Pope on a Bus
Pope Francis went on a (charter) bus to his retreat this weekend.He is the first pope ever to ride a bus, right ! ?
Here is Pope Benedict XVI riding on a bus in Assisi (and not with a bunch of cardinals and bishops either – here he is with representatives of different religions!):
17 comments:
Well if Popes John Paul and Benedict rose the bus and they did, then yes they helped to denigrate the office of the pope. Does that answer your question.
The concerns over what Francis is doing is not because it is Francis doing them, it's because the pope is doing them.
When Pope John Paul kissed that Koran he was wrong. When Pope Benedict prayed with pagans inside that church in Assisi and the pagan prayed to Satan, the pope was wrong.
The problem is not that he took the bus; it is the narrative that taking the bus makes him humble. Here we go again, look at how humble Francis is compared to that bad old Benedict. If it were just the secularist press doing this, that is one thing, but it seems to me that this is a "spin" being designed right from the centre (Canadian spelling).
'Denigrate' means to blacken in the figurative sense (Latin de + nigrare). The verb you are looking for is 'demean' (to make mean, to lower, to debase, to diminish).
Oh, and another thing. 'To disembark' is to leave a ship, and the verb is intransitive (one disembarks FROM a vessel). Benedict XVI was alighting from a train. There are verbs 'to detrain' and 'to debus' but they are used in a military context and involve a body of troops.
You probably think I'm being pedantic, but clarity of expression is inseparable from precision of language.
Much ado about so little. It's not as if the Holy Father is riding (and not walking) along the Via Dolorosa. Even in Jerusalem, he would be advised to travel in some kind of conveyance (for security purposes).
John, I do believe that you are a pain in the keister by nature. I don't think you even have to think about it or to try.
The comments on the Blog go round and round, round and round. =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_seEYZJcZE
"To Nolan" may not be an intransitive verb, But "a Nolan" is in intransigent fellow.
Actually, I had the same momentary confusion when I read "denigrate". No criticism of our host, but he sometimes stretches for the bombshell.
I was also disappointed to learn that Pope Benedict didn't hang with Z Z Top. But he's probably strictly acoustic.
Looking at the bus pics, I am reminded of an old civil rights song (Pete Seeger) that says "If you miss me at the back of the bus, you can't find me nowhere....come on over to the front of the bus...I'll be riding up there."
Anonymous @ 6:06
You must have realized by now that I am the magisterium of this blog. I didn't want the job, but infallibility carries responsibilities.
I am never wrong. I thought I was on one occasion, but I was mistaken.
Believe it or not, there may be some who think that being wrong and being mistaken are the same. Let's keep trying though, John. It's not easy being infallible.
A quick question Father?
When Pope Francis, ignoring the words of Christ, tolerates "re-marriage" would that mean the canonizations of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher would be revoked? Because they really would have died for nothing.
And another question? If "re-married" divorced people living in objective mortal sin don't need confession or to change their lives, then why does anyone else need to go to confession?
These are things. Cardinal Kasper is advocating and Pope Francis lauded him.
And to pretend that Francis isn't going to sanction mass sacrilege by doing these things isn't living in reality. We are headed for a big, ugly, schism unlike any other seen in the Church's history.
Please answer my questions I would really like to see you rationalize allowing divorce.
Answer to the quick question: you seem to know more about what Pope Francis is going to do that what his head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has said.
I sense from what I have read that a clearly understanding of the Internal Forum will be established, maybe made canonical. The Internal Forum is the confessional but it can only be used after the External Forum has been inconclusive due to a lack of evidence. If the external forum finds that the marriage that came to a separation was nonetheless a sacrament and find so conclusively, then the internal forum is not to be used.
We've had internal forum solutions for these kinds of situations for generations now. But there are no canonical procedures to assure fairness. Most priests do not know that the internal forum is of last resort and only after the external forum has been exhausted (annulment procedure) and exhausted in an inconclusive way, not a conclusively way.
I, for one, would follow the Pope anywhere…but, only out of curiosity.
John Nolan,
Father McDonald is obviously protesting the papal reliance on conveyances propelled by fossil fuels, fuels which darken our world. This is obvious to me, anyway.
Long live the pope!
Long live the pope emeritus!
Long live the Roman Rite!
Anonymous @ 12 March, 10:23,
You must stop taking everything literally and develop a sense of irony and humour. My post of 12 March at 7:41 had, in its last sentence, a paradox which was far from original but which seems to have eluded you completely. I would have replied earlier, since I don't like to leave people wallowing in ignorance, but I have been in the wilds of Derbyshire for the past three days. By the way, have you managed to acquire sticking-plaster for your scraped knuckles?
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