Habemus papam
Apr. 19th, 2005 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielA new pope, the BBC website is telling me, and I'm disappointed now that I didn't have their 'Vaticam' up on my desktop all day, as I bet I won't get a chance again.
altarielaltarielaltarielmomijizukamori
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Date: 2005-04-19 10:02 am (UTC)Not very well, I think, given how muddy that white smoke usually looked!
And do you know what chemical they use now? How does it work?
There might be something here.
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Date: 2005-04-19 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-20 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 09:52 am (UTC)But - Ratzinger. aargh. I guess I don't really have a right to an opinion, not being Catholic, but.
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Date: 2005-04-19 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 10:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 10:42 am (UTC)May he surprise us all.
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Date: 2005-04-19 11:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 10:45 am (UTC)It is interesting how changing the distribution of Cardinals to more closely match the distribution of Catholics has brought an end to the long succession of Italian Popes.
I had a lot of thoughts watching it on TV. First that everyone else in the World was watching at the same time. It is a strange feeling, when you know something on TV is on everywhere around the world. A sort of modern community.
I was eating a ham sandwich at the time Benedict XVI greeted the World. No disrespect, it was lunchtime, I was hungry.
Next, he is the last real European King. He is the last of the old school rulers. What kings are left are mostly figureheads, or Third World despots. I think that is one reason the Pope gets more press than other religeous leaders. Having the trappings of a Caesar doesn't hurt. Politics is theater, and the Pope has a great set and costume.
It also got me to thinking again on the idea of electing Kings. Would royalty in Europe still be in charge if they had elected Kings the way the Pope is elected, rather than having the eldest son always become king, be he Arthur or Mordred. Having the adult royals pick one of their own would have kept the worst of kings off the throne. Who would have elected Caligula? Democracy took over because the Monarchs failed at their job of being stewards of the land and their people.
As far as modernizing the beliefs,... Why? There are plenty of other Christian sects if you don't like the Catholics. In their view, the word of God is just that, the word of God, and they don't take a poll to to decide what it says. To the mind of the traditional Catholic, the problem is not that the Church no longer believes what the flock does, but rather, the other way around. If the Pope changed what the Church stood for, would they still be Catholics? The Ten Comandments were not a consensus document.
Anyway, it is quite a day. Had I been back at Holy Family Catholic School, we would have the afternoon off and be watching TV. I am going to have to ask Anna if they even announced it at her public school.
mk
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Date: 2005-04-19 11:53 am (UTC)As far as modernizing the beliefs,... Why?
Apart from liking people to agree with me? :-) I think that given that the Catholic Church has such a large constituency in Africa and South America, and such power, its teaching on contraception is unacceptable.
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Date: 2005-04-19 04:27 pm (UTC)I have no hopes for anything good from this pope. I'm not Catholic, but we're all affected by things like their contraception ban and its results.
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Date: 2005-04-20 12:29 am (UTC)(Plus so far as I can make out the Church was shifting towards accepting the Pill back in the 1960s, it just lost its nerve.)
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Date: 2005-04-20 02:44 am (UTC)That teaching is ... bizarre. So people who can't have children should be celibate?
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Date: 2005-04-20 03:01 am (UTC)I think the important thing is intent, and don't forget that the belief system allows for the possibility of miracles happening. So, sex between people who according to medical advice can't conceive is fine... in the context of a monogamous, heterosexual and preferably Catholic marriage, that is.
(As an aside, I wonder if a 'miracle' of that kind would be something that could be attributed to a beatified individual, thus supporting their case for canonization? If a couple have a child when medical advice has told them it's impossible?)
It's more than a decade since I was even a lapsed Catholic, so you might want to do some fact-checking.
Huh
Date: 2005-04-20 06:44 am (UTC)Another argument I've heard from theologians is that the complementarity of the sexes (which is not, apparently, based on your physique or not just on your physique) dictates that only heterosexuality is acceptable, because from that you can justify the position that sex is essentially procreative. However, at the point when the Church starts saying there's ontological sexual difference that must be respected by adhereing to traditional forms of marriage which justify banning birth control and demanding celibacy of gay people, that's the point when I can no longer tolerate the claim that there's some form of rational principle behind the Church's stance.
Dwim
Re: Huh
Date: 2005-04-20 06:54 am (UTC)I imagine there's a natural law argument to be made, but given that my problems with Church teaching start with the "I believe in God" bit and go on from there, I'm probably not best equipped to expound it! :-)
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Date: 2005-04-20 06:43 am (UTC)It also covers the Church's teaching on 'Natural Family Planning', which is acceptable (spot the inc
Date: 2005-04-20 06:46 am (UTC)Dwim
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Date: 2005-04-20 12:48 pm (UTC)And the article mentions people who don't want children because they might compromise their lifestyle--what a narrow view of the world. What about the poor and those who, like me, want the bad (but oh so natural) genes to stop right here. Why have kids who may starve or have chronic conditions?
And for that matter, why try to change anything at all (e.g. weed your garden, prune trees) as that would be interfering with the natural order. Seems a bit fatalistic to me.
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Date: 2005-04-20 02:37 pm (UTC)This was the line from the article I found most illuminating:
Unlike the Pill and other forms of contraception, it should be noted, NFP has no undesirable side-effects.
Not including, I imagine, an unwanted pregnancy.
Grr, argh - anyway, I guess I've made clear why I'm thoroughly lapsed.
Hmm...
Date: 2005-04-20 06:54 pm (UTC)I recall reading a sort of quasi-popular article, some years back, on this topic, and the interviewee was a Christian (I forget if he was Catholic) Church worker in Africa. After he and his wife had their first and only child, they decided they wanted no more, that it'd be easier on her health and keep their family within their means. As I recall, the form of birth control they settled on was chosen precisely because it had no bad side effects (which can happen with chemical means of intervention), wasn't subject to condum failure, and reliably prevented pregnancy. That form of birth control was... vasectomy.
Clearly, this is a most flexible line of reasoning...
Dwim
no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 01:30 pm (UTC)Well... I suspect he might have got the popular vote, as the son of a heroic father, and a young man who offered the appearance of a bright future after his gloomy uncle who'd moved out of Rome years earlier. The Julio-Claudian Emperors aren't very typical monarchs, really, as (a) in the early days, at least, they tried quite hard to maintain the pretence of not being kings, merely "first citizen of the republic", and (b) none of them ever passed on the position to his own son.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 04:09 pm (UTC)To the Conclave! *clink*
Date: 2005-04-19 05:23 pm (UTC)There must be a special ring of hell reserved for those who exploit the hopes of the faithful for alcoholic gain...
Dwim
Re: To the Conclave! *clink*
Date: 2005-04-20 12:04 am (UTC)Reading between the lines, it seems as if Ratzinger has effectively been doing the job for the past few years, and this is a formalization of that.
There must be a special ring of hell reserved for those who exploit the hopes of the faithful for alcoholic gain...
Over here we call that the pub. Your round, I think? ;-D
Re: To the Conclave! *clink*
Date: 2005-04-20 06:49 am (UTC)*shinies up bottle opener* What'll it be?
Dwim
Re: To the Conclave! *clink*
Date: 2005-04-20 06:55 am (UTC)