Why no more Papal Ceremonial?

[JKirkLVNV]

I just find it suspicious that you say this, because it happens to be the current party line.

That’s the thing that disturbs the traditionalists about the so-called neo-conservatives; if you had lived in the time of Pius XII you would have supported it, and if BXVI picks it up again tommorow…you will suddenly support it. **No, that’s not remotely the truth (and thus, a little unfair that you say it). I’d say that he had the right to do so, but I would also very clearly state that I think it was prudentially a bad decision. I think that the Assisi gathering was prudentially not a great decision, done as it was done. **

Considering all things in the light of tradition is a much more level-headed way to be a Catholic than simply conforming to the current opinions and nuances of the current pope. His opinions do deserve consideration, but only alongside the opinions of 265 other popes. This “papolatry” that slavishly adheres to the current pope’s “spin” on every teaching…is unnecessary. If you believe the dogma, there is no need to be part of the current agenda or style of Catholicism, because those change throughout history. You don’t need to be part of the current Vatican “trend”…

**I don’t think I’m a part of a Vatican trend. I spend a lot of time taking “traditionalists” to account for things that they present as immutable, but I don’t have a slavish devotion to the Holy Father, whoever he currently is. I think Pope Paul was a gentle soul, but softer-handed than he should have been. I was quite pleased with Benedict XVI’s election, but I didn’t feel the affection for him that I felt for JPII (the pope when I entered the Church and who influenced me greatly) until the Regensberg speech (and my heart went out to him). ****I’m not certain where you get the notion that I toe the lastest papal line. I don’t think Pentecost happened in the 60’s. I don’t think the triregnum is bad per se nor do I think ill of the popes who wore it. I simply believe (myself, not because the pope told me or implied I had to) that it is entirely appropriate that it was surrendered when it was surrendered, that the authority of the papacy might well have been strengthened in it’s surrender (just as the papac was strengthened when it was taken up) and that it ought to be left that way. **

If I was a slavish devotee of papal whim, I would have stopped receiving in the hand long before I did, because I knew that Pope John Paul didn’t care for the practice. I didn’t stop until much latter and for different reasons. Pope Benedict likes cats. I can’t abide the creepy little beasts.

**I think it’s disingenous to say that those who have an opposing opinion are simply toeing some line. **

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Another neoconservative attitude that irks trads. Why is the fact that they were the “last few” really matter? Does a pope’s authority decrease as they slip further back in time?? Do you rank how much respect or consideration you give a pope’s opinions based on how close he is to you in history?

I’ve seen a lot of disrespect for popes farther in the past from neocons as if it were nothing. “Oh, in the old day popes were bad, we all know that…” as if that means they can just, essentially, be ignored unless they made an ex cathedra statement.

And yet the “recent popes” are untouchable because their agenda is still the party line…

Terribly confusing for traditionalists, and very disordered.

Excuse me, I think if you go back and read carefully you’ll find that.that Bear didn’t say that the last few popes were the ones who really matter. She was speaking to the lack of respect shown to the last few popes. There’s a gulf between what she said and what you took her to have said.

Where, WHERE, WHERE, WHERE, in these threads, has anyone said anything about the “bad old popes” and meant anyone else except for the notorious popes who kept mistresses (Alexander VI, etc.)? Where have “neo-cons” (last I checked, the use of that term is a violation of forum rules) run down the likes of Pope St. Pius X, or the Pope Piux IX or anyone else?

 

[bear06]

It’s fascinating that one of the few pope saints from that millenium before modern times was Celestine V, who abdicated.

Slowly, the unfortunate trend John Paul II started with almost nonstop canonizations/beatifications will be reversed (it’s already started…Benedict XVI’s reign has seen far fewer).

And? Do you not consider these infallible?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Not quite true.

Pope Pius just quit handing them out to Cardinals at Consititories. They haven’t been abolished. Most Cardinals will still recieve them, but as a gift from other Cardinals.

Cardinal Maida of Detroit has one, I’ve seen it.

Thanks. And sorry about the delay ​

Even so - he could have been given one because the Popes themselves don’t give them out. So (as a matter of logical consistency) we could both be right about different features of the story

Do you know any more of the details ? It would be good to have all the facts about this, so that one can avoid being wrong, however slightly

 

[Thursday1]

And? Do you not consider these infallible?

Are canonizations infallible? I’m not doubting, just wondering. If they are, then I see trouble ahead when JPII is canonized. I know there are quite a few Traditional groups that would deny that JPII is in heaven, as they believe him a heretic. Would denying the canonization be an act of heresy?

Just wondering. . .

