Pope To Resign

[Guest fountainhall]

In a rather extraordinary move, the Vatican has announced that the Pope will resign effective the end of this month. CNN is reporting that it may be due to failing health. There is no indication that it refers to any scandal about to break.

 

Reuters which broke the news says the Pope has announced that his strength is no longer adequate to fulfil the office of the Papacy.

 

Yet, this seems to go against Catholic tradition whereby the Pope stays in office till death. As far as I can see, it's been about 600 years since a Pope last reigned. 

[Guest thaiworthy]

One of the doomsayers' prophesies say that the next Pope is supposed to be the Anti.Christ?

[TotallyOz]

LOL Something is going on here that we don't know about. Conspiracy theories?

[Guest thaiworthy]

The successor is supposed to be more of an anti-pope.

 

There are many Catholic writers who have warned of some type of an antipope, and that he could even be the False Prophet.
 
As early as last June, this article predicted an end to the Benedict's Papacy due the failing health. It also expands on the false prophet theory.

 

The mood at the Vatican is apocalyptic. Pope Benedict XVI seems tired, and both unable and unwilling to seize the reins amid fierce infighting and scandal. While Vatican insiders jockey for power and speculate on his successor, Joseph Ratzinger has withdrawn to focus on his still-ambiguous legacy…the pope himself seems exhausted and no longer able to exert his power…

 
http://www.examiner.com/article/pope-benedict-battles-prophecies-and-an-antipope-successpr
 
I am sure there are more discussions of this in the news yet to come.

[Guest fountainhall]

Time will no doubt reveal any unstated reasons and future directions. But surely it's going to be quite interesting having two Popes alive at the same time. What will Benedict XVI do in retirement - assuming there is no major medical issue at stake here? Where will he live? If the incoming Pope is a liberal who looks like he may steer the Church in a less dogmatic direction, will the Conservative cardinals try to rally around Benedict?

 

Who knows? But clearly the choice of the next Pope is going to be of huge importance. After the austere Pius XII, there was the rotund, jovial and reforming John XXIII who convened the 2nd Vatican Council specifically to blow away a lot of the Church's accumulated cobwebs. With his death, Paul VI turned back to Conservatism, missing a unique chance to alter the teaching on birth control and seeming in his last years a haunted, uncertain figure horrified by the murder of his close friend, the Italian Prime Minster Aldo Moro.

 

John Paul I brought a genial shepherd back to the Vatican, swept into power with the hopes of the liberals. The shock when he died after less than a month in office was replaced by concern at the election of John Paul II. A Pope with youth and charisma on his side and thus likely to be in office for decades, but with the iron-fisted Cardinal Ratzinger at his side. John Paul II turned out to be far more conservative than many had hoped. And then Ratzinger took over as Benedict XVI signalling no change.

 

There will be lots of Catholics, especially in the gay community, hoping that it is now time for a more liberal Papacy with a Pope prepared to tackle the Church's traditional thinking on birth control and other pressing issues. But . . . time will tell!

[KhorTose]

The next pope will be that black cardinal from Africa, and I doubt he is the anti-Christ.  More like the anti-gay Pope.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Time will no doubt reveal any unstated reasons and future directions. But surely it's going to be quite interesting having two Popes alive at the same time. What will Benedict XVI do in retirement - assuming there is no major medical issue at stake here? Where will he live? If the incoming Pope is a liberal who looks like he may steer the Church in a less dogmatic direction, will the Conservative cardinals try to rally around Benedict?

 

Two warring Popes, if it happens, would not be good for the Catholic Church. It has enough problems already. And the devotion of many religious followers all over the world would unnecessarily be put to task. Which would you know who to trust? There can be only one Pope. They can't both be right. Maybe that is the theoretical role of this so-called anti-pope.

 

After all, you can only fool some of the Papal some of the time.

[Guest fountainhall]

If the reason Benedict has given for resigning is fact, then having a former Pope around ought not to cause controversy. At least it will not be like the Great Schism in the 14th/15th century when there were in fact two Popes. As anyone who has drunk the gorgeously heavy red wine Chateauneuf du Pape (literally "the Pope's New Castle") will know, the Popes were at one time based in Avignon in France. Even today, the bottles for the wine made under this label are embossed with the Papal crossed keys.

