"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI
13 April 2013
A pope, a chair, and a Swiss Guard
Great story about Pope Francis and his Swiss Guard!
Cute...made me remember that John XXIII anecdote in which an interviewer reportedly asked him how many employees worked in the Vatican and he replied "Hmmm...half of them, if that!". Kidding aside, these stories show how beloved Pope Francis already must be among Vatican people.
I own a number of CD's of traditional Japanese flute music, a few CD's of contemporary pop, alternative jazz, even one with Russian Orthodox vespers. . .but I wouldn't use any of them in the Mass.
An alternative reading of that story. Rather than honoring the Guard by thanking him for his service, treating him as an adult, another man who has a duty to perform...one for which he had to apply for and train for and is an honor...the Pope reduces him in stature by making him into an object of his maternal, and therefore infantilizing, benevolence, as if he were some put-upon peasant conscript. The fact that the Guard's resistance made him assert his papal privilege --disrespecting both the code of this group and the man's own superior--reveals the shadow dynamic of narcissism and dominance in so much of this Pope's compulsive theatrics of humility.
Cute...made me remember that John XXIII anecdote in which an interviewer reportedly asked him how many employees worked in the Vatican and he replied "Hmmm...half of them, if that!". Kidding aside, these stories show how beloved Pope Francis already must be among Vatican people.
ReplyDeleteThe Pope loves guitars and tamborines in the liturgy!
ReplyDeletehttp://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2013/04/francis-friar-omalley-super-cardinal.html
A new wind is blowing!
To be more specific. . .he enjoys listening to a CD of liturgical music using guitars and tamborines.
DeleteAgain, yawn.
I own a number of CD's of traditional Japanese flute music, a few CD's of contemporary pop, alternative jazz, even one with Russian Orthodox vespers. . .but I wouldn't use any of them in the Mass.
DeleteAn alternative reading of that story. Rather than honoring the Guard by thanking him for his service, treating him as an adult, another man who has a duty to perform...one for which he had to apply for and train for and is an honor...the Pope reduces him in stature by making him into an object of his maternal, and therefore infantilizing, benevolence, as if he were some put-upon peasant conscript. The fact that the Guard's resistance made him assert his papal privilege --disrespecting both the code of this group and the man's own superior--reveals the shadow dynamic of narcissism and dominance in so much of this Pope's compulsive theatrics of humility.
ReplyDelete