Yours in Christ,
Thursday

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Are canonizations infallible? I’m not doubting, just wondering. If they are, then I see trouble ahead when JPII is canonized. I know there are quite a few Traditional groups that would deny that JPII is in heaven, as they believe him a heretic. Would denying the canonization be an act of heresy?

Just wondering. . .

Yours in Christ,
Thursday

Caonization is indeed an infallible act.

 

[bear06]

Let’s see, what hurts really hurts the papacy? Is it the lack of a Papal Tiara or is it the faithful who seek to

resist it and work against it

and bash the man who holds the office unceasingly? This whole conversation is rather ironic.

 

[Thursday1]

Caonization is indeed an infallible act.

Thanks JKirk!
So JPII’s canonization could finally tip those groups that enjoy staying right on the line that separates heresy from orthodoxy over the line. It will be interesting. . .

Yours in Christ,
Thursday

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Thanks JKirk!
So JPII’s canonization could finally tip those groups that enjoy staying right on the line that separates heresy from orthodoxy over the line. It will be interesting. . .

Yours in Christ,
Thursday

Pray for all of Christ’s Church.

 

[bear06]

Are canonizations infallible? I’m not doubting, just wondering. If they are, then I see trouble ahead when JPII is canonized. I know there are quite a few Traditional groups that would deny that JPII is in heaven, as they believe him a heretic. Would denying the canonization be an act of heresy?

Just wondering. . .

Yours in Christ,
Thursday

Well, we already have that situation with St. Jose Maria Escriva.

Those groups who believe him a heretic really have little hope of finding a future pope they will agree with. Those same people consider Pope Benedict to be a modernist. No more trouble than already exists.

 

[Struggling]

Where have “neo-cons” (last I checked, the use of that term is a violation of forum rules) run down the likes of Pope St. Pius X, or the Pope Piux IX or anyone else?

Pius X and IX are hardly ideal “traditional” popes. They are still among the recent popes, basically. This century.

I am talking about all sorts of medieval and renaissance popes who may not be directly disrespected…but only because people are ignorant of them. Which is the greatest disrespect of all.

As if only the popes of the past century “matter”. As if only they are important to modern Catholics, or relevant to modern Catholics, or the standard for modern Catholics.

I hardly hear popes farther back than Pius IX being discussed these days in any sort of substantial way.

I simply believe (myself, not because the pope told me or implied I had to) that it is entirely appropriate that it was surrendered when it was surrendered, that the authority of the papacy might well have been strengthened in it’s surrender (just as the papac was strengthened when it was taken up) and that it ought to be left that way.

Though I know this is the heights of presumption…I just have serious doubts about whether you’d feel that way IF the tiara had never been laid down. I simply suspect that you’d be singing a different tune if it had kept on living. If the papacy was as powerful and majestic as it used to be…I just don’t see you (or more precisely, your kind) as the rebellious/reformer types arguing for an end to the tiara if it was still very much alive.

Maybe you personally have a bit more nuance than most (and not liking cats has nothing to do with it…I didnt mean those types of opinions)…but many Catholics today are “passive to reform”. They adopt the reformist agenda…but only when it comes from the top down. Which is very scary. Like the Communist’s “revolution”. A rhetoric of constant change and reform…but coming from authority and institionalism and bureaucracy. An eerie irony in many ways.

Saying you’d immediately support it if Benedict took it up again tommorow…is an exaggeration. The cognitive dissonance would be too much for anyone. But I think that gradually, given 30 years and a few papacies…you’d reconcile yourself to the idea. Especially if the popes made it a big point to speak and write about the symbolism of the tiara, re-emphasized the pious language of fealty surrounding the papacy, had a big campaign of “tiara apologetics,” declared a “Year of St. Peter” and passed out little leaflets explaining why the tiara is still relevant. I think you’d jump on board soon enough and parrot back to all the scandalized Protestants the cookie-cutter pro-tiara rhetoric prepared by the Vatican. Even if, at first…your heart really sympathized with them.

It’s just a hunch, but I know the type…

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Pius X and IX are hardly ideal “traditional” popes. They are still among the recent popes, basically. This century. You might want to run that by “traditionalists.” Chronologically, they might agree with you, but only chronologically.

I am talking about all sorts of medieval and renaissance popes who may not be directly disrespected…but only because people are ignorant of them. Which is the greatest disrespect of all.

I’m sorry, but respectfully, this is disingenous. This is what you said: **“I’ve seen a lot of disrespect for popes farther in the past from neocons as if it were nothing. “Oh, in the old day popes were bad, we all know that…” as if that means they can just, essentially, be ignored unless they made an ex cathedra statement.” I ask again, who has done this unless we’re talking about the really “notorious” popes, such as Alexander VI, John XII, etc? **

As if only the popes of the past century “matter”. As if only they are important to modern Catholics, or relevant to modern Catholics, or the standard for modern Catholics.

