Vatican's ruffle. From Panama hats to yes, fountain pens.

[LagNut]

Got nothing against you or your post Ondina, but no thanks.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a papist, and a serious one at that. Each year my Peter's Pence contribution alone is worth more than a really nice pen. I pray for his intentions and all that. And I'm also for the poor, but I will not be supporting his stupid media stunts, because they come at a great irony.

Poor calligraphists...

So, I'm assuming you're also a Catholic?

The College of Cardinals got it wrong this time? I mean, in your opinion, Pope Francis is just a "poser".

The quoting has gone askew, so maybe I'm attributing to the wrong poster.

Mike

[johnus]

Enjoy the thread. I read the forum on my iPhone under Timeline so it real doesn't matter to me were any of them are posted. Find that these types of thought are more interesting than the 'pen for sale' ads.

ps. Any here living or working at the Vatican that can get a ticket for me??

[Tony Rex]

Got nothing against you or your post Ondina, but no thanks.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a papist, and a serious one at that. Each year my Peter's Pence contribution alone is worth more than a really nice pen. I pray for his intentions and all that. And I'm also for the poor, but I will not be supporting his stupid media stunts, because they come at a great irony.

Poor calligraphists...

So, I'm assuming you're also a Catholic?

The College of Cardinals got it wrong this time? I mean, in your opinion, Pope Francis is just a "poser".

The quoting has gone askew, so maybe I'm attributing to the wrong poster.

Mike

I am. Maybe. To put it mildly, yes.

I said maybe, because I truly don't know, but the conclave result (which was ultimately a human act, even though inspired and guaranteed* by the Holy Spirit) and his Holiness personal choices were two different matters and obviously are beyond my control, therefore my opinion matters little, really.

I do however will speak up against things that are against my Christian conscience, even to the Pontiff's face if I must. It's an obligation. I can assure you, we the younger generation won't make it easier for Lord Denethor's passing generation.

He wanted ¡Hagan lío!? He got it.

* just think of it like a belligerent mutt on a very long leash.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Lord Denethor's passing generation? VERY interesting comment....

[LagNut]

Tony

I don't know the reference to Lord Denethor, except in Tolkein.

I wish you experiences like I have had with the Holy Spirit. I'm assuming you are honest in your fervor. I cannot put a metaphor on what they were like, except that I didn't know what was going on, or what my part in it was, until it had actually occurred. Subtle, deep, and not something I had intended.

I'll be going back to re-read the Gospels, just to see if I can see a shadow of what you're talking about in the Gospels. I do understand we all get to account for our actions, and I understand your point. However, if I'm going to be pointing at something at when I'm being called to account, I'll be digging from the Gospels, and not my contemporaries or the way I was raised. And to be brutally honest, I can't say I'm confident living up to the standard of the Gospels. Not a simple thing, at least the way I read it. (And I find more every time I go back to read them).


Regardless, Francis is our Pope. I understand having differing views, and the struggle to understand how this is what was supposed to happen, but I do believe it's all part of a plan that neither you or I can understand. I had a great deal more certainty about what that plan was when I was younger, but that's long over. All any of us can do is follow our conscience.

I do implore you to go back through the Gospels (with an open mind), and use them as your guide. If you decide you can't be a Catholic, I can understand that also, and sometimes that is part of the journey.

Mike

[Sailor Kenshin]

From what I can recall, Denethor was prideful, but also despairing: he believed what he saw in the Palantir.

[VertOlive]

We have survived other calamitous papacies, we'll survive this 'lio' as well.

[Tony Rex]

If you decide you can't be a Catholic

Mike, care to explain as to why you think that I no longer "want to be catholic"? So from criticising the Pope one can't be catholic? So Sts Catherine of Siena, Fisher, More, Vincent Ferrer weren't a catholic right?

I had assumed it would be obvious for even a casual observer that there was more to it than just "fervor" for my grievances. Even peeps who read about their pope on Reuters or NYT would understand that. And not all Catholics are casual, some are serious about their faith more than just being a seasonal ultramontanist on fora. However, I accept your kind sentiments, but please do keep an open mind and try to keep up.. Please..


@SK maybe not so much despair first, but pride. The bad steward thought he could outwit Sauron. He also favours one child to another, sacrificing the good child to curry favor to the world. No wonder the world likes him so much.

