u/RaisinRoyale

Hi! Non-Catholic here, very interested in Catholicism. I was reading that there are some sins that are only forgivable by the pope himself (such as Host desecration, breaking the seal of confession, physically assaulting the pope, etc).

However, I also read that the Sacrament of Baptism removes all sins committed prior to the baptism, as well as the punishment due to them.

So, let's say you have a baptized Catholic, and they desecrate the Host or attack the pope. The only way for them to be absolved of their sin is for the pope himself to forgive them.

However, let's say you have a non-Catholic, who desecrates the Host, or beats the pope. Then, they goes on their merry way, and a few years later, they have a change of heart and get baptized into the Catholic church (lol assuming they got away with attacking the pope and not going to jail). Are they completely absolved of all sins, including the ones normally that only the pope can officially forgive?

As a real world example, I am thinking of Mehmet Ali Ağca, who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. Obviously, Pope John Paul II was a great man so he later forgave Ağca and even met with him in person, but Ağca actually converted to Christianity of his own volition after serving his prison sentence. Assuming his conversion was sincere, did he even need the pope's forgiveness at all? Like if hypothetically the pope decidedly did not forgive Ağca, would that conversion have been good enough?

Anyway, if this is true, why are Catholics then seemingly judged harsher than non-Catholics? If Ağca had been Catholic at the time of the assassination attempt, he would have needed the pope's forgiveness, but because he was non-Catholic, he technically didn't need it and just needed to convert to absolve him of that sin.

Thanks!

My parents are South African, but I was born and raised in the United States. I’ve only been to South Africa once, by myself on a trip in my early 20s (I’m now in my early 30s). I have a South African passport. I speak fluent Afrikaans (although I realize this isn’t very useful lol), grew up eating South African food, love South African food, etc. Still have some family in South Africa as well

However, I am obviously a foreigner and don’t know “the lay of the land”. I have a completely American accent and I am white.

I have a completely remote job based in the U.S. My passion is sport and exercise science, and the University of Cape Town actually has a really strong program in this that I am considering and I’m interested in exploring my roots as well

But the only things I hear about South Africa in the news are negative, and obviously only hear negative things from my parents, since they left. My remaining relatives are all in Joburg and also only say negative things.

But realistically what would it be like for me as a South African (but essentially a foreigner) to move there for a couple of years? Also don’t really want to contribute to the “gentrification” of Cape Town by coming in with an American salary (it is quite low by American standards, but quite high by South African ones) but I am technically a citizen and have full legal rights to live there so idk

Anyway, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi, I am currently studying history and we are doing a segment on Latin America this term. My main focus is actually Brazil, but I'm very curious about the Mexican side of things as well ... I am thus asking this question from a historical perspective, and would appreciate only if those who studied Mexican history at an academic level (or, at the very least are very well-versed in it) would answer. Specifically asking in the context of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 and foreign interventionism in the middle of the 19th century.

So, obviously I get that there is anti-America sentiment lately due to Trump and some of the rhetoric coming out of America, but this seems to go much deeper historically, and I am curious as to why, specifically in these two contexts:

1.Mexican Revolution. In response to the disastrous misunderstanding of the Tampico Affair of April 1914, the United States occupied the port of Veracruz for 7 months amidst the Mexican Revolution.

However, this occupation was done against the ruling hated Huerta government (that the Mexican Revolution was fighting against, in one of its many stages).

In fact, the leadup to this was the United States supplying arms to anti-Huerta rebels. The American-imposed blockade prevented Huerta from getting arms, and allowed pro-Carranza rebels to still get them from supply lines up north, and eventually paved the way for Carranza to become president...now, obviously, the pro-Carranza Constitutionalists and the more radical Conventionists would later clash, but everyone agreed that the first thing that needed to be done for Revolutionary change in Mexico was for Carranza to emerge as president and for Huerta to get the hell out. So, yes, it was interventionism, but it was interventionism on the side of the Revolutionary rebels that are so honored in Mexico today.

Literally almost every major war in history has interventionism, and it's usually appreciated. Were the Americans' intentions pure? Probably not. But neither are most interventions.

For example, the French intervened in the American Revolution on the American side largely due to mutual hated of the British more so than actual belief in the American republican ideals (France was still a monarchy at the time, and they delayed getting involved in the war until after Saratoga). It was still greatly appreciated. The Napoleonic wars were filled with interventions (British on the side of Spain in the Peninsular War, Ottoman intervention in Egypt, etc).

Even Mexico itself had the Batallón de San Patricio during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), consisting of Irish fighters, and their motivations were primarily religion-based (shared Catholicism) more so than any actual concern about Mexican sovereignty.

So, interventionism in war is a very common theme in history, and thus I fail to see why American interventionism in Veracruz (again, on the side of the rebels, even if the intentions weren't great) is viewed with negativity. Had America not intervened, it is 100% guaranteed that Huerta would've kept his hold on power and the Revolution would've been crushed and modern Mexico would look very different today.

Veracruz was Mexico’s most important port in the 1910s and by seizing it (something the rebels were not capable of doing themselves), the United States effectively cut off Huerta’s primary source of both money and weapons. More critically, the American occupation was actually specifically timed to prevent the arrival of the Ypiranga, a German steamer carrying massive amounts of arms that were ordered by Huerta to massacre Mexican revolutionaries.

President Woodrow Wilson’s occupation of Veracruz and refusal to recognize Huerta’s "government of butchers" showed European powers, who had all supported Huerta for the sake of stability and oil, that the United States would not tolerate Huerta at all, and forced the ABC Powers (Argentina, Brazil, and Chile) to mediate the Niagara Falls peace conference, which effectively negotiated the terms of Huerta's surrender.

