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Showing posts tagged Vatican
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The Benedict condom
Amazing the level of outrage and mockery (both of the Vatican and of the FCO) this thread provoked. It seems nobody has anything to say in defence of the RCC these days.
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No time to queue for the Sistine Chapel?
It doesn’t seem to matter when you go, winter or summer, weekday or weekend, morning or evening, the queue is always a mile long. Of course, if you’ve come to Rome mainly to visit the Sistine Chapel, you’ll bite the bullet, bring a book, and line up. If you live here, you’ll continue to put it off for another time.
There is, however, a secret way to jump the queue, see it in great detail, and - above all - without being jostled by the people backing into you trying to see another bit of the ceiling.
If you’d like to know more, click here…
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Well said, sir! Hear hear!
Our man in the Vatican, Francis Campbell, tells it the way it is:
Campbell [ … ] said Anglican-Vatican relations were facing their worst crisis in 150 years as a result of the Pope’s decision [to release the new apostolic constitution that facilitates the conversion of Anglicans to Catholicism]. The Vatican decision seems to have been aimed primarily at Anglicans in the U.S. and Australia, with little thought given to how it would affect the center of Anglicanism, England, or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Benedict XVI, Campbell said, had put Williams in an impossible situation. If Williams reacted more forcefully, he would destroy decades of work on ecumenical dialogue; by not reacting more harshly, he has lost support among angry Anglicans. The crisis is also worrisome for England’s small, mostly Irish-origin, Catholic minority, Campbell said. There is still latent anti-Catholicism in some parts of England and it may not take much to set it off. The outcome could be discrimination or in isolated cases, even violence, against this minority.
Campbell - himself a Northern Irish Catholic - couldn’t have put it better. It’s time the Vatican got its communications policy together.
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Holy royal humbug
James Walson writes:
Ebenezer Scrooge thought that any festivities were humbug, particularly Christmas and anything else which might stop him making money and which disrupted his normal way of life. I can sympathise – not so much about the money which I’m not very good at but certainly about the disruption. Last week I was in London which was preparing for the Royal Wedding and this weekend I am a fugitive from Rome which has been invaded by a million or so people celebrating the beatification of Pope John Paul II. There are many similarities in the two gatherings.
But, Walson points out in his latest, incisive and unforgiving blog post, there are also many differences…
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European, Christian, Catholic, Orthodox Values: Pope Benedict in Croatia, Lady Gaga in Rome.
This is an explosive week for the Vatican and Brussels even if neither are normally given to incendiary behaviour, writes James Walston in his latest post. The Pope visited Croatia last weekend and as in the past was less than subtle in his admonitions. He hoped that Croatia would soon complete its EU accession process because the country is after all “at the centre of Europe, Mitteleuropa, not the Balkans” a phrase which was no doubt music to his listeners’ ears but not to the other countries of ex-Yugoslavia.
Walston reviews the often stormy relations between Church and state since Emperor Constantine’s decree which proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman empire, and concludes: Rome and Brussels continue to battle over values but this week Rome also has Lady Gaga and not just Joseph Ratzinger. This contrast enhances the best “European (and American) values”, not the “rational abstract” one but the human ones that touch the real lives of real people.
Read the full text of the post here.
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Quanto?
Il Cardinal Bagnasco: Lo stipendio di un vescovo è sui € 1.300 euro.
Cardinal Bagnasco tells Corriere della Sera that a bishop’s stipend is about €1,300 a month.
Same as downtown. -
Vatican – the real issues beyond the butler
The trial of Paolo Gabriele (below with Pope Benedict) began today, writes James Walston in a recent blog post. He was the Pope’s manservant who is accused of having stolen material from the Pope’s appartment much of which was then published in Gianluigi Nuzzi’s Sua Sanità. Le carte segrete (His Holiness. The Secret Papers) published in May. At worst, he risks four and a half years in gaol, a long way from being stunned and quartered publically by Mastro Titta, the papal executioner 200 years ago (the last public execution was in 1870 with the guillotine a month before Italian forces took Rome.
But it strikes me that the fuss around the leaks and trial story misses the point. “The butler did it” was too tempting a headline to resist but the butler in question is only a very small part of a much more fascinating tale. There are at least three different divisions within the Vatican.
Walston analyses and explains his three reasons (and adds a fourth for free) in enlightening detail: the struggle between conservatives and reformers, the mysteries surrounding Vatical financial transactions, the power play behind papal elections and a lack of firm and able leadership.
None of the major issues will be touched on in the Gabriele trial, Walston predicts, but there will be oblique references to them. So we are unlikely to have striking revelations though we will have a few more insights into the Vatican.
And, he concludes, it will still be a trial worth following closely for what is said and for what is not said.
Read the whole of Walston’s post here.
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Winnie the Pope, The Most Revolutionary of Them All
Even before he was elected Pope, Joseph Ratzinger never had a reputation for radical thinking or doing, writes James Walston in his latest blog post. In the 1960s he flirted briefly with some of the more liberal ideas that were in the air including those of Hans Küng but the phase soon passed. For the rest of his career as priest, university teacher, bishop and then pope he was steady and conservative, stolid, even.
Walston examines the substance and tone of Ratzinger’s papacy, and compares it with that of his predecessor, John Paul II.
Benedict XVI was unpolitical during his reign, Walston concludes, but his exit has made him a quintessentially political figure. By abdicating, he has broken the transcendental nature of the papacy … Joseph Ratzinger has shown himself to be a subversive and there are certainly others out of the 117 cardinals who will assemble next month.
Read the whole of Walston’s post here.
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The Pope’s Voters
It was easy enough for Stalin to dismiss “the Pope’s divisions”, much more difficult for an Italian politician, writes James Walston in a recent blog post. There is another series of questions about the elections which is very popular – Berlusconi and the economic crisis are not the only topics in town. The Pope, present and future, has come into the Italian election campaign.
In good time for tomorrow’s general election, Walston analyses the Vatican’s influence over the decades on the Italian political system. He also answers a number of queries about the various scenarios which could come out of the vote, and teh consequences for Italy and Europe.
Read the whole of Walston’s post here.
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The Twitter conclave
As we wait for the final count on the Italian general election, for which the polling stations have just closed, James Walston takes time out to look at the latest developments across the Tiber, where only three days of the Ratzinger pontificate are left and a new pope must be elected soon.
In his latest blog post, Walston provides an update on the most recent developments - the last-minute resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the tweeting and blogging by the cardinal electors - and concludes that it will take an able and highly manipulative (in the good sense and bad) pope to put the barque of St. Peter back onto a clear course.
Read the whole of Walston’s post here, including the video of his interview with Australia’s ABC TV network this morning.
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Is this a message?
Just hours after Pope Benedict XVI made the shock accouncement of his impending retirement, a spectacular lightning hit was seen at St Paulì’s Cathedral.
Benedict - now Pope Emeritus - left the Vatican at 19:00 Z on Thursday 28 February for the papal summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo…
Three days later, Castel Gandolfo was hit by an earthquake.
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