Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Pope Benedict resigns
His was a kind of quiet papacy in the eclipse you could say of the charismatic and saintly John Paul II and his grand and long mark on history. I was not really surprised to learn of Benedict's leaving the papal office at the end of this month, he's up there in years and has had health issues so now the attention turns to possible successors, papabile. Former Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Cardinal Sodano is no good, he suppressed alot of stuff on Fatima. Same with the current Sec'y of State Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone. Re the Third Prophecy the BVM had said to Lucia: "Look my child don't be surprised if, at a certain moment, a certain diabolical disorientation affects the best of minds, a disequilibrium so that they no longer judge according to the voice of my Son and of Peter." Dolan is a long shot for the job but I think he would enjoy it for no other reason than that fine Vatican cuisine and impressive team of professional chefs. I picture him for starters with a nice draught of abbey ale in the papal den perusing the New York sports pages and that husky laugh of his when he gets a visitor. Incidentally if you're ever on Jeopardy and get asked this question they do have a team of what are called tastetesters whose sole job is to sample the food cooked for the pope on the offchance it may be poisoned, a kind of gustatory secret service. Betcha didn't know that, you get the occasional nugget here. My personal favorite is the Cardinal from Nigeria Francis Arinze who's been around the Vatican for awhile most lately as Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. He was a chief advisor to JP2, he knows the players, he's conservative and we've already had a Pole to break the long line of Italian popes and so I think for many different reasons one from Africa would be ideal. Benedict, now Ratzinger again? will probably go back to writing books, tweeting and playing with his mobile device. My favorite newspaper headline is from today's New York Post, "Pope Gives God 2 Weeks Notice."
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Papal tasttesters? Do they do a flavor analysis...or just seize up and die if the Polonium-210 pie
ReplyDeleteis undercooked?
I didn't know resignation was even an option.
ReplyDeleteHasn't happened since 1415 apparently. Yeah me too I thought they just died in office. Didn't realize right away today is Ash Wednesday and so I had to tweak my food dreams a little. Seems like it's coming earlier and earlier each year, hell why not make it in January?
ReplyDeleteWould be interesting if the first black pope meets with the first black president. Think of what a historic decision Ratzinger made, should be a hotter topic.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the Cardinals will select a new pope before the GOP senators OK a new Secretary of Defense.
ReplyDeleteHagel, even putting aside any theories that Obama wants to push an anti-Israel agenda I think it was a poor choice.
ReplyDeleteHe couldn't get Susan Rice and we ended up with Kerry. I suppose the GOP is holding out for Richard Perle or Paul Wolfowitz. I'm thinking it will be Hagel after all the huffing and puffing. First time a DOD cabinet post has been
ReplyDeletefillibustered. Remember when Rumsfeld passed through with flying colors on a bipartisan vote?
The GOP should've went along with Susan Rice. It's like they went with this weird conspiracy theory that she was somehow near the top of this Benghazi conspiracy when she was merely repeating what she was told. Right, wade around in the fever swamps all day and we wind up with "Bashar al-Assad is a reformer" Kerry.
ReplyDeleteGiven that technically, any Catholic male who has reached the age of reason, is not a heretic, is not in schism, and is not “notorious” for simony can be elected pope, Z-man should throw
ReplyDeletehis mitre in the ring.
I work with an older semiretired guy who looks like the pope and we keep saying he should run. Imagine though living in incredible wealth, sumptuous surroundings, the world's finest artwork and cuisine anywhere but no women allowed. It's like 1/2 a Hef Mansion, it kinda doesn't make sense:)
ReplyDeleteNo women allowed...but a lot of those guys wear garments that look like dresses, ya know?
ReplyDeleteI was talking with my mom just yesterday about how schismatic the Catholics have gotten. You got the loons who want to go back to pre-V2, you got these little devotional armies like Legio Mariae and so on and so forth... it's not nearly as unified as it looks from the outside.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, a guy in little red shoes and a dress made of cloth-of-gold coming out (ha! pun?) to let all the gays know being gay is a sin.
There's some sacreligious humor in that.
