Posted on 03/26/2013 11:48:33 AM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis has decided not to move into the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, but to live in a suite in the Vatican guesthouse where he has been since the beginning of the conclave that elected him, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman.
"He is experimenting with this type of living arrangement, which is simple," but allows him "to live in community with others," both the permanent residents -- priests and bishops who work at the Vatican -- as well as guests coming to the Vatican for meetings and conferences, Father Lombardi said March 26.
The spokesman said Pope Francis has moved out of the room he drew by lot before the conclave and into Suite 201, a room that has slightly more elegant furnishings and a larger living room where he can receive guests.
The Domus Sanctae Marthae, the official name of the guesthouse, was built in 1996 specifically to house cardinals during a conclave.
Celebrating Mass March 26 with the residents and guests, Pope Francis told them he intended to stay, Father Lombardi said. The permanent residents, who had to move out during the conclave, had just returned to their old rooms.
Pope Francis has been there since his election March 13, taking his meals in the common dining room downstairs and celebrating a 7 a.m. Mass with Vatican employees in the main chapel of the residence.
He will be the first pope in 110 years not to live in the papal apartments on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace.
In 1903, St. Pius X became the first pope to live in the apartments overlooking St. Peter's Square. The apartments were completely remodeled by Pope Paul VI in 1964 and have undergone smaller modifications by each pope since, according to "Mondo Vaticano," a Vatican-published mini-encyclopedia about Vatican buildings, offices and tradition.
The large living room or salon of the apartment is located directly above the papal library where official audiences with visiting bishops and heads of state are held.
Pope Francis will continue to use the library for official audiences and to recite the Angelus prayer on Sundays and holy days from the apartment window overlooking St. Peter's Square, Father Lombardi said.
The apartments contain a chapel, an office for the pope and a separate office for his secretaries, the pope's bedroom, a dining room, kitchen and rooms for two secretaries and for the household staff.
When Pope Francis returned to the guesthouse after his election, Father Lombardi had said the move was intended to be short-term while a few small work projects were completed in the papal apartments. He said March 26 that all the work had been completed, but at least for the foreseeable future, Pope Francis would not move in.
The Domus Sanctae Marthae, named after St. Martha, is a five-story building on the edge of Vatican City.
While offering relative comfort, the residence is not a luxury hotel. The building has 105 two-room suites and 26 singles; about half of the rooms are occupied by the permanent residents. Each suite has a sitting room with a desk, three chairs, a cabinet and large closet; a bedroom with dresser, night table and clothes stand; and a private bathroom with a shower.
The rooms all have telephones and access to an international satellite television system.
The building also has a large meeting room and a variety of small sitting rooms. In addition to the dining room and the main chapel, it also has four private chapels, located at the end of hallways on the third and fifth floors of each of the building's two wings.
I was actually in Rome for Palm Sunday (I’m on Malta right now and will be here for Holy Week and Easter) and I saw Pope Francis. He did a great job at the mass and preached a wonderful homily, which I actually understood because he speaks Italian with a Latin American Spanish accent. It was very inspiring and we all went out ready to missionize the world!
Then I saw all sorts of stupid posts about the fact that Francis had another priest sing at the Elevation and that he didn’t genuflect. He didn’t sing because he can’t - he has only one lung, having had to have the other one removed as a teenager; and he doesn’t kneel at the altar because he can’t necessarily get up again. Notice that his assistants have to help him up and down the steps of the altar.
Why in the world are people so eager to read base motives into everything he does?
Hmmm, I think that Pope Francis is going to be even stricter but in a truly loving way. I think that he will call all Catholics to live their vocation, truly and genuinely but especially priests. I understand their perception, St. Francis is known as a very kind person who loved all of God’s creation and he took his name. St. Francis also embraced poverty.
Pope Benedict had the reputation of being God’s Rotweiller so the perception was that he was tough and mean, maybe even dangerous. I didn’t see his papacy that way at all.
I'm jealous (in a happy-for-you way) of your being there in the middle of ancient history and important real-time events. Anoreth and I would love to visit Malta, in the footsteps of dear General Patton!
You haven’t been around for 13 years, we have.
You are going much more deeply into it that was I when making a jocular comment. I was referring merely to the superficial visual aspect of asceticism. Max Weber made the distinction between “inner” and “worldly” asceticism, but it isn’t necessary to analyze every lame joke in a serious philosophical exercise.
Think of this the next time you are called upon to sing that ditty that starts with: “Make me a channel of your peace”. From the fine Francis of Assisi: A New Biography by Augustine Thompson.
“Peace Prayer of Saint Francis”—a popular hymn best known by its opening words “Make me a channel of your peace,” and sung to a tune written by the Anglican composer Sebastian Temple. Many are quite shocked to find that this song is not identical to Francis’s “Canticle of Brother Sun,” from which Zefferelli took the name of his movie. The “Peace Prayer” is modern and anonymous, originally written in French, and dates to about 1912, when it was published in a minor French spiritual magazine, La Clochette. Noble as its sentiments are, Francis would not have written such a piece, focused as it is on the self, with its constant repetition of the pronouns “I” and “me,” the words “God” and “Jesus” never appearing once.
