Time for Catholics to vote for a Pope - even a woman Pope?

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Since this is the year 2010 and man has landed on the moon and returned to earth in 1969 and women astronauts have been part of the Space Shuttle, isn't it time for women and men Catholics to be able to nominate and vote for the Pope of Rome - be that Pope a woman or a man, married with children, or single? Your view based on your experience in living in a democracy like the USA which has married ministers like Robert H. Schuller and Billy Graham, not an outdated male only king for life political model which is what the Pope of Italy is today (a male only monarchy).

They've just recently accepted Galileo. Give them another thousand years. After they've had a few pedophiles as popes they might accept a woman.

Since this is 2010, isn't it time the Papacy was abolished?

By whom?

by Lutherans, of course.

how about a nonwhite pope?

Humanism?

Catholicism lives by the precept laid out in the "Glory Be"

"as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen."

To change anything would be admitting they were wrong, and thus that god was wrong and not absolute, so it's not possible.
They can change "an interpretation" but they cannot change something more "solid"

The acceptance of Galileo can be resolved by a simple perspective/linguistic trick... that's easy, yet it took hundreds of years.
That the sun revolves around the earth isn't really wrong. it's just more accurate to say that the earth revolves around the sun. The issue of the other planet's motion can pretty well be ignored, as in a Catholic's mind, only Earth and the Sun really matter.
But changing the process by which they operate, which was laid down centuries ago, that is a real, physical system which isn't subject to perspective differences. To change it would violate the basic nature of catholicism. To even accept that it is something to consider changing violates catholicism as well.

How about we wait until China elects a black president first.
It's not fair that the West should be given such a great head start when it comes to experiencing the joys of diversity. I think it's about time we let the East catch up!

Yoo Hoo! I know this may come as a shock to you, but the Roman Catholic Church is NOT a democracy.

ruveyn

Right you are, it's even worse!

So, what about them Borgias, eh?

Democratic churches are a bad idea. That's how Darbyism has taken over the Baptists.

Democracy is a bad idea in general.
Demagogues will always destroy the system.

Though in reality "religion as a whole" is a democracy, in that people vote not within the religion but instead between religions... Whoever has the most followers wins... kinda.

A religion could not survive internalizing democratic principles. If one was able to question and undermine the authority of the institution it would fall, it would lose the conviction which is required to maintain it's memetic power.

In truth, I would like nothing more than to see more and more churches adopt democratic principles... So perhaps I should shut up and not give them this heads up....

Sneaky, isn't it?

Not a lot of people realize that until, IIRC, 1869, the Catholic Church did not believe that human life began at conception...they followed (as the Church originally did for most medical matters) the views of Aristotle, who held that the child was alive from 40 days after conception (for a male fetus; 80 days for a female, because to Aristotle females were 'imperfect' males). People in the Catholic pro-life movement generally don't admit this.

We're having a debate over here in the CofE about whether or not women should be bishops (they can already be priests). The fundamentalists keep going on about the so-called 'priesthood of all believers', but insist that nevertheless, authority is male. I think masculine imagery of God has a lot to do with it. But, the notion that all Christians are priests is more radical (oddly like the Wiccan tenet that every witch is his or her own priest, with direct access to the gods). The Quakers are probably the closest to a truly democratic church, but tellingly, a lot of other denominations don't regard them as 'proper' Christians.

^The Church of Sweden is pretty much a democracy.