Why no more Papal Ceremonial?

[bear06]

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.

Grasp this. You didn’t respond to this:

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.

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

.

Again, if you’re going to make a statement, back it up.

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.

Prove it. I’m sure you have 50 stories of a saint disagreeing with an infallible declaration and taking the Pope to task for being imprudent.

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”.

Let’s not try to mix the apples in with the oranges AGAIN. Infallible declarations - not personal choices of the Pope.

 

[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…

To continue, you say that you don’t see me (or “my kind”) as the rebellious/reformer type. It’s difficult for me to definitively say one way or another because it’s a hypothetical situation, BUT, if the tiara was still in use, I can’t help thinking that I would still recall what I’ve read in scripture. There’s nothing, obviously, forbidding the tiara, in that sense, it’s probably a neutral. I think, though, I would remember certain themes: “Birds of the air have their nests, and foxes their dens, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His Head,” “My Kingdom is not of this world,” a crown made of thorns, the Lord and Master bending to wash the feet of His disciples, etc.

Now, remembering those themes, would I stand up and demand the setting aside of the triregnum? I doubt it. I’m not a saint, but a pretty rotten sinner. Saints have, however, taken popes to task for a variety of reasons, including an oppulence of lifestyle, though I’d have to research as to whether the papal coronation was a part of what they criticized. So maybe you’re right about that. Dunno, it being a hypothetical.

At any rate, I was born when I was born and I entered the Church when I entered the Church, and I had before me the model of Paul VI laying the tiara on the altar, John Paul I and John Paul II declining to take it up again (though certainly John Paul II left the question open), and now Benedict XVI also declining it (as an aside, I didn’t think much of our good Holy Father removing it from his arms, though I doubt I’ll overcome the epithet of “papalotor robot” sufficiently to be believed on that score). So I can definitively tell you (hopefully puting paid to your notion of my type) that I WOULD oppose it were the tiara to be taken up again.

But what form would that “opposition” take. I doubt I’d join a group like “The Society for the Abandonment of the Papal Tiara” (SAPT?). Probably, my oppostion would take the form my approval takes: I’d write about it in these fora. I’d talk about it with my friends. That’s probably it.

(cont)

 

[JKirkLVNV]

What I don’t think I would do is this:

"Paul meant well in leaving the tiara at the altar. He was trying to be “humble”.

But it would be more humble to simply submit to 1000 years of tradition.

To say, “Look at me, I’m going to get rid of what all my pompish predecessors did because I’m more humble,”…actually strikes me as very arrogant.

OR this:

“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.”

**Turn that noun “show” and that adjective “showy” into a verb, “show.” That’s what a symbol does, it “shows.” The triregnum “shows” or symbolizes one thing, the setting aside of it “shows” something else. But make no mistake, they’re both “shows.” **

**Futher, as Catholics, in charity, not knowing what motivation or intent a person has, we’re supposed to assume the best of intentions rather than the worst, unless we have primary evidence to the contrary (not simply opinion). Unless we’ve a reliable record somewhere that states the contrary, we’re obligated to assume good intent. **
**Note, that doesn’t mean one cannot disagree with the prudential wisdom of a decision anyone makes, even the Pope. But to attribute bad motive is, I think, ill done (kindly note, no one here has attributed bad motives to the popes who wore the triple crown. Yet for defending the ones who did not, we’re labled as “papalolotars.” Strange). **

**I also hope that I would remember that I don’t know the weight of the cross the Holy Father carries, whatever Holy Father occupies the Chair of Peter. I don’t know the constraints that he faces or the difficulty he has in fishing for the souls of men (I doubt the popes LOST many by refusing the triregnum when they did and I rather imagine that they may well have gained some, since in every papal inauguration, they make mention that popes used to be crowned. I can’t prove that, though). I wouldn’t constantly carp at him or the Church. **

**Finally, I hope I don’t parrot anything. I haven’t “parroted” why Pope Paul set aside the triregnum, I’ve stated why I think it was a good thing. And I most assuredly am not passive to reform. There is so much in the Church that needs reformation, the abuse of the liturgy, our seminaries, etc. And I would EVEN support a reform by a return to some of the ceremony surrounding the papal installation. I’d absolutely love to see the procession stop three times and a monk or friar touch the flaming torch to the knotted flax and say: “Sancte Pater, sic transit gloria mundi.” **

 

[JKirkLVNV]

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 papaloter robot 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.

**Alex, Alex, Alex. Again with the papaloter stuff. At what point may we anticipate the ubiquitous “jumping jacks at the consecration?” **

 

[AlexV]

There once was a time when canonizations/beatifications were so rare that the whole world quickly knew the whole story of each new saint. They became world famous and their story prompted universal veneration among Roman Catholics.

Then there was a time (mercifully over now, it seems) when they happened almost every week. Nobody could possibly know or even remember all of them.

The rules were there for good reasons. I simply stated it was inadvisable of John Paul II to ditch centuries of tradition and rules surrounding the process, AND to be the one pope who decided to beatify/canonize far more than everyone else put together. That’s a wrenching change in practice. Some controversial figures used to take centuries to vet – thereby lessening any possibility that a critic, internal or external, could find any grounds to question the decision.

And yes, one can make a critcal observation of a papal act, even an infallible one. It does’t equal lack of assent. An important distinction that may be beyond some people’s ability to grasp.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

This thread is closed. Thank you all.