BXVI was almost too humble and self effacing. Among the wolves at the Vatican and those outside, his honorable innocence was seen as making him vulnerable. And they succeeded in bringing him down.
I actually don’t think Francis is going to give that impression. To me, Pope Francis seems totally devoted to Jesus, to Our Lady and to the Church - but at the same time, very shrewd and cautious and firm.
When I saw him in Rome, I didn’t think of St Francis but of St Paul.
“For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’
But wisdom is proved right by all her children.”
Luke 7: 33-35
(My #63 was kind of a nonsequitur, wasn’t it?)
As to your question, which I quoted but didn’t answer, people have all kinds of agendas, into which they will obsessively fit every action or statement of the Pope’s. It’s nothing to do with him: he’s just a cutout, as it were, that they’re placing into their fixed views of the Church and the world.
Pope Francis is obviously an intelligent man and a highly competent and experienced administrator. If he thinks this choice of residence is the best option for him at this time, who is in a position to say he’s wrong?
Are you saying that you think I am doing that? I was only pointing out that no money is saved and that it is probably less safe for him to stay at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. You may disagree, but that doesn't mean I am questioning his motives or not giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
If only we recognized that everytime we sin we hurt Jesus. I only we recognized that everyime we sin we hurt ourselves. If only we recognized that everytime we sin we hurt all of humanity.
We can only be thankful for the forgiveness of Jesus and the fact that He chose to die in shame on a cross for us.
“For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive....”
“But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Amen!
Court Psychiatrist: [Holding up inkblot card] Okay, now tell me what you see, Alan.
Alan Musgrave: Flowers. Hmmm...tulips, jonquils, and roses. They're long-stemmed American Beauty roses, actually.
Court Psychiatrist: [flipping to new inkblot card, irritated] Uh - concentrate. Try a little harder.
Alan Musgrave: [sharply inhaling]. Birds. Trees. [Sudden interest, taking card from psychiatrist] Oh, and there's a river! A river, winding lazily through green pastures....
Court Psychiatrist: [interrupting] You're fighting me.
Alan Musgrave: [continuing] ....oh, it's so peaceful. On the banks are happy children....
Court Psychiatrist: [ignoring him, filing her nails] Don't fight me, Alan.
Alan Musgrave: [continuing]....clouds, lots of clouds -- [gets out of chair and sits on desk, showing inkblot to psychiatrist] Look! One of them looks just like the Easter Bunny! Huh.
Court Psychiatrist: [takes inkblot from him, looks him in the eye, condescending] Alan, I want to help you. Now, don't you realize that these things are supposed to be dirty?
Alan Musgrave: [Surprised] Dirty? [Looks at new inkblot card, shakes head] No. That's a butterfly. A brightly colored butterfly....
Court Psychiatrist: [leaps up from desk, throws all inkblots at Alan in extreme anger] You are hostile! You are hostile, you little creep! You creep, you hostile creep!
Alan Musgrave: Shhhhh! Doctor, shhhhh! [motions with hand to sit down] Doctor, what are you hiding from? Your whole pattern suggests a rigidity syndrome of severe underlying anxiety, massive repressions and pathological prejudices. All of which makes it very difficult for me to relate to you! So if you really want me to talk, get me my tape recorder.
Court Psychiatrist: [steaming] Anything else?
Alan Musgrave: Now that you mention it, you might get me my transistor radio. And a corned beef sandwich. On rye. No mustard.
-- from the 1966 movie Lord Love A Duck
As posted on the thread What You Get Is What You See
How do you suppose he could do it quietly. The media follows his every move and if he didn’t announce it they would uncover it and somehow fill it with intrigue.
Malta is quite a place and I recommend it highly. The secularists just managed to get divorce approved here last year...it’s very Catholic, but unfortunately this is changing.
I met a wonderful devoted priest at the St Paul Shipwreck Church today (that’s really it’s name - a gorgeous church, with two important relics of St Paul). He was out on the street dragging people in to see his church.
He said he had been in the US once, to go to Alabama and be on EWTN! I assume this was for the Pauline year, although I don’t recall which year that was.
In any case, I’ve seen all sorts of Holy Week exhibits, because they have a tradition of doing miniature diorama-sized scenes of the Passion and of episodes from the Gospels.
On Holy Thursday I will visit the 7 churches, where they are already setting up the enormous floral Altar of Repose, and then see the processions.
But what really made my visit was meeting this humble and holy priest today. And I think Pope Francis is a lot like him.
Sorry if I misunderstood you. He’s still going to use the apartment for official functions and is going to use the office there. The Domus is very nearby, much closer than St. John Lateran, where the popes used to live until 1903, and is quite secure. Plus, he’ll probably be a lot safer with other people around him. Not to mention happier...
It’s like this, bumsy: too many of youse members of the thousand Protestant sects, each of which, from the snake handlers to the Unitarians, claims its own interpretation of the Holy Book is the only correct one, too many of youse here, appear (I said “appear”, even if as expected you deny it!) to define yourselves by your opposition/hatred/disdain for the Pope and the Catholic Church he represents. It is, as are your endless lengthy cut and paste jobs from the Bible that no one here reads, it is just repetitious and boring!
Excellent response! I admire the new Pope. He’s setting a great example.
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