In extraordinary peace gesture Pope kisses feet of South Sudan's leaders

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Its interesting how HH would do this, but wouldn’t allow those lay faithful (about whom there was a thread that got shut down relatively quickly) kiss his ring.

What’s also interesting is that it used to be the custom for people meeting the Pope to kiss his foot. It appears that a 180 degree turn has been made.

Edit: I am not intending to be sarcastic, nor am I intending to “bash” HH in any way with this post.
 
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ioannes_pius said:
Its interesting how HH would do this, but wouldn’t allow those lay faithful (about whom there was a thread that got shut down relatively quickly) kiss his ring
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They aren’t real related. The basic explanation was hygiene, but even then it can be taken as showing respect to a follower. Anyway this is him making a gesture on the behalf of an organization.
 
The Pope is the servant of the servants of God. It’s good that we finally have one who acts like it.

Jesus washed the feet of the apostles. Praise God for Pope Francis’ humility.
 
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The reason this bothers some people is foot kissing has a traditional symbolism. It doesn’t mean “thanks” or “good job” or “keep up the good work”–or even a more profound expression of these sentiments, which is what I’m guessing the Pope intends to express here.

In the early Church, temporal authorities, like the Emperor, kissed the foot of the Pope to symbolize the subordination of the temporal power to Christ, who the Pope represented. Similarly, Cardinals would kiss the foot of the Pope to signify their special obedience to him. More broadly, it indicated the reverence for the office of the vicar of Him whose feet were kissed by the woman who was a sinner. This continued from the the early centuries until the mid 20th, when Paul VI abolished it. A whole ton of Saints and other Popes, who embodied the true meaning of the Pope as servant, practiced it in good conscience.

I’m sure Pope Francis was not intending to infer that Christ is subordinated to the temporal power of South Sudan.

As for the hand thing, if he was worried about hygiene then, why is he kissing shoes now? They touch bathroom floors! (What’s ironic too is these men also didn’t want him to do it, but he pressed them to let him do it anyway.)
 
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Perhaps it’s not interesting to you, but it is to me.

The odd thing about the hygiene explanation is that HH allowed about thirty Franciscan religious to kiss his ring before the lay faithful approached to do the same. Was he not concerned with hygiene for the Franciscans?

Similarly, wouldn’t he be concerned with hygiene in the case of kissing someones foot?
 
As Genesis315 has explained, the act of kissing the Popes foot symbolized the subordination of the temporal order to Christ represented by the Pope, and not necessarily humility.
 
Please don’t latch onto @genesis315’s explanation for something that’s extremely obvious is not what you claim it to be.

If you want to further indulge your sorry dislike of Francis, you’re free to do so. I, however, have neither the time nor the patience for that fruitless conversation.
 
I am not and have not been indulging a “sorry dislike” for HH, because I do not dislike him.
 
Rob2 said:
Not really interesting and not relative to the thread , but if you don’t know why try reading the following .
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It is interesting & not unrelated. Are you policing comments on this thread simply because you don’t agree with them?
 
A beautiful gesture for peace in a war-ravaged country.

Deacon Christopher
 
Rob2 said:
I take no lessons from you mate on how I post .

I post as I see fit .
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I wasn’t offering a lesson. I was inquiring as to why you’re rebuking posters for expressing their thoughts & opinions.
 
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