“Who am I to judge?” The Catholic Church certainly never does.
Too many people read what they see on social media and believe it’s true without checking the facts. They end up believing all sorts of whacko conspiracy theories.
Misfortune can happen to anyone. The Invisible Magic Friend’s like that. When working with the homeless or survivors of modern slavery, it’s important to ask, “What happened to you?” rather than “What did you do wrong?”
https://mega.nz/file/QztXGSgT#LlA5doG4c1LfKg9OH7MIkWm4QXMp9HJrfM3RUprioqw

https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-posts-brand-new-sentence/?media_id=8153801&utm_source=share&utm_medium=img&utm_campaign=user
Stonyground.
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It’s a nice story. According to google it’s denied by the Vatican. Who to believe on the internet?
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Snopes says there’s not enough information. And it has nothing to do with Maxwell.
I suppose you can say almost anything about the RCC and it won’t sound completely incredible.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hammer-time/
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/22/dead-pope-hammer/
“There’s not enough verified evidence for us to definitively confirm or debunk this rumor.”
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That link works in a slightly quirky way for some reason. You need to give it a few seconds to go to the specific item on the list that I was trying to post. The rest of the list is quite funny too but it was the dead Pope hammer that I specifically wanted to share.
Stonyground.
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Well, that makes a bit of a change, I suppose: instead of the dubious origins of a Big Jewish Festival, or an anecdote about a Guru’s birthday, we were given a sermon this morning. “Judge not, or the Invisible Magic Friend will come and judge you right back”. Of course, Mr Studzinski would no doubt insist that the IMF is going to judge us anyway, whether or not we’ve done any judging of other people ourselves. Still, good to know.
The thing is, though, that it’s difficult to get through the day without making judgements of some sort, all the time. These are not necessarily about people, although quite often they have to be. The trick is to be able to do so using evidence and reason, and avoiding prejudice if possible. Maybe this is what Mr Studzinski meant all along. If so, he should perhaps have said so.
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“Don’t be judgemental – I’m not.
Clearly, I’m assuming a fair proportion of my intended audience isn’t as virtuous as myself when it comes to being judgemental, almost as if I have a pre-existing bias and low expectations of them.
So, don’t be judgemental – you morally-inferior reprobates will never catch me doing it”.
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I’m so disappointed that the Pope hammer probably isn’t real. Considering how bizarre Catholic rituals tend to be generally, it did initially seem believable but yeah, probably not true.
Stonyground.
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Doesn’t an official have to shout out the Pope’s real name three times? If he doesn’t respond then he’s definitely dead.
I have a vague recollection of John Paul II’s death being confirmed by an EEG.
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I was thinking about judging people earlier today. We went to a U3A talk on fraud of all kinds. The policemen giving the lecture said that every time you receive a spam email or get a phone call from a potential fraudster and you delete it or don’t answer you are still being attacked because their whole purpose is to take your money or something else of yours. He said that he describes these fraudsters as despicable.
Anyone who is deliberately setting out to cause you some sort of wrong and you recognise that they are doing so, I think you have every right to judge them.
What would Jesus say?
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