This isn’t really a post, just something I came across and felt was worth sharing: I love Pope Francis. I’m not Catholic, or ever planning to be, but the guy is just awesome.

via the Guardian

Pope Francis says atheists can be good

– Just do good, and we’ll find a meeting point, says Francis in marked departure from Benedict’s line on non-Catholics –

Atheists should be seen as good people if they do good, Pope Francis has said in his latest urging that people of all religions, and none, work together.

The leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics made his comments in the homily of his morning mass at his residence, a daily event at which he speaks without prepared comments.

He told the story of a Catholic who asked a priest if even atheists had been redeemed by Jesus.

“Even them, everyone,” the pope answered, according to Vatican Radio. “We all have the duty to do good,” he said.

“Just do good, and we’ll find a meeting point,” the pope said in a hypothetical reply to the hypothetical comment: “But I don’t believe. I’m an atheist.”

Francis’s reaching out to atheists and people who belong to no religion is in marked contrast to the attitude of his predecessor, Benedict, who sometimes prompted complaints from non-Catholics that he seemed to see them as second-class believers.

The HuffingtonPost has more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/pope-francis-good-atheists_n_3320757.html

“They complain,” the Pope said in his homily, because they say, “If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.” And Jesus corrects them: “Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good.” The disciples, Pope Francis explains, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of ​​possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong . . . Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation”

“The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”.. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

And, as always, if you want to retain any faith in humanity, don’t read the comments on either the Guardian or HuffPost stories.