Agreed.
Also I hope the picture in my last comment did not offend you Br. I did not post it to be rude but to be humorous. I always pictured St. Francis using his ability to speak with animals to mass an army of woodland creatures. Anyway again I hope it did not offend you. If so then I’m very sorry and I hope you accept my apology.
God bless.
I have two comments on the pic.
- How did you get that little gerbil to hold that gun?
- Next time, can you use something else other than a rodent? Rodents actually terrify me. I have this vision of mice and rats attacking me.
You’re going to think I’m nuts and maybe I am. When I was a kid, I saw a movie named Charlie. It left quite an impression on me. From that day forward, I have not been able to look at or hold a rodent.
I love cats, dogs and rabbits.
That’s one thing that I would change at the Vatican, were I to be pope or secretary of state. They still have a law in their books that dates back to the Middle Ages, before the basilica was built, banning cats. The reason for the ban was the belief of the time that cats were evil. No one has bothered to change the law.
The thing about the ban on cats is true, but it’s also an example of how the Vatican adopted customs and practices and then forgot where they came from, because time passes. When someone comes in and does something different, many people are rattled.
It’s the same with popes. None of us lived before 1800. We have forgotten that prior to that, it was religious who held the largest number of popes, not secular clergy. Religious brought their own customs and practices to the papacy. Some of those remain with us today, such as the white clothing, the use of a cowl on a cardinal’s robes (from monastic habits), the use of the pectoral cross (from abbots), the central altar at St. Peter (from monasteries).
When the election of secular clergy to the papacy became more and more frequent, some of these customs that came from the religious orders faded away. But secular clergy don’t have their own customs, because they are not part of a family. They brought customs from their native lands and native dioceses. One of those was the ceremony. What to the popes who were religious were liturgical ceremonies rooted in the customs of their orders, to the popes who were diocesan priests, these ceremonies became regal expressions and they became bigger, more colorful, more complex and more splendid. This was reinforced by the fact that many of these popes came from the nobility. This was very natural to them.
As with the cats, with the passage of time, we forget how all of this developed and we create rules in our heads and in practice that are not truly rules.
There is a little story that seems to fascinate people today, but did not fascinate people of the time. When Bonaventure was given the red hat, it was delivered to the friary where he was superior of the house. He was not general superior, yet. The pope’s messenger found him doing dishes. Bonaventure instructed him to hang it on a branch of a tree by the scullery.
When the general chapter came along, Bonaventure was elected general superior. The general chapter voted that the superior general was to write the definitive biography of St. Francis. At the time Bonaventure was a cardinal and a diocesan bishop. He moved to Assisi, leaving his diocese in the hands of an administrator and would go to Rome for special events when the pope summoned the cardinals. He was known to all as Brother Bonaventure.
To us in the 21st century, the idea of a bishop leaving his diocese in someone else’s hands so that he can write a biography and govern his religious order sounds crazy. But that’s because our bishops are usually secular clergy who belong to a diocese in the first place. To those people, bishops were usually monks or friars. They saw nothing amiss about it. Nor did they see anything amiss that the cardinal wore a grey habit, a cincture, no shoes and was called Brother, not Eminence.
Let’s say Cardinal Sean of Boston had been elected. People’s head would still be turning. Just look at America. The man signs Cardinal Sean on everything. He introduces himself as Cardinal Sean. Why? Because he’s one of the traditionalist religious who never went back to his birth name. But we insist on calling him Cardinal O’Malley. The same with the pope. He was always Father Jorge, not Cardinal Bergoglio. But we insist on referring to him as Cardinal Bergoglio. Why? Because it’s the secular way of doing things and it’s the secular way of showing respect. To the religious, it’s not important to use his family name, because he no longer belongs to his biological family.
It’s all about getting used to something that is new and old at the same time.
friendly neighborhood Methodist was sitting here, thinking, 
“Gee, and me thinking that the pope was just being a nice mannerly gentleman”