Posted on 08/10/2017 9:38:46 PM PDT by marshmallow
One shouldn’t speak of a “cult of personality” when describing the papal devotional items that are offered to the hordes of pilgrims and tourists round about Saint Peter’s in Rome: postcards and calendars, coffee cups and silk cloths, plates and plastic gadgets of every kind, always with the picture of the currently happily reigning Holy Father—and next to them also those of Popes John Paul II, John XXIII, and even Paul VI. There is only one pope you will not find in any of the souvenir shops—and I mean not any, as if there were a conspiracy here. To dig up a postcard with the picture of Benedict XVI requires the tenacity of a private detective. Imperial Rome knew the institution of damnatio memoriae: the extinction of the memory of condemned enemies of the state. Thus, Emperor Caracalla had the name of his brother Geta—after he had killed him—chiseled out of the inscription on the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus. It seems as if the dealers in devotional goods and probably also their customers (for the trade in rosaries also obeys the market laws of supply and demand) had jointly imposed such an ancient Roman damnatio memoriae on the predecessor of the current pope.
It is as if, on this trivial level, should be accomplished that which Benedict himself could not resolve to do after his resignation (disturbing to so many people, profoundly inexplicable and still unexplained)—namely, to become invisible, to enter into an unbroken silence. Those especially who accompanied the pontificate of Benedict XVI with love and hope could not get over the fact that it was this very pope who, with this dramatic step, called into question his great work of reform for the Church. Future generations may be able without anger and enthusiasm to speak about this......
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
Benedict XVI’s writings are truly inspirational and reveal a deep spirituality and love for Christ and His Church.
As bad as Bergoglio is now, I think he will go absolutely hog wild apesh¡t as soon as Benedict is gone.
This is a long, complex but beautifully written article that raises a number of good questions about the “liturgical reform.” And the author is right: things are bad now and have been since VII, and while BXVI proved incapable of defeating the forces of evil and in fact fled, imagine if Bergoglio had been elected right after JPII. We wouldn’t have had the one thing BXVI managed to do, which was give universal permission for the Old Mass. While that too looks like it’s not going to last, at least young people and priests got to experience it for awhile, and I think this shaped many of them who are now standing up to Bergoglio.
On another note, while I too sometimes feel angry at BXVI for abandoning us, I felt very sad when I read that there is not a single representation of him to be found anywhere in the souvenir shops of Rome. It’s as if his years didn’t exist, and their memory is being wiped out by simply making him disappear because they obviously might raise questions about the New Church of Bergoglio.
Vatican II did bring about a “new (false) Pentecost” because it also promulgated a new (false) religion.
And yet Benedict has done nothing to stop Bergoglio.
There’s nothing he can do. But I think he restrains Bergoglio just by being alive.
Bergoglio will try to stamp out the TLM, but will not move until Benedict is dead.
Bergoglio is not a lefty Catholic. He’s an atheist who hates the Church, the West, and freedom.
I'm not buying that.
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