@VO I gave this Jesuit benefit of the doubt out of our Card Pell's assurances, "he's a good son the the Church" whatever.. So I did look away over his silly off the cuff comments.. But concrete actions like the FFI heavy handedness and dirty tactics, the recent farcical Synod14, and Card Burke's demotion totally gave him away. The last one was strike three. Seriously, retirement at 66? Oh no, not enough, now the Wyrmtongues of the Curia want his cardinalate red hat back! "Will no one rid us of this troublesome priest from rural Wisconsin?", they say. They knew Herod was on their side and they want a head on a plate for defending Marriage.

Speaking of which, I kissed Cardinal Burke's black stoned ring, he then blesses my little family after a solemn high Mass last year. ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum, habitare fratres in unum!

Pax,
TR

[Sailor Kenshin]

Well, I've got my pea-brain wrapped around Denethor and it won't let go.

You are probably right about Pride versus Humility. When Sam carried the ring, he was sore tempted. But his innate Humility saved him from Gollum's fate.

I loved the character of Faramir, and thought the movie did him a biiiig dis-service.

[johnus]

50yrs of Conservatism hasn't done much for the Church. A different approach will be interesting. We need to wait and see.

[Tony Rex]

50yrs of Conservatism hasn't done much for the Church. A different approach will be interesting. We need to wait and see.

Eh? Isn't it the other way around? I suppose things look like that from a [historically incomplete] worldview; where everything's polarised and the truth is determined by numbers. I can relate because I used to be like that too. No worries.

By the way, you need not wait. Here is from the horse's mouth in a recent interview:

-A recent survey (Pew) confirmed that, despite the "Francis effect", Catholics still keep leaving the Church.
-I am familiar with the figures disclosed at Aparecida, it´s the only information I have. There are evidently several factors of influence, independent of the Church. The theology of prosperity, for instance, just to quote an example, has inspired many religious propositions which people feel attracted to. These people, however, end up in the middle. But let´s leave out factors which are external to the Church. I wonder about ourselves, what is it that we ourselves do, what is within the Church that makes the faithful unhappy? It´s that people don´t feel we are close enough, it´s clericalism. Today , to be close means to reach out to Catholics, to seek people out and be close to them, to sympathize with their problems, with their reality. Clericalism, as I told the CELAM bishops in Río de Janeiro, stopped laypersons from maturing. Precisely, laypersons are more mature in Latin America when they express popular piety. Clericalism was always an issue for lay organizations. I spoke of it in Evangelii Gaudium.

Yes. For the populist point of view "happiness" is paramount, then he went on blaming this and that. SNAFU.

Salvation was paid dearly. Selling it with cheap tricks ain't right.

[VertOlive]

If I neglected to clarify, I consider this papacy to be calamitous. At our house we:

Keep our heads down and keep going.
Keep the Faith.
Mention it, again, to the Immaculata on this her Feast Day.

[LagNut]

Tony Rex,

I suppose where I got the "not warning to be Catholic" came first from the tone of your comments, but was cemented by the yes/maybe response.

I've lived through Popes who represented a sharp break with the church I grew up with. The entire process has crystallized, to me, what the church actually is, even if it is not as omniscient as I used to think it was.

I know my daughters feel much more at home under Francis. I could not explain some of the actions of Benedict, at all. When we approached our pastor for clarification, he assured us that I was mistaken, and my girls had understood correctly. This was the disposal of the non gold chalices and purchase of gold ones. No doubt quite in line with your beliefs, and out of line dramatically with mine.

I grew up with Vatican II. I spent my adult life watching it dismantled. So I see this papacy as a return to values I grew up with, and which I instilled in my kids.

I will keep you and VO, and your families, in my prayers. I would love it if you would do the same for me.

Mike

[Tony Rex]

Absolutely. Last Sunday I prayed especially for you Mike... Ondina, SK, VO, and for the Holy Father and his intentions, and Pope Benedict's old age, and for a Jesuit priest friend who's mourning, ... after I received the blessed Sacrament under the usual condition.

I might have used a strong language to get my point across, but I can assure I wish none of you harm. Not a single dot. Not even to the Pope who had called us names and did violence to some of us just (real Fransiscans of all people) for being faithful to the Depositum Fidei, which he was entrusted to keep, not improvised. But I was not surprised by the audacity, I grew up and educated by the Jesuits for about fifteen years or so.

