Papal gaffes.

soup du jour 

Art: Michael Sowa

So many Catholics online seem to be embarrassed by their Pope when he gives interviews ...

Some say he speaks beneath the dignity of his office.  Others insist his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI would never speak the way Pope Francis does.  Many of these critics just don't like Francis - and that's fine - no one has to like the man.

That said, Catholics seem to have short memories.  Every predecessor of Pope Francis made their own spectacular gaffes and received severe criticism from faithful Catholics - be they progressive, dissenting, or the inflexibly obedient.  As I said in the com box to another commenter:

Actually dear Pope Benedict XVI had a reputation for gaffes - he made a couple of statements on the use of condoms - in Africa, as well as by male prostitutes, which media and faithful Catholics pretty much attacked. Likewise his famous Regensburg lecture on Islam caused quite a stir throughout the world. Even the current Pope Francis was critical. Benedict's appointments were very often criticized, as was the lifting of the excommunication of SSPX Bishop Williamson. Some people still view the Pope's resignation as either appropriate for a failed papacy, or a huge mistake and a running away from the wolves. 

St. John Paul II was even more sharply criticized and accused of gaffes by liberals and conservatives - depending on the 'offense' - especially when he kissed the Koran, as well as his participation in the Assisi gatherings. One can't forget the bare-breasted women communicants in New Guinea, not to mention the liturgical abuse ridden World Youth Day gatherings. 

Of course it would fill a week's worth of com box entries to enumerate the many horrible gaffes traditionalists and secular media attributed to Bl. Paul VI - the real PPVI, not the impostor.

Pope Francis is simply the soup du jour among Catholic politicos, pundits and bloggers - who find him intolerable, not excluding the traditional enemies of the Church in secular media of course - they know how to pit everyone against one another.

What?

The Papacy That Was.

I've been researching some historical details for a painting, a search which takes me through many websites and books in my personal library.  I was specifically looking through some books on Pope Pius XII to find a photo of him as a seminarian, and came across my copy of Sr. Marchione's Pictorial Life of Pius XII.  

I distracted myself with all the photos of Papal grandeur, now nearly completely absent from Papal ceremonies.  As everyone knows, since Vatican II, very much has changed - and since the election of Pope Francis - it is changed for good.  Popes are no longer 'prisoners' in the Vatican, slaves to courtly custom and ceremonial tradition, and so on.

I have a personal devotion to Pius XII, yet looking through the photos, one cannot help but notice that everything in the Papal court was very stiff and formal, if not forbidding.  Even during the papacy of Paul VI, royal protocol remained intact - there was a definite distance enforced between the Holy Father and ordinary people.  Pope John Paul II helped to change all of that in and through his travels, World Youth Day, the Wednesday audience, and so on.  Pope Benedict continued in that vein as well.  His taste for traditional vestments and liturgical decorum never seemed to me to present a distancing of his person from personnel or visitors, diplomats or pilgrims.  I never felt Pope Benedict intended a return to courtly protocol or royal decorum.  It seems to me this was demonstrated by his rejection of the papal triregnum as well as the sedia gestatoria, not to mention his fidelity to the celebration of Mass in the Ordinary Form.

Nevertheless, Pope Francis, in a very short time, seems to have finally extricated the papacy from the royal trappings which enveloped the Petrine Office.

I can't imagine going back.

(I found the photo of Pius XII I was looking for, BTW.)