Ya got your different religious strains in the Church. Some religion inspires, aims to uplift and is good for personal crises then there is the other strain the main impetus of which seems to instill fear, dread (apocalypticism, Mel Gibson's church). Sometimes the first type gets too Santa Clausy for me (nobody's really in Hell not even your local serial killer) and the second strain you read the lit and you get tired in a hurry and it ain't a good tired. I think you need some elements of both a kind of creative tension.
ReplyDeleteThen you got us... we sing, we dance, and we eat.
ReplyDeleteWhat's not to love?
Well my point is you got a hell of alot of strains within the Catholic Church today and I got to thinking are they really all that mutually exclusive and incompatible with each other? One strain might be concerned with the End Times and the major strain doesn't care only what night is Bingo and the clothes drive. It's kinda like a menu.
ReplyDeleteSo how does one address an ex-Pope?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking "Your former holiness, now temp eminence"...
..dunno. Fr. Ratzinger seems a
bit informal.
Unchartered territory we'll be going through, makes things interesting, and of course gives you good topics for your blog as the retirement of Benedict and the replacement process occurs.
ReplyDeleteWith that meteor over Russia and watching the YouTube videos it definitely had that End Times feel and if that's the case they say there's not too many popes left maybe one or two. La Salette: "the fire of heaven will fall and consume three cities". I think it'll be somebody from the Third World most likely Africa. Arinze is 80 and this Turkson guy is in his 60's so my bet's on him. Good to hear from you again Beth!
ReplyDelete49 Cardinals are from Italy (kind of a small place, hmmmm) so that is
ReplyDeletea significant voting bloc. Those over 80, however cannot vote in
conclave. (80? probably can't even put their chasuble on frontwards). I'm sort of thinking
South American...
The Latins and the Africans are the odds on favorites. Hey how 'bout Marco Rubio?
ReplyDeleteMy mother the Catholic said the other night, 'my GOD they better not put an American in there because every last one of them is corrupt!'
ReplyDeleteNow, I decided not to pursue the obvious question dealing with why she would rather go to Sts Mary and Edward rather than to another kind of Christian church (or go dancing singing eating with me) if she's sure every last American Catholic ecclesiastical personality is corrupt.
But the question remains.
I am betting that the new pope will not be a woman.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't be Dolan if they want to be taken seriously on clergy sex abuse. Bears repeating but as Archbishop of Milwaukee......
ReplyDeleteI know a very serious Catholic who was so upset by the theology of protecting pedophilic priests that he quit the Church. Win some-lose some.
ReplyDeleteI had the opposite reaction. When the scandal coverage was in high gear I proposed something quite simple at work, basically to entirely withhold our weekly donations at church for a whole year. Note I said just a year and yet the reaction of the Catholics I worked with was shall we say mild disagreement. Bunker mentality:)
ReplyDeleteIMO, it is gradually getting settled. Remarkable they way they circled like buffalo to protect their weaker brothers, though.
ReplyDeleteSchools, even boy scouts have the same problem...go figure. But with the clerics...must be real hard being celibate. The conundrum is that celibacy is such a strong requirement, but when they veer, it was no big deal. (betcha, if a priest gave a homily on the value
of birth control, he'd be drummed out of the corps immediately)
..just sayin here...
Celibacy, imagine for a moment not only going through your entire life without a member of the opposite sex but not even being able to have sexual thoughts. How is this even possible? The birth control, I've tried to honestly understand it but I can't. When Pat Robertson is to the left of you on birth control that's not good.
ReplyDelete'How is this even possible' Dunno,
ReplyDeleteeven St. Augustine had problems...
"Although tempted in the direction of Christianity upon his arrival at Milan in 383, he turned first to neoplatonism, During this time, Augustine fathered a child by a mistress. This period of exploration, including its youthful excesses are recorded in Augustine's most widely read work, the Confessions."
