Posted on 08/30/2013 10:39:56 PM PDT by bimboeruption
As head of state at the Vatican, not to mention the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, protocol requires visitors to bow to him when they meet him at the Holy See.
But Francis, who has made the forgetting of formalities a trademark of his papacy, bowed when he met a smiling Rania as she visited the Vatican with her husband King Abdullah II on Thursday.
"Up until the 19th century visitors would kiss the pope's shoes, and the tradition is still that all visitors, women included, bow to him, but Francis behaves as he did before he became pope and is not interested in protocol," a senior Vatican official told The Daily Telegraph.
It is not the first time the Pope has eschewed formality when receiving visitors.
When Cristina Kirchner, Argentina's president, met him in March, a day before his formal inauguration, he gave her a kiss after she presented him with a gourd for mate, the traditional Argentine tea.
"Never in my life has a Pope kissed me!", Mrs Kirchner said afterwards.
When she met the pope in July, Brazilian's first female president, Dilma Rousseff took the initiative, kissing Francis on both cheeks.
Francis' bow was just the latest in a series of signs the pope has no time for ceremony.
On Wednesday he showed up in central Rome for a religious ceremony in an unmarked Ford, without the papal flag or number plate, driven by a Vatican gendarme.
He then entered the church carrying his folded mitre tucked under one arm. The incident recalled his carrying a personal briefcase up the steps to the plane on which he flew to Brazil in July.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
So all Popes do this, this is just another goofy media tale?
and to be clear, it’s not slamming the pope for being humble. it’s this whole crap deal of bowing to these muslim pieces of trash that would soon round us all up and either force convert us or behead us, if they could - as they do in the countries where they do this.
Yes, Christ was humble, but did he bow to unbelievers?
Obama thinks he’s the pope, and the pope thinks he’s Obama.
yes but you know exactly how this plays in the muslim world. they give two craps about what Christ did or didn’t do. they see a leader of another religion bowing to muslims.
Well said and very much on the mark.
not to the pharisees, not to pontius pilate.
Yeah, I just don’t see taking a subservient posture before someone who wants to do harm to me and everyone who believes as I do.
I’m beginning to question his fitness for the job. I’m a Baptist who respects Catholicism (the kind that still has the b@ll$ to be true to the faith). But the new Pope seems more are more to be deviating from the true church.
Yeah, I remember John Paul at times bowing in respect to others. I don’t know about this story being an issue.
I don’t know about who Christ did and did not bow to. Do you have some video to back this up?
God in many cases used the worst people on earth to at times achieve stuff to His end. Christ even bothered to help prostitutes against judgment, so it seems to me he might have greeted people the same way others did in His time.
Thinking about it logically, I do thing Christ could have bowed to unbelievers since he was trying to hang with them all to bring them home to Dad later. I mean you get farther with some sugar than you do sour fruit.
You see a man civilized enough to show a sign of respect to others. You do not see him cut off heads and scream god is great.
I mean the end result seems OK to me.
You should give us the examples of the Popes bowing to Islam’s Queens so that we can challenge this article.
Popes wave all the time at people. What makes you think that they have not ever greeted any leaders in typical ways?
I mean the Pope just isn’t going to stick his tongue out at these people and spray them with port, sorry.
Why would the son of God touch lepers? Or wash the feet of his followers? How much do you know about Christianity?
Pork, not port...
I am typing poorly tonight.
Wow, you really crumbled there, suddenly you went from asking about video of Christ in post 32, and pretending that this was routine for Popes, to raving about waving, Popes sticking their tongues out, and spraying people with port.
If you were just making things up, why bother?
i don’t know. i just don’t like this “trend” of non-muslim leaders bowing to muslim leaders. rubs me wrong. don’t care how “nice” they are, don’t care about “respect”, don’t care about any rationalization tossed out to explain it away. they don’t read that behavior the same as we do in the west, and WE ALL KNOW IT, so we shouldn’t do it because we know how they WILL view it, and how it will embolden them to do more jihad against the rest of the world.
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