Pope Benedict to resign??
Discussion
Halmyre said:
mybrainhurts said:
Oh, no, they're plotting another Inquisition...
RUN AWAY....
Well, that was totally unexpected.RUN AWAY....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAn7baRbhx4
jmorgan said:
Wonder if they are all in chesterfields with a good brandy and cigars reminiscing for a while before they pull a number out the hat. "Do you remember when cardinal Smith got it in the cassocks? Boy did we laugh....."
Nope, They'll probably use the 20 apartments in the gay sauna they bought.
I do respect Father Bob
This brand of Catholicism is one I can agree with.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-fighter-and-the...
Father Bob said:
Father Bob Maguire has just come from a funeral, where he gave the final blessing for a man who left the priesthood to have a wife and son, so we talk about heaven and hell over lunch. At least I do. Father Bob is not fussed with either. ''I don't give a rat's arse,'' he says. What happens, then, when we die? ''Buggered if I know. I could become part of the DNA of the bloody universe.''
Shouldn't Catholics be abstaining from meat today, I ask. ''Nah, not pinko leftists,'' he says, his mouth full of food. ''He's gone now, I can do what I like … I haven't had a bloody omelet in years.''
''He'' being Benedict XVI, now merely Pope Emeritus Benedict I after retiring as head of the Catholic Church. The papal tailors have prepared ivory cassocks in small, medium and large to clothe whoever might emerge from the Sistine Chapel as his successor, perhaps as early as next week.
The Vatican City is a foreign country to him in more ways than one. ''Their particular form of Catholicism is conform and compliance. It means you wear the dress with the buttons, you wear the hat. You are never going to see anyone who is dressed differently. It's a franchise, like McDonald's,'' he says.
''Clergy are not supposed to be thoughtless or unthinking. They run the risk of being permanent adolescents and that will cause them trouble, emotionally and sexually.''
I once worked at McDonald's and remember the exhaustive rules and tight trousers. The Catholic Church depends similarly on protocol and prescription. What chance, then, someone unorthodox might emerge from the cloud of white smoke?
''What the hell, I don't care who gets the job. They should draw straws,'' Father Bob says. ''It won't make any bloody difference.''
He puts his faith not in a particular person but a notion of Catholicism that is humble, open-minded and tied to local communities rather than ritual. ''The best chance for Catholicism around the world is Australian-branded Catholicism, because it will be creative and innovative, it will be larrikin. And that is what I hope will happen.''
A woman then stops to ask about next Sunday night's service. Father Bob has continued giving Mass in the back of Sts Peter and Paul, despite being replaced ''under duress'' by the Capuchin religious order. His brand of ''Occupy Catholicism'', inspired by the will of the 99 per cent rather than those in Rome, didn't sit well with either Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart or Sydney Archbishop George Pell.
Father Bob, who has described himself as ''a brawler, not a fighter'', was given a pair of boxing gloves after his final official Mass in January. He has continued running the independent Father Bob Maguire Foundation, providing assistance to ''the unlovely and the unloved''. ''I've retired from institutional Catholicism. I've got the parish without borders.'' But does he miss his church? ''Yeah, I want to be in there,'' he says.
During his informal Sunday night services, parishioners and priest sit on chairs on the same level, away from the raised altar and vestments. ''Catholicism at its best says to the world: 'Hey, listen, excuse me, can we humbly ask you to let us on board your ship and we will do what we're the best at doing, which is Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, where we put ourselves at your service,' '' Father Bob says.
''If we were in good shape we would be looking after the asylum seekers, we would commission a ship and help them onshore. That's the Catholic way. The top level should become part of the global neighbourhood but the poor buggers can't see past their bishops' rings; they're hypnotised, they're mesmerised.''
Father Bob insists on calling himself a ''voluntary celibate'', regardless of church edicts.
''You have to accept celibacy as being an honourable craft,'' he says. ''If you have involuntary celibacy you are going to get into all kinds of bizarre behaviour, one of which may well be paedophilia and the other one will at least be old, sour bachelors.
''The clerical culture is going to bring out the worst in any of us.''
Which brings us back to death. Heaven, hell and purgatory were ''cooked up'' by the church to corral matters beyond comprehension, he says. Dietary prescriptions during Lent were similarly man-made inventions, he says.
So what happens when we die? ''I'm buggered if I know,'' he says again.
''You know this is not all there is when you listen to music, you see the sunset or the sunrise. Or you look in the eyes of a baby. We become fascinated with our own image and likeness and we try to preserve that environment so we're safe, like the church is trying to do now.
''But we have an instinct there is something else going on. You can either call it faith, you can call it hope, you can call it imagination, you can call it what you bloody well like. All I know is I am optimistic.''
While the cardinals will soon gather in their scarlet robes in Rome to elect the next Pope, the real power of Catholicism ultimately lies with its followers, he argues.
''We are the boss, we the people,'' he says. ''They can do what they like but these days you have less to fear, especially those of us who have been belted out of the ground.''
