If Pope Benedict wore that Tiara

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I came across this image just now and the Photoshop job was executed very well it almost looks real. I just wanted to share this with my fellow trads 😁 I may be in the minority and maybe very naive but at 25 I would love to see a papal coronation in my lifetime.

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Hehe, fun. “Trads” are like the Gnomes of nordic lore, preserving a nostalgia for curios and customs of the past. The tiara suits “Opa Benno” very well.
 
Papal coronations were no doubt an interesting phenomenon historically speaking, but that is not the image that modern popes wish to project. The papal tiara and the coronation rite belong to an age when the pope was ruler over a large part of Italy and enjoyed the prerogative of crowing the emperor. The pope today is a spiritual leader who rules over just a tiny city state. The pope uses the title “servant of the servants of God”. Being crowned with a triple tiara in a coronation does not very well reflect the role of somebody who is first and foremost called to serve.
Elias said:
Such a shame that the Pope gave it up for no reason.
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Except that it wasn’t for no reason. There was a reason why popes from John Paul I onward chose to have a simpler inauguration and not to wear the tiara. It would presumably be the same reason why John Paul II and his successors have refused to use the sedia gestatoria (which John Paul I only used against his better judgment).
 
Papal coronations were no doubt an interesting phenomenon historically speaking, but that is not the image that modern popes wish to project. The papal tiara and the coronation rite belong to an age when the pope was ruler over a large part of Italy and enjoyed the prerogative of crowing the emperor. The pope today is a spiritual leader who rules over just a tiny city state. The pope uses the title “servant of the servants of God”. Being crowned with a triple tiara in a coronation does not very well reflect the role of somebody who is first and foremost called to serve.
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the world is going to judge and be cynical to the Pope regardless. To me the Tiara is a symbol of the Popes temporal and spiritual authority. Even in times of Peace and when the Pope only controlled the city state it was still a very fond and solemn ceremony - one that separated it from all the other secular installations of heads throughout the world. The Popes Office is no ordinary office. If I was Pope I wouldnt care what the media twists or how others might view it. to be bothered by a tiara and see it as a Pope trying to be a god on earth it plainly stupid. There were dozens of saintly Popes that pretty much looked like Kings in their office (Pius X and Pius XII both amazing examples) and they are one of the most loved Popes in recent History. A lot of Catholics I feel look too much into the negatives instead of the potential positives. I remember when some Catholics was saying the latin mass was outdated and taking a step back instead of forward - you know that typical modernism, liberal mumbo jumbo. And now under Francis the Latin Mass is making a huge comeback.

Now as for the Sede, yes it may be a bit too much in todays world and the feathered fans too, but the papal coronation itself and the use of the tiara (Which is mainly used in high liturgical feasts and events anyway) should not be seen as terrible
 
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Ağca attempted to murder John Paul II in 1981, almost three years after the sedia gestatoria was last used, so I doubt that was the reason. If it was, why had John Paul II not used it for almost three years of his papacy? The real reason was simply that he did not feel that the pope should be carried around on a throne. Even Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, who rides in a number of state coaches, is not carried around on a throne.
 
I don’t think it has just to do with how the media or people outside the Church perceive. I would agree with you that it was entirely possible for some of the earlier popes to be saints and that traditions such as the tiara, the coronation, and the sedia gestatoria didn’t mean that they were any less holy. I think this change came from within the Church. From the 1970s onward, popes no longer wanted to look like monarchs. They wanted to look like bishops first and foremost. Hence why all popes from John Paul I onward have chosen to wear the miter rather than a crown. This also ties in with a trend toward greater simplicity in most monarchies. Only the British monarch now has a coronation (and the last one was in 1953). All the other monarchs, including Catholic monarchs, have a much simpler inauguration that doesn’t involve elaborate ceremony or wearing special clothes. It just seems natural that in the modern world, especially when the Church is aspiring to be a poor Church, the pope would want to appear as a simple bishop, as a servant.
 
OK, Folks – what is the difference between a tiara and a coronet? Both are crowns, right?
 
Pope Paul VI’s gesture was likely on the minds of the Popes who have not been crowned.
ROME, Nov. 13—Pope Paul VI gave his bejeweled, threetiered gold and silver tiara to the world’s poor today in a dramatic gesture before 2,000 bishops at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica.

At the close of a solemn liturgical mass in the ByzantineSlavic Rite, the Pope rose from his throne, descended a few steps and placed the gleaming tiara on the altar.
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NY Times archive
 
Personally I’m always relieved when they stop wearing those strange things. I always have a hard time reconciling them with humble servitude, plus they look silly.
 
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fhansen said:
Personally I’m always relieved when they stop wearing those strange things. I always have a hard time reconciling them with humble servitude, plus they look silly.
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I think this is the first time in History many practicing Catholics are so against a tiara being worn lol I never heard of a single saint make a hassle over it and they honored the Holy Father and his office to high esteem and still saw him as God’s servant.
 
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repentant2 said:
Retake the Papal States.
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So you’d advocate overthrowing the Italian Republic and breaking up the Italian peninsula into the pre-unification states? Would the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia be restored to Austria?
repentant2 said:
crown a new emperor
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How would you determine who would be the new emperor and over which lands he would rule? It would make sense to restore the throne to the heir of Francis II and to establish Vienna as the capital city of the Holy Roman Empire.
repentant2 said:
topple the revolutionary governments of Europe and reinstate the rightful monarchs.
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How would you define a “revolutionary government” and determine who was a “rightful monarch”?

How would you deal with the UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands, all of which are ruled by Protestant monarchs? In the case of the UK you could restore the Jacobite line of succession, although the current heir has no interest in his family’s claim to the throne. I also wonder how you would deal with the fact that the British monarch currently reigns over 16 countries and their respective territories and dependencies. Would they all be transferred to the Catholic monarchy of the UK? Perhaps Francophone Canada could be restored to France. And what about the United States? It would make sense for us to be restored to British sovereignty, or perhaps just the original Thirteen Colonies could be restored to the UK and some other parts of the country could be restored to France or Spain. Would you restore the rest of the British Empire, e.g. the Indian subcontinent and much of Africa?

Would Northern Ireland be British? Restore Ireland to the British Crown in political or personal union? Or re-establish the High Kings?

Portugal would be a relatively easy one as you would restore the House of Braganza. Would they rule only over Portugal or would they also claim sovereignty over Brazil? Spain, of course, still has a Catholic monarchy. Would Spain regain sovereignty over its former colonial possessions in the American continent?

Would the Protestant German Empire be restored, or would you restore all the individual pre-unification states under their respective pre-Reformation Catholic rulers under the Holy Roman Empire, which I propose you will establish in Vienna?

As for Poland and Lithuania, I assume that they won’t be partitioned between the Germans, Austrians, and Russians, and that you will restore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Would that be under the system of elective monarchy? And would Poland-Lithuania regain all its former territories that made it at one time the largest state in Europe? The funny thing is that Poland, which is of course a republic, is much more Catholic than Spain, which is a monarchy. Also, some republics, such as San Marino, are not “revolutionary”.

That only leaves the question of what to do with the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox countries. Would you restore their monarchies too? E.g. Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece. Perhaps restore the Byzantine Empire and begin the reconquest of the eastern Mediterranean?
 
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