 

After almost 70 years, the Papacy returned to Rome. Unfortunately, the King of France did not like the newly elected Pope. So he had his own Pope elected who continued to rule from Avignon. Western Christendom was thus split for almost 40 years before a council of cardinals from both camps solved the problem. At the same time as the Pope in Avignon was deposed, the Roman Pope resigned, thus making way for the election of a single Pope who chose the name Martin V.

 

This true tale is of some interest, particularly today. For the Pope in Rome who resigned to heal the Great Schism was Gregory XII - the last Pope to resign prior to today's events.

[KhorTose]

I do not think the policies of the church will change in any respects.  I wonder what place you get in heaven for blocking women's productive rights and the rights of gay people.  If all the suffering of these two aspects of conservative religious teachings were laid on the leaders of the churches that advocate for them, what rung in hell would these leaders be consigned too? 

For you history/literary types remember were Dante put Martin I.  I suspect Martin has and will continue to have a lot of company in this place, and--in my opinion--that will include Ratzinger.

[Guest fountainhall]

I think you may mean Martin IV. Martin 1 led a pretty miserable existence, much of it in prison or exile in Constantinople and the Crimea.

I am not a Catholic. I do not believe in Heaven and Hell, nor in Purgatory's as the waiting room where you sweat it out waiting for judgement as to your final destination. But if you are going to consign Martin and Benedict to Purgatory, what about all the others who occupied that Papal office and whose sins included the entire gamut of dirty deeds from murder of opponents to ensure election, corruption on an almost unimaginable scale, the sale of Church offices, nepotism, the murder of over 1 million souls (Innocent III as a result of his Inquisition), serial adultery, bastard children, sodomy, bestiality, idolatry, sex orgies . . . and so on.

Urban VI was a psycopath with a gratuitously violent nature who used to complain when his enemies did not scream loudly enough under torture. A later Urban, XIII this time, declared Galileo a heretic and imprisoned him for claiming the world was round. It took 350 years for the decree to be lifted when his successors finally acknowledged that Galileo was correct and had committed no sin.

By banning women from participation in Church services, the practice of castration was actively encouraged. For 3 centuries some 4,000 young boys each year were castrated, mostly from very poor families, in the vain hope they might become one of the very few who 'made' it as singers in the Sistine Chapel Choir. This sad, barbaric practice was only stopped by Pius X in 1903.

But let's face it. Such sins were hardly the preserve of the Catholic Church and its leaders. Look at most of the monarchs and tribal leaders throughout history and you almost inevitably find a mirror image.

What I believe is more worthy of discussion are the huge problems facing the Church and mankind in general.

The new Pope already has an overflowing in-tray. Whoever he is, he will have to get a very fast grip on several key issues – contraception and HIV-AIDS, sexual abuse within the Church, homosexuality and same-sex marriage, abortion, women’s rights and a woman’s place in the Church. I suspect many within the Church are somewhat fearful of another arch-conservative like the previous two Popes.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Retirement age for priests is now 75. Parishes close up shop because there either not enough parishioners, priests or both. Women already serve Holy Communion and I can't believe female priesthood is that far behind. Considering the sordid history FH just described, I may have excommunicate myself! Do they even do that anymore, like Archbishop Thomas Becket did to a naughty priest? One of the most grievous acts in Papal History is the Reichskonkordat of Pope Pius XII with Hitler prior to WWII. That treaty is still in force today!

 

There may be many purgatories. I was raised Catholic. The ones I am familiar with was the place babies went to who died with Original Sin. That is, before Baptism. That is why Catholic parents want to get that done right away. The nuns taught us that the indentation above our nose is where God's finger pushed us away due to the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. What a heavy burden to bear for all those thousands of years. I seem to remember another purgatory for people who committed venial sin. Mortal sins sent you to Motel Hell, and that awful place always has a vacancy sign out front. Unless something drastic happens, which is doubtful anytime soon, the sign still hangs that says "Gays Welcome."

