quote:Heretic isn't a word you hear used earnestly every day. Today's preferred euphemism might be "not in communion with Rome," but it really means the same.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:57
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DarkCrawler posted:So...the Catholic Church is pretty racist, apparently. I don't think there is malice behind the discrepancy. Europe's over representation is more symptomatic of the Church's difficulty to change. In 1913, over 70% of the world's Catholic population lived in Europe. There is also over 1000 years of history behind certain offices. Berlin may not currently have a large Catholic population but they have always had a cardinal-elector so it is expected that when the current Cardinal dies, a new one will be appointed. These regions would be extremely offended if they were ignored in favor of a younger diocese. Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI did try to make the number of Cardinals a little more representative of the Church population. I expect Francis to do the same.
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Nov 27, 2013 17:08
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British people asked to fill in a map of the USA. Here's the result.      Everyone knows where Texas is, it's the fiddly New England bits and those vague ones in the middle that seem to suffer.
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Nov 27, 2013 19:45
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Sporcle is your friend, it'll learn you some geography right quick.
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Nov 27, 2013 19:56
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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It always makes me a little cranky when people lump the Great Lakes region in with the Great Plains. Calling everything not on a coast "the midwest" doesn't really reflect how different MN/MI/WI/IL are from states like Wyoming or Montanta.
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Nov 27, 2013 20:45
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LeftistMuslimObama posted:It always makes me a little cranky when people lump the Great Lakes region in with the Great Plains. Calling everything not on a coast "the midwest" doesn't really reflect how different MN/MI/WI/IL are from states like Wyoming or Montanta. That seems like the West to me whereas the Great Lakes are the Upper Midwest. One of the core things about regional geography is that not everyone is going to agree what areas form regions. What you said is good example, a classic one is who forms the South?
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Nov 27, 2013 20:50
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That one is easy. Traitor States are the South, everyone else is not.
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Nov 27, 2013 21:01
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The lack of a CSA related smiley really disappoints me.
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Nov 27, 2013 21:13
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PittTheElder posted:That one is easy. Traitor States are the South, everyone else is not. Good to know Kentucky isn't part of the South.
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Nov 27, 2013 21:24
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Technocrat posted:British people asked to fill in a map of the USA. Here's the result. Sadly I'm willing to bet a decent amount of Americans wouldn't do much better than this. Also, I'm disappointed that nobody pointed out that Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana together looks like a fat chef wearing cowboy boots.
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Nov 27, 2013 21:39
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Rhesus Pieces posted:Sadly I'm willing to bet a decent amount of Americans wouldn't do much better than this. They didn't. http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/americans-try-to-place-european-countries-on-a-map    
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Nov 27, 2013 21:41
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Portugal basically is West Spain let's not kid ourselves.
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Nov 27, 2013 21:55
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twoot posted:They didn't. http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/americans-try-to-place-european-countries-on-a-map E: We meet again, Denmark/Netherlands mixup.
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Nov 27, 2013 21:58
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Understandable: They were thrown off by the missing Montenegro and superfluous Nagorno Karabakh. Not to mention so many of those states are mangled as gently caress - Austria and Slovakia in particular seem like they could use some reconstructive surgery, while Hungary's seen some of her irredentist claims realised.
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Nov 27, 2013 22:18
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"Weird Boobs" is not the most inaccurate description of Hungary I've ever heard.
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Nov 27, 2013 23:15
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Yes. That is where Denmark and Australia are.
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Nov 27, 2013 23:16
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twoot posted:They didn't. How can you not know where Russia or Germany are?
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Nov 27, 2013 23:29
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 Authentic footage from the Northlands.
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Nov 27, 2013 23:33
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computer parts posted:Good to know Kentucky isn't part of the South. It's true. Kentucky and Good Virginia together form the Appalachian region, with Eastern Tennessee as an honorary member. I will hear no protests about Kentucky barely being in the mountains.
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Nov 27, 2013 23:34
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I really want to see a huge study of where people from various countries think all the countries are located. Just give them a full world map, and a list of all the countries, and have them go to town. Not only can the map show where people are geographically challenged, it could also show which countries have managed to fly under the radar. Darth Various posted:Yes. That is where Denmark and Australia are. Okay, maybe not, our coastline-to-area ratio is by far the highest in Europe, being 64% greater than Greece's which is the runner up. Even on a global scale we match up pretty drat well, if you exclude all the tiny micro-state islands. I guess I knew we had a lot of beach, but I never really realized just how much. Thank you, uninformed American, for reminding me why Germans descend on us every summer.
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Nov 27, 2013 23:45
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In my opinion, you Europeans have far too many countries for the size of area you take up. You should form a Mega-Europe of some kind! I'll say one thing, though, playing Paradox games really helped me to learn European geography! 
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Nov 28, 2013 00:09
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DrSunshine posted:In my opinion, you Europeans have far too many countries for the size of area you take up. You should form a Mega-Europe of some kind! 
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Nov 28, 2013 00:14
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Well, Scandinavia is basically the Dakotas of Europe. You Yanks merge your uninhabited wastelands masquerading as states, and we Europeans will do the same.
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Nov 28, 2013 00:19
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Look, we tried to increase the size of the area we took up once, but no one else seemed to appreciate it, so don't blame us. Hey that's half the reason countries everywhere else are so big, if you'd just left well enough alone we'd probably live in a world with a thousand European sized States.
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Nov 28, 2013 00:24
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steinrokkan posted:Well, Scandinavia is basically the Dakotas of Europe. You Yanks merge your uninhabited wastelands masquerading as states, and we Europeans will do the same.  (Norway and Sweden are actually quite a bit denser than the Dakotas, closer to Idaho and New Mexico. Though I suppose the same is true for Europe, if you leave out Russia, so the comparison might stand.) reignonyourparade posted:Hey that's half the reason countries everywhere else are so big, if you'd just left well enough alone we'd probably live in a world with a thousand European sized States.
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Nov 28, 2013 00:27
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Huh, seems like a lot of those Americans thought that Kazakhstan was in Europe. Maybe because they know it's ex-USSR and they just associate Russia with Europe?
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Nov 28, 2013 00:56
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Rejected Fate posted:Huh, seems like a lot of those Americans thought that Kazakhstan was in Europe. Maybe because they know it's ex-USSR and they just associate Russia with Europe?
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Nov 28, 2013 00:59
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I just noticed on that last map the guy got Luxembourg(e) correct.
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Nov 28, 2013 01:02
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PittTheElder posted:Sporcle is your friend, it'll learn you some geography right quick. DrSunshine posted:I'll say one thing, though, playing Paradox games really helped me to learn European geography!  ). US Presidential election simulation games are great for learning the 50, too.
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Nov 28, 2013 01:03
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