I hardly hear popes farther back than Pius IX being discussed these days in any sort of substantial way.

This may be because the popes that ARE discussed are discussed in a context specific to the interests of posters here in these fora. No one defends Pope Gregory the Great because no one really attacks Pope Gregory the Great. Is that disrespect? Is anyone running Pope Gregory the Great down? No one in these fora talks much Pope Leo the Great preventing the sack of Rome by Atila the Hun because frankly, it doesn’t come up that often. Is that disrespect? Who’s dumping on Peter, or Linus, or Cletus?

**Now sure, there are lots of liberals, particularly in Western Europe and North America who seem to run down the pre-conciliar Church and popes. I’ve known quite a few of them who, ironically, dislike Pope John Paul as much as some "traditionalists’ do, moaning,“Oh, if only Good Pope John were still here,” not realizing how fundamentally conservative Pope John was theologically. But those liberals RARELY post in these fora. I’ve heard the same liberals (nuns and priests and one campus minister) run down Pope Pius IX and Pope St. Pius X for being too traditional (I guess I can now write them and tell them,“Hey, these guys really shouldn’t be called traditional.”), but again, they don’t post here. **

I’ll have to answer the rest of your post latter.

 

[childofmary1143]

I don’t know what Papolatry means but what I would like to know is how people got freedom confused with intelligence?

We have opinions, but they can be formed with no intelligence.

What makes any of us here experts to judge a Papacy a success or failure? Humility is a virtue that I think we can all practice more.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

We all know what the sentiment was behind it.

But it’s a slap in the face to 1000 years of tradition and 100 other popes.

It looked to me like Paul was saying, “Look, I’m more humble than my predecessors. Look, they were arrogant for 1000 years, but finally I’m not.”

If he felt uncomfortable wearing it often, fine. But to suddenly turn something often used and held good by even his immediate predecessor, Blessed John XXIII…into something practically anathema in the minds of future popes

How can anyone know their opinions either way, given that they all belong to a hypothetical future ? What people may think in the future is less important than the Will of God in the present - including the present of 1969, or whenever he put it aside.​

(and from the looks of these comments, many lay Catholics)…is a 180-degree switch that can be seen as nothing but a sensationalist gesture and a major rupture with tradition.

If something like that was going to die, if you felt its time was coming to an end, that it was less appropriate for the modern age…it should haved died a slow death. But unilaterally “leaving it at the altar” once and for all in a show of humility…is just that; a show. It’s showy, and thus not humble in my mind.

It glorified the OFFICE of the papacy, not the man who happened to be pope. It was a crown upon the visible head of the Church! Does the Church not deserve a crown???

No. The Church deserves Hell, & needs to carry the Cross, for which it needs God’s grace. Why does the Church pray in the Mass “Do not give us what we truly deserve…”, if the Church deserves a crown ?​

This notion of glory in this world is all wrong - “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”. This is a typically Johannine paradox - glory is not found in what appears to be glory, but in lowliness, humiliation: in that of Christ Crucified. That’s what is so attractive about St.Peter - he followed His Master in the right way, by dying on a cross. The only crown he wore was the radiant crown of a martyr; it would have been a fine thing if all who claim to be his successors had done so

Yet he began by preaching a theology of glory of the wrong kind: “Master, this shall never happen to you !” And Jesus rebuked him, calling him satan for doing so; because he was tempting Him to come into His Kingdom without having to walk the path that lead to the Cross. What is the use of remembering the gift of the keys, & forgetting that ? For the gospel appears to be saying that dying the death of Christ goes with receiving the keys of Christ.

The men who wear it will die, this was refered to already by the snuffing out of flames in the coronation ritual. But the Office, and Church that it shepherds, will last until the end of time, and have been given both supreme spiritual and temporal authority over this world by Christ…even if niether is always recognized to their full extent.

To attribute authority in temporals to the Church as though it were a permanent feature of its life, degrades the Church by making her into just one more of “the kingdoms of this world”, when she is not of this world at all, but of Christ. If she is one of those, she is nothing, because she is the Church only if she is distinctively Christian; not if she is no different in nature from the kingdoms of the world. There is no lack of them.

 

[AlexV]

Just because a beatification/canonization may be infallible doesn’t mean they’re prudent or advisable.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Just because a beatification/canonization may be infallible doesn’t mean they’re prudent or advisable.

Neither does the opinion of those who think they’re imprudent or inadviseable mean that they ARE, in fact, either imprudent or inadviseable.