[Guest fountainhall]

Original Sin is another bit of doctrine that I not only fail to understand but find quite loathsome. Why should I have been born in sin? We can elect to become sinners during our lives, but for all babies to be tarnished with the stain of guilt is pretty far-fetched in my book, whatever shenanigans Adam and Eve may have got up to, assuming they actually existed!
 
Talking of that Reichskonkordat, in a much earlier thread I praised John Cornwell's wonderfully written book "Hitler's Pope" about said Pius XII. This was written in 1999 after Cornwell had been given extensive access to secret Vatican papers. A number of posters claimed the book was flawed and some of its findings had been withdrawn later by Cornwell himself.
 
Now a new book is about to be published titled "The Pope's Jews" by the Protestant author Gordon Thomas. This puts forward the alternative and highly plausible theory that Pius XII did in fact a great deal to save many Jews from concentration camps. Thomas tracked down quite a number of victims, priests and others who had not told their stories before. He tells of 2,000 Hungarian Jews being given fabricated Vatican documents, and of 4,000 Jews being hidden in Catholic convents and monasteries across Italy.

During and immediately after the war, Pius XII was even considered a Jewish saviour. Jewish leaders – such as Jerusalem's chief rabbi in 1944 – said the people of Israel would never forget what he and his delegates "are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters at the most tragic hour". Jewish newspapers in Britain and America echoed that praise, and Hitler branded him "a Jew lover".

Pius’ reputation went on a downward spiral, though, in the 1960s following a play by Rolf Hochhuth titled “The Deputy”. The publication of “Hitler’s Pope” added to that unpopularity. Will the new book restore Pius’ reputation? It seems unlikely. When the present Pope moved Pius closer towards sainthood in 2009, it attracted criticism from a former Chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Inter-Religious Consultations and from the President of the Association of Italian Rabbis. The latter called it a sad decision because “this pope did not shout out loud his outrage and his opposition to the Shoah and against the extermination of people whose only crime was that of being Jewish.”
 
The Konkordat may have been signed in the reign of Pius XI but it was as the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli, that the future Pius XII negotiated all the terms of the deal. Prior to its signing, Hitler had actually declared - 
 

We should trap the priests by their notorious greed and self-indulgence. We shall thus be able to settle everything with them in perfect peace and harmony. I shall give them a few years reprieve. Why should we quarrel? They will swallow anything in order to keep their material advantages. Matters will never come to a head. They will recognise a firm will, and we need only show them once or twice who is the master. They will know which way the wind blows

 
And so Pacelli got his agreement, despite doubts that the German government as a whole would keeps its part of the bargain. Even so, he added his view that Hitler "was becoming increasingly moderate."
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/09/hitlers-pope-pius-xii-holocaust
http://sdjewishworld.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/possible-elevation-of-pope-pius-xii-to-sainthood-stirs-jewish-controversy/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat

 

“The Pope’s Jews” by Gordon Thomas published in the UK on 7 March by The Robson Press

[KhorTose]

I think you may mean Martin IV. Martin 1 led a pretty miserable existence, much of it in prison or exile in Constantinople and the Crimea.

 

 

My mind is going.  I actually meant Pope Boniface VIII, who was responsible for Dante's exile and not yet dead when the inferno was written.  Dante is at first welcomed to the eight circle by another Pope who thinks he is Boniface come early.  I remember the similarities between Boniface VIII and Ratzinger in that they both felt that the Pope was the highest power in the land and opposed secuiar rule.  Among others acts, Boniface was the Pope who used the king of France to defeat the White Guelphs in Forence who opposed the Pope's influence in Italy.  Dante was such a white Guelph.  I am not really after the bad Popes, but the religious leaders like the present Pope who continue to block gay rights and women's productive rights.  This is the 21st century and these leaders are ignoring science and knowledge their predecessors did not have, nor do they seem to understand the doctrine of Jesus Christ, the man they profess to follow;.

[Guest thaiworthy]

We Have A Pope (Habemus Papam)

 

 

A comic and fictional exploration of the emotional struggles of a newly-elected pope coming to terms with the demands of his position.

