A piece about Pope Francis that might actually be worth losing a few minutes over. An excerpt: + + + Mosebach: …and that even among people who have nothing to do with the Catholic Church. They assess him as a new president who is proposing a new legislative package. Traditionally a pope does not act in this way. His office consists in continuity not in change. He does not have the mission to reinvent the church. From the very first second, however, Francis has chosen a symbolic language that serves the media public and is supposed to convey this: I will do everything differently. That was not very loyal towards his predecessor. From his “buona sera” instead of the priestly greeting “Praised be Jesus Christ,” to his rejection of papal garments to his move into the Vatican guesthouse. My feeling is that these externals have acquired an inappropriate importance. KNA: You lack sympathy for the papal humility? Mosebach: Ultimately that to me is not humility but a dimming down to a style of life coinciding with today’s secular power. Today billionaires wear T-shirts and sit in comfortable sofas instead of on hard Baroque furniture. Heavy brocaded vestments that represent the glory of the Christ who is to come again are very uncomfortable. The Bergoglio style should not be confused with asceticism. And even if Francis were an ascetic, I would not like at all to hear about it from the mass media. Asceticism has value above all when it is hidden. + + + It gets better.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 03:31:00 +0000
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