Pope visit merchandise includes 'metal' T-shirt and baseball cap [it's official merchandise!]
Posted on 09/17/2010 6:53:06 AM PDT by marshmallow
Fame and fortune do not bring happiness, the Pope told thousands of schoolchildren in a warning about Britain’s celebrity culture.
The Pope said he hoped there were “future saints of the 21st century” among the audience at an event celebrating Roman Catholic education in Twickenham.
He encouraged them to develop skills and admitted that money is useful, but told the pupils that pursuing worldly success alone would not give meaning to their lives.
The pontiff, speaking on the second day of his historic state visit to Britain, also said to the schoolchildren that they should not “narrow” their education to exclude ethics, while acknowledging that religion too must not ignore science.
Benedict arrived at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, after 10am, having spent his first night in England at the Wimbledon residence of his ambassador, the Nuncio.
Dozens of well-wishers lined the narrow suburban street along with protestors, mainly individuals rather than official groups, bearing placards criticising the Vatican’s stance on homosexuality and its attitude to the clergy abuse scandal.
In the courtyard his motorcade was met by dozens of children in school uniform, all of whom had been searched by police officers, who waved flags and cheered. The Pope raised his arms to greet them, kissing one boy who was held aloft, and was introduced to dignitaries including Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, and Vince Cable, the Business Secretary and local MP.
After speaking to guests in the Catholic college’s chapel Benedict travelled by Popemobile around a running track where 4,000 children from church schools around the country along with religious groups and politicians were waiting for him, in what was billed as the world’s biggest school assembly.
At an event compered by the Blue Peter presenter, Andy Akinwolere, two choirs on a stage sang hymns including a verse of...........
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Pope visit merchandise includes 'metal' T-shirt and baseball cap [it's official merchandise!]
What’s more long-term famous in the Western world than being the Pope? Tell me one other line of succession that’s recorded back by name almost 2,000 years.
Although he admitted he was a big Lady Gaga fan...
/s
Who’s going to warn the children about the pope....
How dare that hideous, horrible man tell children ... CHILDREN!!! ... to seek God?
“He encouraged them to develop skills and admitted that money is useful, but told the pupils that pursuing worldly success alone would not give meaning to their lives.”
Yes, money is useful. One never knows when the next scandal will float to the surface and having a few billion of other peoples money to spend will help it sink out of sight for a while.
I think the objections were in not practicing what he preaches. Selling celebrity pope plates and tee shirts while condeming celebrity worship is just a tad hyprocrital.
I think the objections were in him being Pope ... and therefore by definition evil, and wrong in every instance on every topic.
mine weren’t.
Boy, how about a sarcasm tag? You startled the tar out of me.
“Selling celebrity pope plates and tee shirts while condeming celebrity worship is just a tad hyprocrital.”
Not at all. Not even a little. Not the slightest scintilla or iota.
After reading note 1, I started to write a reply to the effect that people don’t seem to understand what hypocrisy is any more. Your next note made me think that even people who do seem to know what it is will often reach to any extreme in an attempt to infer it where it doesn’t exist. After all, any old stick is good enough to beat the Pope with.
To make your argument you had first to call these souvenirs “celebrity” items, which is as arbitrary as it is unreasonable.
The word “celebrity,” as we are using it here, does not mean “any person who is well known.” It means “people who are well known for trivial or meaningless pursuits, or for nothing more than being well known. “Famous for being famous,” like Paris Hilton.
Mother Theresa is quite well known, but she was never a celebrity. Or, for the more whacked-out among us, consider Ghandi. It would be an insult to denigrate him as a mere celebrity. I’m sure the leftards would be outraged if one said of Kamarade FDRsky that he was only a celebrity.
Far less even than these people is the Holy Father “famous for being famous.” His duties are hardly trivial or meaningless, nor were the duties whose successful execution brought him to the Throne of Saint Peter.
It is hypocritical in no regard for a man well known for his involvement in weighty, solemn matters to criticize air-headed twerps for lionizing celebrities known only for their success at sports, trivial entertainment, and sexual depravity.
It is a tradition of long standing for the faithful to want and treasure souvenirs of a Papal visit. The availability of such souvenirs trivializes neither the Holy Father’s mission nor the veneration of the faithful.
No it doesn't. Celebrity means a person who is widely known. You adding your own special defintion to avoid the obvious hypocrisy doesn't change reality. Although I can see why you would want to try.
Black is white, up is down, good is evil, war is peace, lies are truth...
Any other assertions to make?
To encourage them to change their image of the pope, Ms. Whitis pulled out souvenirs from her 1993 trip to Denver, to see the pope at World Youth Day. She dressed Adam House in the T-shirt and shorts she wore. She put her admission tag around his neck, complete with the cross a man from Spain gave her and buttons she swapped with people from other countries.Then she pulled out the foam miter, commonly called “the pope hat,” and placed it on Adam's head. “You weren't cool unless you got a pope hat,” Ms. Whitis said.
-- from the 1999 Cincinnati Enquirer article Teacher pulls kids into pope
The Pope is not selling anything. He couldn't care less if you buy T-shirts or tumblers with his image on them. If you've given even the most cursory glance to this Pope and his ministry you'd know that such issues are light years removed from his concerns. These items are sold either by make-a-quick-buck entrepreneurs or by the organizers of his visits as a means of defraying expenses. You really think he's coming to England so he can promote his own cult and hawk a few souvenirs? You think he's going to huddle with Marini and Archbishop Nicholls this evening in Westminster and say ........."well boys, how many coffee mugs did we move today..........??"
Is it really necessary to explain the nature of the "celebrity culture" which he is attacking? Has balance and common sense entirely forsaken this forum? He's warning against the dangers of seeking after worldly success and fame at the expense of faith and eternal salvation.
Britain is a country which is dominated by mass selling daily tabloid newspapers (The Sun, The Daily Mirror etc) which feed an apparently insatiable public appetite for news about the rich and beautiful, including sports stars, entertainers and members of the aristocracy. The increase in this obsession appears to have paralleled a corresponding decrease in the public practice of religion.
To hold up the excesses of whackos as representative of...well, anything at all...is as wrong-headed as pointing to killers of abortion doctors as proof that all pro-life people are murderers.
Oh, three more things:
1. I just went on line to look for “pope hat.” The very few references I found were pejorative, which makes it odd that a Catholic would be using it.
2. Couldn’t find anything on that picture of Asians in YMCA t-shirts and foam miters.
3. Everything you think you know about Catholicism is wrong.
Wrong. The vatican has its own official pope vendors. What do you think happens to those who sell ‘unofficial’ pope plates? Are they fined? Or jailed? Or just prayed for? And what’s wrong with selling those items, if mean, if I have a room full of foam, and I know how to make pope hats, then what’s wrong with trying to help my family out by selling merchandise celebrating his visit? Because they are not legally recognized by the vatican, and therefore cannot be sold. Who needs help more, the poor family who can sew, or the ermine laden pope who preaches sacrifice and rejection of worldly success to everyone while having his people check the daily concession receipts? HYPOCRISY is the right word..
The vatican maintains the copyright and licensing rights to the pope's image and strictly enforces the same. Nothing like "make-a-quick-buck off" of a celebrity image, is there? He is definiately selling something and exploiting his celebrity to accomplish it. Physican heal thyself.
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