 

 

We Have a Pope is a 2011 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Nanni Moretti. Its original title is Habemus Papam, the Latin phrase used upon the announcement of a new pope. The film stars Michel Piccoli as a cardinal who, against his wishes, is elected pope. Moretti co-stars as a psychiatrist who is called in to help the pope overcome his panic. The film premiered in Italy in April 2011 and played in competition at the 64th Cannes Film Festival.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Have_a_Pope_(film)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN012iRmZIA

 

This movie is available to rent on iTunes.

[Guest fountainhall]

A Quick Papal Quiz

This Pope died and was interred. Some months afterwards, his rotting corpse was exhumed, dressed in full papal robes and seated on a throne. He was tried, denounced, screamed at and found guilty of being unworthy of the papacy. All his Papal acts were decreed invalid and his corpse was buried in a common grave. Eventually it was exhumed again and thrown into the river Tiber in Rome. It was retrieved by a monk before being re-interred alongside other Popes.

There is a connection between this Pope and the island of Taiwan. What is the connection?

 

(It's easier than you think!)

[Bob]

Talk about strange!  I actually don't recall hearing about that (Pope F) and found it doing a little googling.  According to one website, the same pope was disinterred a second time and found guilty again at a second trial (and beheaded after that one).  Can't a dead guy get some decent sleep?

 

I presume the relationship with Taiwan is simply the name itself?

[KhorTose]

We Have A Pope (Habemus Papam)

 

 

 

This movie is available to rent on iTunes.

To heck with ITunes.  To use that I have to have an inferior product.    However, I found the movie on youtube and watched the entire movie on my TV via HDMI.  Thank you TW for the info, I did enjoy this movie, but wanted a different ending.  In fact, I would like a different ending in the real life selection of the Pope also.

 

PS to Bob.  You need more current history.  Try looking up the name of Taiwan before it was commonly known as Taiwan.

[Guest fountainhall]

KhorTose has got it!

[Bob]

PS to Bob.  You need more current history.  Try looking up the name of Taiwan before it was commonly known as Taiwan.

 

Geez, do I have to spell it out for you?  I'd have "thunk" you might have figured I knew that from the "Pope F" reference I made (let alone the references to them digging the bastard up and trying him two times!).

[Guest]

This Pope died and was interred. Some months afterwards, his rotting corpse was exhumed, dressed in full papal robes and seated on a throne. He was tried, denounced, screamed at and found guilty of being unworthy of the papacy. All his Papal acts were decreed invalid and his corpse was buried in a common grave. Eventually it was exhumed again and thrown into the river Tiber in Rome.

Now that's the kind of organisation that provides moral guidance for over a billion people.

[Guest fountainhall]

Ok, both Bob and KhorTose worked it out!!

The connection is the word “Formosa”. The Pope was Pope Formosius who reigned from 891 – 896. Formosius is generally translated as “beautiful”. Taiwan has occasionally been called Formosa – meaning “beautiful island”. It was first given this name by Portuguese explorers in 1544.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Formosa is also a delicious drink! Don't you think they get tired of drinking altar wine?  

 

Formosa

• • Course: Beverage
• • Features: Fast

Summary:

This is a refreshing variation on the classic Port Tonic cocktail. The low-alcohol sparkling sake (at 7 percent, about half the alcohol level of wine), with its crisp, dry taste and earthy, champagnelike aroma, balances the sweet white port. Jason Wilson recommends using Moon Rabbit sparkling sake for the mix.

 

1 serving

Ingredients:

• • Crushed ice
• • 2 ounces white port, such as Taylor, Dow's, Ferreira or Sandeman brand
• • 2 ounces sparkling sake, such as Moon Rabbit brand
• • Twist of orange peel, for garnish

Directions:

Fill an old-fashioned glass with crushed ice. Add the white port and sparkling sake. Squeeze the twist of orange peel over the drink (to release its natural oils), then drop it in.

 

Recipe Source:

From Derek Brown, general manager and sommelier at Komi in Dupont Circle.

173 calories, 0g fat, 0g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 4mg sodium, 11g carbohydrates, 0g dietary fiber, n/a sugar, 0g protein.

[Guest fountainhall]

Something tells me he was not around in 1544! 

[Guest fountainhall]

Thoughts inspired by the journalist who got the scoop on the Pope's resignation speech - only because she knew Latin.