& his famous line "make me chaste Lord but not yet." I mean yeah there are alot of times when you're not thinking of sex, it's at low ebb but still...I guess the mainstream theory goes if you bottle it up this much then eventually it comes out in weird ways. I've also heard it medically argued but don't know how valid it is that not ejaculating that much leads to prostate cancer in that if that fluid which has many chemical components doesn't leave the body but just sits there...I'm gonna have to rate this Blog PG-13.
ReplyDeleteApparently, the Holy See has
ReplyDeletesome ongoing problems.
The Vatican is denying Benedict is resigning for this reason and has slammed the Italian media which means to me the Italiano msm is probably telling the unvarnished truth. Without getting into the whole gay debate I never got this why so many priests and prelates when it comes to these clergy sex scandals go the whole gay route. Now you would think some would be gay yes but you never really hear too much about any of them fooling around with some hot nun.
ReplyDeleteJust that intruiging couple from the early medieval times .
ReplyDeleteRead someplace that ex-Benedict is
ReplyDeleteclosing his Twitter account as well.
Maybe he'll set the trend for future popes, instead of dying in office they'll simply retire to Castel Gandolfo. You know the Church is always changing......
ReplyDeleteGolden years...social security, medicare....and your own little place at Castel Gandolfo.
ReplyDelete...again without the women.
ReplyDeleteAt 85 years, lack of women is probably not a problem for ex-pope
ReplyDeleteBenedict. (of course with those red shoes, he might appreciate Dorothy, from Wizard of Ox)
It's interesting, some might make the case that John Paul II should have retired. I'd have to google this but I wonder who the oldest pope was.
ReplyDeleteWonder if he gets a golden parachute, or several parachutes in liturgical colors?
ReplyDeleteWhy not have a co-pope or a vice-pope?
ReplyDeleteIn 1409 there were three simultaneous Popes:
ReplyDeleteBenedict XIII
Gregory XII
John XXIII
..and it didn't work out too good.
Kind of mirrored the Trinity you could say.
ReplyDeleteInteresting how these folks change their name when they become Pope.
ReplyDeleteI blame it on Count Annibale Francesco Clemente Melchiore Girolamo Nicola Sermattei della Genga, who took the name Leo XII.
Name changes associated with religious orders/vows are common across many religions including my own.
ReplyDeleteEven ordinary Catholics get a 'confirmation name' when they have the sacrament of Confirmation. It goes after your middle name and means absolutely nothing in legal terms.
With the Krishnas (and all Vaisnavas), when you get initiated your spiritual master gives you a new name, an initiated name, and all the devotees use that name for you forever whether you change it legally or not. There is no requirement to change it legally and most don't. I did.
When an ordinary devotee takes on the renounced order of sannyas, they get a different name (sometimes)or sometimes just take the title Swami or Goswami. Some of the titles such as Bhaktivedanta are earned titles not for everyone; some titles such as Brahmacari or Adhikari indicate one's station or position.
Buddhist monks also take on new names that reflect (don't quote me but I think I'm right) their spiritual lineage.
Catholic nuns take a new name (or did in the past) when they make their final vows and leave the novitiate. Hence the prevalence of Sister Mary Josephs and Sister Elizabeth Anthonys and Sister Michael Thomas's in the world. Or there used to be anyway.
New name signifies new birth, new life, leaving behind the old, common across religions worldwide.
That could be confusing in politics:
ReplyDeleteHarry Reid changing to Brad Pitt
Sarah Palin to Queen Victoria
Newt Gingrich to Justin Beiber
...or worse whenever we changed jobs:
Z-Man to Wolfgang Puck....
I joked with my friend that while middle names may not mean much legally they can be good code words in certain situations.
ReplyDeleteMiddle names? Decided to check that out:
ReplyDeleteCharlie (Erwin) Sheen
Diana (Ernestine) Ross
Kim (Noel) Kardashian
Tina (Stamantina) Fey
Hugh (Mungo) Grant
...Mungo, sort of an odd Scottish
name. The relatively famous Mungo Park African explorer tyring to find where the Niger R.
disappeared...but he disappeared.
According to my e-mail you had another comment. Ah I finally found it, on Page 2.
ReplyDelete