Posted on 03/29/2013 8:31:16 PM PDT by OKRA2012
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has won over many hearts and minds with his simple style and focus on serving the world's poorest, but he has devastated traditionalist Catholics who adored his predecessor, Benedict XVI, for restoring much of the traditional pomp to the papacy.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Sorry Charlie, I'm already there...If you believed scripture, you'd know that...And Nope...I turned my back on the Catholic religion, just as the bible does, not the Bride of Christ...I am the Bride of Christ...
Just think of the poor that Francis could help out if he sold the Vatican...
Young guy from Kenya. Very likeable, but when I heard that, I could feel myself going pale.
I kept wondering, where did he get his seminary training?
St Francis was adamant that, while he and his friars would live in poverty, everything that pertained to God in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was to be of great beauty, for God is Beauty and Truth.
Thank-you for the wonderful discussion. Have a good and blessed Easter.
Your instincts are correct.
He then points out the often ignored fact that the yearly budget for operating the Vatican is less than $300 million [overseeing 1.2 billion Catholics]. He contrasts this with Harvard University (which he labels as “the Vatican of elite secular opinion”) whose annual budget is $3.7 billion.Allen points out further that the patrimony (or endowment) of the Vatican is about $1 billion. Harvard, on the other hand, has a whopping $30.7 billion endowment.
In charity, ask your transitional deacon if Our Lord was incorrect when he washed only the feet of men. Perhaps it will make him think (or not).
I was a protestant for 60 years, and as a former outsider I would observe the following: There are lots of American Catholics who understand the Church as a dispenser of what they call “rules”. The ability to follow the “rules” is how this subset of churchgoers understand what “being a good Catholic” means.
It appears to me that this creates a problem, though, because there are some rules which are rules because of the nature of the subject - “abortion is always wrong” is an example. It’s not wrong because the Church says so, the Church says so because it’s wrong. That the Church continues to proclaim the truth of this, in the face of millions of sneering Pilates repeating, “What IS truth?” is a proof they the Church is what she claims to be.
There are also rules (and it seems to me that there are a lot of them) that are NOT of this nature, e.g., they govern the presentation of the sacraments, the use of sacramentals, the attire of consecrated persons, etc. These “rules” ARE rules because the Church says so, not because they are written on the heart or are always and everywhere true.
RadTrad Catholics seem to be very engaged with rules of the latter nature, maybe more so than those of the former.
Of course, I’m new at this Catholic thing, so I probably lack some understanding.
Girls’ feet and the Pope? So what?
Final straw? Isn’t it just a tad early for that? LOL!
Our priest has always washed girl’s/women’s feet.
I certainly don't think it's going to be a literally interminable prayer service, just like what you get at church on Sunday but No End and No Exit!!? Yikes!
My husband don-o and I just had a discussion about Heaven, and pretty much agreed that whatever, you'll be with God and it will blow your mind.
However. One of the images used in Scripture (see the book of Revelation, Ezekiel as well) is a splendid radiant scene with candles, and incense, and worshippers clad in long white robes chanting "Holy, Holy, Holy" --- and all of us Catholic and Orthodox (and undoubtedly others as well) instantly recognize what that is: it's Liturgy. In Heaven.
It's not that God is an egomaniac who likes nothing better than to be repetitively flattered by sycophants.
No more than the image of the "Heavenly Banquet" means that God is a glutton who likes nothing better than to stuff His face forever.
Or that the image of Heaven as a Temple trickling water from its right side, which turns into a river that irrigates fruit trees, means that God is an orchardist. (Though I particularly like that one.)
These images don't exclude each other. They pervade each other. It's a Garden-Wedding-With-Celestial-Choirs or an Ecstatic-Song-with-Nuptial-Love, the Spirit and the Bride say Come, Fruit- Trees-and-Feasting or ---lots of palm-waving in there, too, a glassy sea and golden crowns, the elders, the four living things, all the forgiven sinners who are actually surprised to be there--- the great I Am, and the Lamb Who was slain, and yet is glorious and will die no more, and the, the --- whatever it is, it's Love, Love enthroned, Love all around and God only knows.
Literally, God only knows.
But Liturgy--- the glory of the Godhead being adored in joyous splendor by all beings visible and invisible --- is a precious and luminous image of our celestial joy.
This I know. For the Bible tells me so.
What makes you think he’s planning on selling St. Peter’s?
I don't. I was responding to a comment about a movie in which the pope gives away "the wealth of the Church." St. Peter's is definitely a part of that wealth, and I merely used it as an example. I just think that these wordly ideas of selling the Church's wealth to feed people is misplaced.
I don’t see that he has done anything that threatens either Tradition or the liturgy in any way.
I don't really disagree with this, but that isn't really what I am saying is happening. Rather, I am pointing out that, given the way traditionalists have been treated and the way tradition has undeniably been eroded in the Church over the last decades, there is a reason for them to be concerned. Right now, what I think is happening is that they are watching every move very, very closely trying to find indications of this pope's attitudes and intentions. He was not a cardinal who was friendly to tradition, based on what I have read, and this has people nervous. That is why they are being so jumpy and seeing big meanings in even tiny little actions. Under Benedict there were only very small advances for tradition, and they fear seeing those retracted or undone and are understandably worried.
Please understand where I am coming from here. I am not actually saying that refusing the mozetta is meaningful in itself. Or the red shoes. Or certainly the apartment (that one I don't quite even understand, but there you go). All I am saying is that people who have a certain perspective and have lived a certain way will see significance or meaning in actions that the rest of us don't. Just look at the conservative reaction to Obama's election. Most of us saw evil tidings in little things he would say, or would not say. The rest of America called us all paranoid, but they don't have our interests or perspective. We value certain things they don't any more, and so when Obama would choose a particular phrase or some little action we might see something ominous in that where the rest of America would laugh and say we are making ourselves look silly. It really is about perspective and devotion to a particular patrimony.
Tagline.
The church down the street from my parent's house in a run-down working-class neighborhood, was a magnificent sanctuary with stained-glass wndows, priceless stonework and woodwork, saturated in incense and in the prayers of generations.
It was built by the $5 bills of cops and nurses, soldiers, construction workers, cleaning ladies and iron foundry coremakers, upholsterers, butchers, housewives and widows and shop girls and car mechanics. Who loved it, and loved God, and wanted to give Him a house, wanted it as ardently as did David and Solomon.
A truly glorious church is one place where the wealth of beautiful is freely distributed to all, and here the poor have a place of honor--- to the glory of God!
Thank you, Sherman Logan!
You may like this quote:
"All the way to Heaven is Heaen, because Christ said, 'I am the Way.'"
- St. Catherine of Siena
John XXIII and Vatican II. Not John Paul II.
I guess you’ve never heard them shouting at each other over a dinner table.
Iscool: So the rich could pry up everything that's movable and pack it into storage for collectors and art speculators, then dynamite the churches and develop it into a luxury hotel complex?
Or --- more likely ---pious investors from Dubai would be very interested in buying it, scraping the Christian symbols off the walls or white-washing them as they did to Hagia Sophia, burning all the crosses and then turning the whole property into a big mosque.
Or both!
That'll help the poor. They can be shoe-shine boys and, if they're young and cute, concubines.
Great idea, Iscool. Inshallah.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.