 

Who does speak Latin these days? Clearly the journalist and the Pope still do. Heck, he even tweets in Latin. That profound intellectual Dan Quayle wished he had learned it, saying about his tour of South America, “the only regret I have was that I didn’t study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people.”

Unlike Dan Quayle but like many in my generation, I had to learn it in school. Apart from a few phrases like vice versa, status quo, verbatim, et cetera, terra firma, persona non grata, quid pro quo, QED and Et tu, Brute, I’ve forgotten it all. Lawyers, I suppose, have to have a few more phrases under their wigs since the law, at least in the UK, talks about habeas corpus, subpoenas, ad hominem and a posteriori – although those last two sound much too similar to what one might find in explicit gay novels than august, austere courtrooms. As to what they mean, I haven’t the faintest idea! "Up Yours" and "Bend Over"? Perhaps not!

And isn’t that the problem? Latin was clearly the language of early Christianity. Yet, why? Sure, Judea was a Roman Province. Peter ended up in Rome and established the Church there. Yet Paul spreading the word of God during his wanderings spoke Greek. The New Testament was written in Greek. And soon after the Emperor Constantine established the new Rome in Byzantium, a time when Europe was coming under the rule of The Barbarians in the Dark Ages, Greek was the official language of both its citizens and that branch of the Church. As part of the Byzantine Empire, in Jerusalem and the Holy Land they all spoke Greek!

So, why Latin? Why not Greek or the new languages that were replacing Latin as its Empire crumbled? Indeed, why was Latin the language spoken in every single Catholic Church until around the mid-1960s, a language few ordinary folks had had any grasp of for almost a millennium and a half?

There must be a multitude of reasons, I suppose. One surely is that it was the best way of keeping souls in the Church. If you preached sermons that no-one could understand, if you spread the word in the vernacular about heaven, purgatory, rotting in hell, eternal damnation et al (oops, another shortened Latin phrase!), it’s a pretty powerful way of keeping folks toeing the party line. If you spread the word that the masses have to expiate that sin they were all born with and do good all their lives to ensure they get to knock on the pearly gates after shuffling off the misery of life on earth, ignorance becomes a pretty powerful tool of oppression.

So, is it just a mere co-incidence that many traditional Church teachings have come under the microscope and in some cases found wanting - only since Latin was dispensed with? Yet, whereas its followers have become much more vocal, in some respects the Vatican seems now even more secretive.

Whilst Latin may be in its death throes, it is not yet ready for burial. And who have we to thank for that? None other than the billionaire J.K. Rowling. For is not the motto of Hogwarts School, “Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus”? I have no idea if that is good Latin or just a bit of a joke. (Come to think of it, titillandus" also appears more a candidate for that explicit gay novel)! Might its translation, though - “Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon” - be just possibly an appropriate metaphor for a Church awakening to the realities of 21st century life on earth.

As a postscript. I did not want to focus all the discussion on the Catholic Church. The more extreme forms of Luther’s Reformed Church with such zealots as Calvin, Erasmus and John Knox breathing fire and brimstone must have scared the hell out of its adherents. And if use of Latin was indeed a way of controlling the masses, is there much difference between that and the failed ideology of communism?

[Guest thaiworthy]

I love a Latin Mass! The traditional Catholic mass was one in which I served as an altar boy. I think the language is beautiful, and while I am not really a practicing Catholic, i do pray a lot! The responses in Latin during the ceremony helped keep me engaged, contrary to the philosophy of the time which meant that people could better understand the meaning of the words if they were spoken in English. However, to this day I still find a Latin Mass most comforting. And I really think that is what religion is all about-- the ultimate comfort. The belief that someone else can accept the responsibility of the world, and even your own actions just by embracing the belief system that is offered. I think the system is corrupt and reprehensible, but at its core is Christianity, which in my opinion is just the Golden Rule. I actually like Buddhism much better, but I wasn't raised with that.

 

It's all about comfort. And that's about all it is, unfortunately.

 

It is this thread which prompted a change to my signature, which states: Your beliefs don't make you a better person, you behavior does. The prisons are filled with people who have their noses stuck in the creases of the Bible. They are born-again Christians. Yeah, whatever.