Dismantled? Funny, at our "traditional" Parish the documents of the last Council are often quoted in homilies because the were read, discussed, and implemented. As opposed the "Spirit of the Vatican II" banner used by the modernists ideologues, who supplanted them with hermeneutic bulldust and hijacked just the name. They're of many factions but mainly identifiable anthropocentrist as opposed to Christocentrist; what a Christian should be. I was born after the Council, and still busy unlearning plenty of material because of that.

Well, some think LAMY 2000 is the best pen and care for nothing else, while others went head first into the vintage world and found gems..

[LagNut]

I had a Catholic education for most of my pre-university life, Christian Brothers, but no Jesuits. The grade schools closed as I was going through them.

My knowledge of what was not Vatican II comes from my oldest sisters, who were in their twenties when it came about. I was born in 1959, just before it. We have animated discussions still. One accepted, and loved the changes, the other would like to go back to the Latin mass, as just one example.

I think we are on opposite sides of this divide, but we hopefully learn much from each other, and keep each other honest in ways our respective choirs will not.

I also wish you peace in the coming years, as I have walked in your shoes for the past thirty. Not fun. But it did temper my faith in ways that would not have occurred otherwise.

I'm also not sure what will be happening next. We both have our conceptions of where this is going, but I suspect we will both be surprised.

Mike

[johnus]

Continued reading of this thread yield a flash back to the 60's when I said something about the Vatican to my then elderly grandmother who replied: "If the Pope sins, it doesn't mean that you have to follow him."
Not sure what she meant then, and still aren't sure.

[VertOlive]

I'm a Lay Dominican, educated by Dominicans in the '50's. I'm pushing 60 and have an 8 yr old boy. You bet I'm glad to be in someone's prayers, he in particular will need it!

Mike--you need a gold chalice, that's Our Lord in there!

Johnus--yes the Pope can sin and people can follow him there, that's why Jesus mentions millstones.

[LagNut]

You and yours are definitely in mine.

[LagNut]

OK, confused the carriage return and submit keys.

We'll have to differ on the chalice. I understand the sentiment, but don't agree with the conclusion.

I'm going back and forth over going down this debate. I suspect neither of us will end up with changed minds, but we might at least be clear on where we are coming from.

Though neither Benedict or Francis is likely to get their paths altered because of it.

You are absolutely in my prayers now, however. I am in awe.

Mike

[Tony Rex]

Rather than second hand smoke, how about reading the documents yourself? It's not so bad. But I agree there won't be any agreement anytime soon. The "baptised pagans" march into the Church chin up and want to change her teachings to suit them, while repentant sinners with his eyes down begging for forgiveness and was willing to change himself to what Christ has commanded. They belong in two different worlds.

I'm actually optimistic. Benedict's prediction of the Church becoming more compact and pious has begun to shape. While the fruits of the failed experiment fell away, many young saplings who long for the true undiluted faith grew strong

Regarding the chalice; I don't know about you, but we believe in the transubstantiation. Some men (many Saints included) took the humiliation of the Papal tiara and red shoes in the liturgy to give honour befits to welcome the King, the red symbolizes the blood of the Martyrs along the centuries shed for Christ, and he walks on the red puddle including his first predecessor's St Peter. For me that is a sign of humility in honoring his betters --OTOH elevating one's brown shoes to a formal banquet, and in the process becoming popular in the eyes of the world is quite the opposite of that. Those are only shoes, what about the sacred vessels? Di was spot on, in the ciborium and chalice, the Lord's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity is in there! In which no gold suffices, but at least we can try can't we?... Unless you don't believe in transubstantiation? or semi-believe or "believe" with reservations? In the "Gospel" you've mentioned a lot, a disciple was concerned about expensive perfumes poured unto the Lord's feet and so on....

Tell me. Would a fountain pen geek sign an important contract or certificate with a ballpoint? Yea that's right, because ballpoints are "practical and humble" right?

Regarding Benedict's "luxury" lifestyle vs Bergoglio's "humility": Did you know the "humble" Domus Sanctae Marthae is full on italian marble and oak of six stars luxury that cost a ton of money just for the security arrangement, while the plumbing and heating at Benedict's apostolic old "palace" were considered features? Did you know of the tens of thousands of euros spent for the conclave after party? I can go on and on here but I won't..

I am also in awe but it's unnecessary and unhelpful.