How many of the Saints that Pope John Paul II elevated had sat in the “beatii” category for years, perhaps centuries?

 

[bear06]

Just because a beatification/canonization may be infallible doesn’t mean they’re prudent or advisable.

They’re infallible. Please tell me how you think that it is imprudent or inadvisable to know that someone is a saint and is in a very good spot to intercede for someone or to be an example for someone to follow.

This is all getting quite ridiculous. First people try and say things are not infallible so we don’t have to follow it. Then when something is infallible suddenly isn’t always imprudent or advisable. Please. You’re grasping. Please point out an example of something infallible from history which a saint (someone far more trustworthy than you or I) declared imprudent or unadvisable. (Maybe it can be done but would it be prudent or advisable to do so ) While your at it, maybe you could tell me when we actually have to follow Pastor Aeternus in your mind.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Though I know this is the heights of presumption…I just have serious doubts about whether you’d feel that way IF the tiara had never been laid down. I simply suspect that you’d be singing a different tune if it had kept on living. If the papacy was as powerful and majestic as it used to be…I just don’t see you (or more precisely, your kind) as the rebellious/reformer types arguing for an end to the tiara if it was still very much alive.

Maybe you personally have a bit more nuance than most (and not liking cats has nothing to do with it…I didnt mean those types of opinions)…but many Catholics today are “passive to reform”. They adopt the reformist agenda…but only when it comes from the top down. Which is very scary. Like the Communist’s “revolution”. A rhetoric of constant change and reform…but coming from authority and institionalism and bureaucracy. An eerie irony in many ways.

Saying you’d immediately support it if Benedict took it up again tommorow…is an exaggeration. The cognitive dissonance would be too much for anyone. But I think that gradually, given 30 years and a few papacies…you’d reconcile yourself to the idea. Especially if the popes made it a big point to speak and write about the symbolism of the tiara, re-emphasized the pious language of fealty surrounding the papacy, had a big campaign of “tiara apologetics,” declared a “Year of St. Peter” and passed out little leaflets explaining why the tiara is still relevant. I think you’d jump on board soon enough and parrot back to all the scandalized Protestants the cookie-cutter pro-tiara rhetoric prepared by the Vatican. Even if, at first…your heart really sympathized with them.

It’s just a hunch, but I know the type…

You’re right, it is the height of presumption. Further, “your kind” and “I know the type” is quite rude and dismissive. You don’t know me well enough to classify me by “type” or “kind.” That said…

First, I’m afraid I have to disagree that the papacy is less powerful or less majestic than it used to be. I’ve lived long enough that, though a convert, I can remember Paul VI being carried on the sedia gestatoria. I see no diminishment in majesty and authority/power in subsequent popes walking in procession or in Pope John Paul II being wheeled in (in fact, in his declining years, when physical illness and frailty so weakened him, I think the world saw an increase in the majesty and power of the papacy, along the lines of “His strength is made perfect in my weakness”), but I guess “majesty” and “power” is certainly up for interpretation.

Forgive me, I have to go and pick my nephew up from the movies.

 

[AlexV]

It’s amazing, really, the stretching some people do with infallibility.

Infallibility in the case of sainthood declarations means freedom from error.

Now here’s something a [edited by Moderator] might not be able to grasp: just because something is free from error doesn’t mean it was prudent or advantageous to declare using said infallibility.

And, indeed, Catholics are free to have their opinions. Others are free to disagree. But let’s not intimate that it’s somehow unCatholic to DARE criticize a declaration of a pope. Because it isn’t. Did I say a given saint wasn’t really a saint? Nope. Doesn’t mean I can’t freely criticize - as a Catholic in good standing - the wisdom of abandoning centuries-old practices governing sainthood and naming so many saints that few know the vast majority of them.

But the point remains. Infallibility DOES NOT remove the right of a Catholic to disagree with the wisdom of a given decision. Here’s another shocker. A Catholic in perfectly good standing can assent to Humanae Vitae, and think it was an inadvisable encyclical for its day and time. Or Summorum Pontificum, for that matter.

I remember well the day a priest said he was wearing his stole outside his chasuble “because our Holy Father had done it on television”. Small point indeed…but indicative of a very real problem. “The pope said/did it; ergo it’s okay”.

UnCatholic, problematic, inadvisable.

 

[obadiah]

It’s amazing, really, the stretching some people do with infallibility…I remember well the day a priest said he was wearing his stole outside his chasuble “because our Holy Father had done it on television”. Small point indeed…but indicative of a very real problem. “The pope said/did it; ergo it’s okay”.

UnCatholic, problematic, inadvisable.

That is the problem Orthodox have with Papal infallibility, If the Pope says it I believe it and that settles it.