What will he wear?
That was my first question after he offered his resignation.
As most people now know, he will still wear white, a white cassock without the mozzetta/cape. I don't like white. I'm always afraid a modern pope will adopt the clerical suit - in white - and then look like some Southern Baptist preacher. God forbid. Anyway, I wish he'd gone back to black - or at least, "gone to purple, by now". I would have.
He won't be wearing red shoes any longer either. I've always like the red shoes. I suppose the red hats and red cappas have to go too.
Elijah and the Pope.
I'm painting another Carmelite icon, it will be the fifth Elijah icon I've done, this time slightly different. Pondering the great Prophet, I was considering his 'assumption' - when he left Elisha, taken up into heaven by a fiery chariot, in a whirlwind as it were, letting fall his mantle to his successor. I likened that image to Our Holy Father's departure to Castel Gandolfo by helicopter, which will take place this Thursday evening.
Thus, the Holy Father will ascend, leaving his mozzetta to his successor.
The modern Pope outfit
I fear.
In very hot and humid countries some priests and bishops have the option to wear white.
ReplyDeleteI don't like it, personally. Ugh.
See, I don't either. The Trappist tunic is white and I hated it. I'm not big on habits anyway - for me - I better add that.
ReplyDeleteOne blogger had a photo of a Dominican crossing the street in Rome in bright sunshine, you could see through the habit.
The old habits were wool and not transparent.
Like I said, I could never be a priest because I don't like the clothes.
I especially hate short sleeved clerical shirts of any color.
Agreed.
DeleteI think it's a cute tradition that popes have adopted Dominican white, but I'm not sure it sends the best signal.
My favorite clerical look? Grey clerical shirt and a cardigan. Yup.
(I also greatly respect Sean Cardinal O'Malley for keeping thew Capuchin habit.)
Me too - I like it that he wears his habit. If he became pope he could change the color to brown.
ReplyDeleteI like white but I don't think a former pope should wear it.
ReplyDeleteI'll be honest, I'm a bit surprised by all of this. Not just by the white, but by all of these "decisions". Here we have the outgoing Pope "deciding" that he will continue to live in the Vatican, will continue to dress papally, will continue to be styled "Your Holiness", will continue to be called "Benedict XVI", and that he will bear the title of "Pope Emeritus".
The problem is, none of it makes any sense at all. All of these decisions are the prerogatives of his successor and all of these perquisites are in his successor's gift. No pope can bind his successor by any decree he might make.
As soon as Benedict's successor is elected, Benedict will be under obedience to him, and suddenly all of these arrangements will become legally untenable. The new pope will be under no obligation to recognize any of Benedict's decisions as legitimate and will be fully entitled to command him to drop the white cassock and all the pontifical perquisites, and to tell him to go home.
It's kind of like a President issuing an executive order before he leaves office that he will continue to live on the White House grounds until he dies, or of an abdicating monarch issuing Letters Patent granting himself the style "Your Majesty" for life. What the pope is doing is no less invalid than either of those two scenarios.
So, with all due respect to the Holy Father, I'm baffled as to why he imagines that it is in any way appropriate for him take these actions. All of these matters are matters for the next pope to decide.
Would Pope retiring and becoming a greeter at Walmart would meet with your approval?
DeleteFor a multitude of reasons, Pope Benedict should stay in the Vatican and be given due respect for his continuing self-sacrificing service for the Bride of Christ.
@James: I don't have a dog in this fight at all, but I'd like to suggest the probability that the Pope didn't unilaterally make any of these decisions on his own. Probably an entire batallion of canon lawyers,etc were consulted about these matters.
ReplyDelete@James, Do you feel the same about other bishops emeriti? They tend to live in the diocese they ran until their resignation was accepted. Don't you think that in addition to T's battalion of canon lawyers, the Holy Spirit has weighed in on the issues?
ReplyDeleteBenedict would pose a security risk if he lived elsewhere; we need him safe. I think it would be more confusing if he was going to be Bishop Emeritus of Rome, a title he doens't plan to use; I don't think that the new guy, whoever he may be, can tell him not to call himself Pontifex Emeritus because it's a fact. He was pope. He retired. Nor do I believe that a retired cleric loses his right to wear whatever was appropriate to the office from which he retired.
T:
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that's true but it doesn't change the invalidity of decrees that negate themselves once the authority that issued them vanishes, since those decrees are decreed not to take effect until the very moment that the authority issuing them no longer exists.
These decisions are more like hopes than binding acts, therefore, since they are anticipated but cannot come into being because the authority that anticipated them vanishes the instant before they become effective. They're entirely meaningless, therefore.
They aren't like papal decrees issued in the present for the present time. For instance, the Pope could decree right now if he wanted to that cardinals have to wear cobalt blue instead of scarlet, and it would be a valid law. It would have effect from now until some future pontiff decided that the decree was daft and changed it. That's one thing.
But to decree what will happen beginning the moment after you are no longer in power is another thing. It doesn't work that way. That's an impossibility.
Canon Law offers no solution to impossibility or illogicality, I'm afraid.
Like I said, I have no dog in the fight, which means, I don't care.
ReplyDeleteThis has absoutely no impact on my life and I have no opinion on the subject.
Nan:
ReplyDeleteThe title of "emeritus" is either an informal designation used conventionally or it is a formal one bestowed upon a former incumbent by a succeeding one; it isn't bestowed by an outgoing incumbent upon himself before he leaves office, so no, I have no problem with other bishops emeritus, or with rectors emeritus, or with presidents of universities emeritus, or with any other types of emeriti.
There would be no problem with "Pope Emeritus" as a formal title, either, if the next pope elected to bestow that title upon him. And I imagine the next pope will confirm the title. But he'll have to confirm it, in order for it to have any authenticity as a formal title. Until then, it really won't have any.
I'm also not suggesting that it is improper for Pope Benedict to remain at the Vatican during the next pontificate, only that it's improper for the outgoing pope to decide for his successor that his successor will allow him to remain there. All these decisions belong to Benedict's successor, not to Benedict, himself.
Mind you, I begrudge him none of these things. Not one. I only mean to point out the invalidity of it all.
Oh, and Terry? When you were talking about white, I was thinking about Colonel Sanders.
ReplyDeleteWhat?