Pope To Resign

[Rogie]

Another Francis, Francis Bacon, had a thing with Popes

 

 

 

 

"Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X is a 1953 painting by the Irish artist Francis Bacon. The work shows a distorted version of the Portrait of Innocent X painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez in 1650. The work is one of a series of variants of the Velázquez painting which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, a total of over 45 works. The picture was described by Gilles Deleuze as an example of creative re-interpretation of the classical.

 

When asked why he was compelled to revisit the subject so often, Bacon replied that he had nothing against the Popes, that he merely sought "an excuse to use these colours, and you can't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false fauve manner."

 

In Bacon's version of Velázquez's masterpiece, the Pope is shown screaming yet his voice is "silenced" by the enclosing drapes and dark rich colors. The dark colors of the background lend a grotesque and nightmarish tone to the painting. The pleated curtains of the backdrop are rendered transparent and appear to fall through the representation of the Pope's face."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_after_Vel%C3%A1zquez%27s_Portrait_of_Pope_Innocent_X

[Guest fountainhall]

Allegedly a new member of Grindr 

 

[Guest scottishguy]

Looks a bit like the late Terry of My Life bar in BT.

 

[KhorTose]

Since we are talking about Stephen Fry today, I thought I would post this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ryw6kUDKPX4

[Guest fountainhall]

Thank you for posting that link, KhorTose. I have just watched the full 20 minutes of Stephen Fry’s argument. What a wonderful, wonderfully passionate speech, delivered without a teleprompter and only a handful of references to notes! I like the fact that he starts by saying he has no quarrel with individual Catholics nor to the comfort and the joy they receive in their faith. It would be impertinent and wrong to express any antagonism towards any individual who wishes to find salvation in any form they wish to express it, he says; adding, “that to me is sacrosanct.”

But he is utterly scathing about the Catholic Church as an institution. It’s all very well to say . . . the world had no knowledge of how dangerous a crime child abuse was, a crime which he later states clearly was not abuse - but child rape. He reads some of the words of the last Pope in 2003. He wrote a letter to Catholic bishops ordering them on pain of excommunication not to talk to the police or anyone else. “Investigations should be handled in the most secretive way, restrained by perpetual silence.”

With regard to homosexuality, he says, “It’s a little hard for me to be told (by Pope Benedict) that I am guilty of a moral evil for simply fulfilling my sexual destiny as I see it.”

He talks about himself as one who is filled with love, as someone who feels so much love for this world . . . and realises that in order to achieve and receive love it’s a struggle. “It’s not one that needs a Pope to tell you how to do it. It certainly isn’t one which needs a Pope to tell you are evil.

“With 6% of all teenage suicides being gay teenage suicides, we certainly don't need the stigmatization, the victimization that leads to the playground bullying when people say you are 'a disordered, morally evil individual’.”

Talking about the pain and suffering he sees in the charity work he does in Uganda and his utter despair at visiting AIDS patients who were condemned through the Church’s ban on condom use, he says -

“The strange thing about this Church is that it is obsessed with sex – absolutely obsessed.” He then makes a comparison between the desire for food and sex, about how both are exciting, natural and fun, but -

“The only people who are obsessed with food are the anorexic and the morbidly obese – and that in erotic terms is the Catholic Church in a nutshell.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=6L1xvdZMC10
 
I am now going to watch the full debate, also on You Tube.

[Guest fountainhall]

Having now seen the whole debate "The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in the World" and witnessed rapier-like arguments against the wishwash spewed by an Archbishop and a Catholic Convert, the result was no surprise. Prior to the debate the poll of the audience showed -

For: 678

Against: 1102

Undecided: 346

 

After, the numbers were 

For: 268

Against: 1876

Undecided: 34

 

A whopping majority not only against but many of that majority swayed by the arguments.

[NIrishGuy]

Damn, I was SO disappointed on reading the headline "Pope to resign" to realise that this was an old thread and so related to the last guy, oh well, hope springs eternal that maybe this guy will go soon too and the Catholic Church ( or God if ones to believe the hype re the appointment process :-) will put someone in the job who can actually maybe make a positive difference to the world - but I'll not hold my breath on that one just yet I fear :-(