How to know a True Believer: by their Fruits

The new Pope is reinventing the wheel for the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) and asking people, essentially, to forgive and forget.

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

Of course! Why didn't we think of that. The (RCC) church is obsessed with abortion, gay marriage and contraception.

What a shame that the RCC doesn't appear nearly as obsessed with the truth; with putting an end within its very ranks to child sexual abuse; with weeding out corruption and money laundering.

It is by their fruits that we know a true disciple of Jesus. Consider what the boughs of the tree of Christianity (mostly the RCC) has borne over the millennia. On his website, Mark Humphries outlines the Killings for Christianity (both ancient and modern):

Ancient
The Crusades
The Inquisition
The Witch-Hunting
The post-medieval period
Democide in the Americas and Africa and Australia
Slavery in the Americas and Africa
Beatification and canonisation of flawed figures

Modern
Killings for Christianity by Africans
Christianity and the Holocaust
Killings for Islam

By their fruits you shall know them.

In other words, you won't be able to judge someone by what they say. In my opinion the current Pope is just too cute by half. If Pope Francis spoke these things at the time of Pope (not-so) Innocent III, the 'grand inquisitor', would it have been a question of "off with his head"?

It's time we called a spade a spade -- and a whore a whore!