Just some choice quotes. Shouldn't Catholics be abstaining from meat today, I ask. ''Nah, not pinko leftists,'' he says, his mouth full of food. ''He's gone now, I can do what I like … I haven't had a bloody omelet in years.''
''He'' being Benedict XVI, now merely Pope Emeritus Benedict I after retiring as head of the Catholic Church. The papal tailors have prepared ivory cassocks in small, medium and large to clothe whoever might emerge from the Sistine Chapel as his successor, perhaps as early as next week.
The Vatican City is a foreign country to him in more ways than one. ''Their particular form of Catholicism is conform and compliance. It means you wear the dress with the buttons, you wear the hat. You are never going to see anyone who is dressed differently. It's a franchise, like McDonald's,'' he says.
''Clergy are not supposed to be thoughtless or unthinking. They run the risk of being permanent adolescents and that will cause them trouble, emotionally and sexually.''
I once worked at McDonald's and remember the exhaustive rules and tight trousers. The Catholic Church depends similarly on protocol and prescription. What chance, then, someone unorthodox might emerge from the cloud of white smoke?
''What the hell, I don't care who gets the job. They should draw straws,'' Father Bob says. ''It won't make any bloody difference.''
He puts his faith not in a particular person but a notion of Catholicism that is humble, open-minded and tied to local communities rather than ritual. ''The best chance for Catholicism around the world is Australian-branded Catholicism, because it will be creative and innovative, it will be larrikin. And that is what I hope will happen.''
A woman then stops to ask about next Sunday night's service. Father Bob has continued giving Mass in the back of Sts Peter and Paul, despite being replaced ''under duress'' by the Capuchin religious order. His brand of ''Occupy Catholicism'', inspired by the will of the 99 per cent rather than those in Rome, didn't sit well with either Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart or Sydney Archbishop George Pell.
Father Bob, who has described himself as ''a brawler, not a fighter'', was given a pair of boxing gloves after his final official Mass in January. He has continued running the independent Father Bob Maguire Foundation, providing assistance to ''the unlovely and the unloved''. ''I've retired from institutional Catholicism. I've got the parish without borders.'' But does he miss his church? ''Yeah, I want to be in there,'' he says.
During his informal Sunday night services, parishioners and priest sit on chairs on the same level, away from the raised altar and vestments. ''Catholicism at its best says to the world: 'Hey, listen, excuse me, can we humbly ask you to let us on board your ship and we will do what we're the best at doing, which is Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, where we put ourselves at your service,' '' Father Bob says.
''If we were in good shape we would be looking after the asylum seekers, we would commission a ship and help them onshore. That's the Catholic way. The top level should become part of the global neighbourhood but the poor buggers can't see past their bishops' rings; they're hypnotised, they're mesmerised.''
Father Bob insists on calling himself a ''voluntary celibate'', regardless of church edicts.
''You have to accept celibacy as being an honourable craft,'' he says. ''If you have involuntary celibacy you are going to get into all kinds of bizarre behaviour, one of which may well be paedophilia and the other one will at least be old, sour bachelors.
''The clerical culture is going to bring out the worst in any of us.''
Which brings us back to death. Heaven, hell and purgatory were ''cooked up'' by the church to corral matters beyond comprehension, he says. Dietary prescriptions during Lent were similarly man-made inventions, he says.
So what happens when we die? ''I'm buggered if I know,'' he says again.
''You know this is not all there is when you listen to music, you see the sunset or the sunrise. Or you look in the eyes of a baby. We become fascinated with our own image and likeness and we try to preserve that environment so we're safe, like the church is trying to do now.
''But we have an instinct there is something else going on. You can either call it faith, you can call it hope, you can call it imagination, you can call it what you bloody well like. All I know is I am optimistic.''
While the cardinals will soon gather in their scarlet robes in Rome to elect the next Pope, the real power of Catholicism ultimately lies with its followers, he argues.
''We are the boss, we the people,'' he says. ''They can do what they like but these days you have less to fear, especially those of us who have been belted out of the ground.''
This brand of Catholicism is one I can agree with.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-fighter-and-the...
Watching the news and seeing the black smoke puthering out as if they were burning old tyres I got this vision. No, not that sort of vision.
One where a bod from the council rocks up, complete with hi-viz jacket, helmet, safety helmet and glasses, brandishing a clipboard to shut them down under the Clean Air Act.
One where a bod from the council rocks up, complete with hi-viz jacket, helmet, safety helmet and glasses, brandishing a clipboard to shut them down under the Clean Air Act.
MartG said:
If more than 100 cardinals pray to God for guidance on choosing the new Pope, why didn't they reach a unanimous decision on the first ballot?
But, God moves in mysterious ways!In all seriousness, it will be down to the fallback of most Christian arguments - choice. God doesn't make anybody do anything, he just gives you choices.
Vatican department shares Rome palazzo with gay sauna
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21753860
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21753860
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