So, it's not a stretch to say that the American occupation of Veracruz was as critical to the Revolution as people like Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, or Francisco Madero were. There was no way Huerta could have been defeated without American interventionism in 1914, and people like Zapata, Villa, and Cárdenas would've just been a footnote in history. But it is viewed extremely negatively today.

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2.Foreign Interventionism in the 20th Century. Two countries' interventions that I am going to contrast here: the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848 and the French interventions of 1838–1839 and 1861–1867 (more so focusing on the latter one).

Obviously, the interventions by both countries were unjust, based on false pretenses, bad, and clearly self-serving. However, it seems that there is strong lingering resentment over the American War, but not so much over the French interventions.

And yet, the Second French Intervention actually killed significantly more Mexicans than the American war did. Compare: the Mexican-American war killed 5,000 Mexicans, whereas the Second French Intervention killed 32,000 Mexicans fighting on the side of Juárez and an additional 14,000 Mexicans fighting on the Monarchist side.

So overall, 9x the number of dead Mexicans as a result of the French as the Americans.

The Mexican-American War was of course unjust, with the Thornton Affair of 1846 that caused it having been a lie. This war famously ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and obviously huge losses of Mexican territory...which America actually $15 million paid for.

For some context, the U.S. also paid $15 million for the Louisiana Purchased in 1803, and the land area of the Louisiana Purchase was actually significantly larger than the land lost by Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Meanwhile, say what you want about "Yankee interventionism and colonialism", but it must be remembered that the French goal (even if it was not ultimately successful) was the entire occupation of all of Mexico as a vassal state of Second French Empire, an Empire that was drooling with overseas colonial aspirations (their national anthem was literally "Partant pour la Syrie", "Departing for Syria"). The French project killed way more Mexicans and was much more of an insult to national honor.

And again, if we're going off "intentions" as based on the above occupation of Veracruz in 1914, the intentions of the French were worse (not to mention more Mexicans died as a result of this). So, the French invaded with a super-deadly war and wanted to take all of Mexico (but they couldn't) and the Americans invaded with a less-deadly war and took part of Mexico and paid for it (and more than they paid for land that they had legitimately purchased from the French a few decades earlier, per square kilometer).

And yet today, there seem to be no "hard feelings" towards the French, but there seem to be towards the Americans.

In fact, Cinco de Mayo is celebrated (regionally, at least, in Puebla) as a victory over the French in one battle. There is no such holiday celebrating, say, the Battle of San Pascual during the Mexican-American War.

So, I guess one could say "results matter more" and yes, the French Wars killed more Mexicans and had worse intentions, but the American one actually resulted in loss of territory that is tangible today...but if intentions matter less and results matter more, than the Veracruz incident should be viewed differently as well.

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Anyway, just curious!

Hi, apologies if this is out of line. I am in Brasil and I absolutely love to travel, and travel a lot for work and pleasure. I travel both nationally and internationally. Hotels almost always ask for an official ID, and I am extreme uncomfortable in giving this. But I do anyway, although I’m tired of it.

I have no issue giving my ID to authority figures like police or immigration or banks, but I don’t want to give the freaking Days Inn El Paso my real ID with my real name and real passport number and real birthday. Beyond the fact that it just makes me uncomfortable, there are data breaches are these kinds of places all the time even if the hotel itself is “secure” and not sharing my information (which they probably are anyway… I am sure they sell my email that I made the booking with along with my ID to advertisers so I can get targeted advertising based on my age, gender, etc.)

What do you all do in situations like this? Is it worth getting/using a fake ID? Is this even legal? I would imagine it varies from country to country and province the province, but I feel like “hotels” are not a legal authority anywhere

Again, I will always use my real ID if it is an agent of the law, but I don’t think hotels fit this qualification

For a tourist visa. Just wondering what the current situation is. Thanks!

Chabad does a lot of great work, obviously, but I want to talk about something controversial. Not the Moshiach stuff.

So what I have noticed after years of traveling and relying on them is that they kind of push out local Jewish communities…

Almost all their shluchim are from the United States or Israel, and they go to many places where there are already small Jewish communities, such as Athens, Amsterdam, İstanbul, etc. Once there, they essentially steal all the attention that those native communities would otherwise get from visiting Jews and donors, thus pushing out the local communities there and giving their own very standardised type of Judaism. It eliminates cultural and linguistic diversity among Jewish communities around the world.

They also do go to far-flung places were there are no Jewish communities, such as Cambodia, Korea, etc., which is fine by me, but I’m more upset about them undermining pre-existing communities, especially in Europe.

But even in those other "exotic" places (like China, Kenya, etc), they essentially monopolise everything and there are/were indeed indigenous Jewish communities in many of them, so work should be done on revitalising those communities instead of promoting this Walmart Ashkenormative style Judaism. It is literally like Walmart or McDonald’s coming in and standardising shopping or food.

As an example, I was in Athens (Greece) for Pesach once. They have a real Greek shul, from before WWII, still active, with Greek-style davening (Romaniote). It’s Orthodox.

For Yom Tov, they had 12 people, including me (I went).

The Chabad had over 300 (the rest of my family was there).

So, the Greek synagogue in Greece is dying, and meanwhile the American-Israeli synagogue in Greece is pulling in everyone + all their money. Btw the Greek shul had food and a kiddish too, and I was invited to people’s homes, real Greek Jews. Just like how it used to be.

There are lots of old, beautiful, ancient Jewish traditions that are just being wiped out because of this.

It was also the same in Amsterdam. I actually barely made the minyan at the old Portugees-Israëlietische Synagoge ("Esnoga") shul. My friends went to Chabad with over 100+ people. This wasn’t even during a holiday, normal Shabbos.

In conclusion, I very much view Chabad like McDonald’s: safe, standard, easy, familiar, you know what you’re gonna get. But erases local history and tradition, and fast.