It seems like the new Pope isn’t spending time prettying up his papal vestments and shoes like the last one. Instead, he’s cracking down on the nuts who want to fetishize the Latin Mass:
Pope Francis may have been named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, but he has come under scathing criticism from a growing number of traditionalist Catholics for cracking down on a religious order that celebrates the old Latin Mass. The case has become a flashpoint in the ideological tug-of-war going on in the Catholic Church over Francis’ revolutionary agenda, which has thrilled progressives and alarmed some conservatives.
[…] The Vatican in July named the Rev. Fidenzio Volpi, a Franciscan Capuchin friar, as a special commissioner to run the order with a mandate to quell the dissent that had erupted over the liturgy, improve unity within its ranks and get a handle on its finances. In the same decree appointing Volpi, Francis forbade the friars from celebrating the old Latin Mass unless they got special permission, a clear rollback from Benedict’s 2007 decision.
[…] And on Dec. 8, he took action, issuing a series of sanctions in the name of the pope that have stunned observers for their seeming severity: He closed the friars’ seminary and sent its students to other religious universities in Rome. He suspended the activities of the friars’ lay movement. He suspended ordinations of new priests for a year and required future priests to formally accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and its new liturgy or be kicked out. And he decreed that current priests must commit themselves in writing to following the existing mission of the order.In a letter detailing the new measures, Volpi accused friars loyal to Manelli of seeking to undermine him and accused some of embezzlement. He denounced a cult of personality that had grown around Manelli, saying it “reveals a great spiritual poverty and psychological dependence that is incompatible with” the life in a religious community.
Speaking of spiritual poverty and psychological dependence, I liked Frank’s response to Rush Limbaugh’s accusation that he’s a Marxist:
The ideology of Marxism is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended.
Keith G
Lord, I hope he has food tasters.
As David Simon pointed out in an essay last week (please use Google to find and read) Karl Marx was a pretty good diagnostician. He just was not skilled enough to concoct workible and humane remedies to the ills that he identified.
gelfling545
Well, I expect that, unlike Limbaugh & his following, Francis I actually knows what Marxist philosophy entails. To the Limbaughs of the world it is just a scare word to through around when they don’t like someone/thing and doesn’t require an actual definition.
fka AWS
Now if he could just slap down than Opus Dei cult.
Botsplainer
@fka AWS:
I suspect that is coming. SSPX is undoubtedly feeling the lack of love these days.
They’ll never be without their would be Savonarolas or Calvins, but Frank is knocking them back.
RSR
Reshaping of the Congregation for Bishops as reported by Philly guy Rocco Palmo.
http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2013/12/for-bishops-francis-runs-wuerlpool.html
Wag
@fka AWS:
I have a feeling they’re time is coming.
Joy
Evidence of the difference between an educated man and an idiot.
RSR
also, too, form a media matters post on Francis & Marxism:
Chyron HR
Newsmax Headline: Rush Limbaugh declares self anti-Pope, guardian of true Catholicism.
fka AWS
@Botsplainer: @Wag:
I have my popcorn and schadenfreude at the ready for when it does come.
Snarki, child of Loki
“Rev. Volpe”, eh? Volpe is italian for “fox”.
Of course, in spanish he would be Rev. Zorro.
I fondly await the movie version of his reforms.
Belafon
@Chyron HR: What’s he guarding, the find-little-boys-in-foreign-countries part of Catholicism?
Linda Featheringill
As a Marxist, I say that Catholicism is wrong in so many ways but I’ve known many Catholics who were good people so I’m not insulted.
Wag
@Wag:
Their, not they’re. F•••Ing autocorrect.
And what I really meant was their turn on the chopping block. Can’t wait.
aimai
@RSR: Jeebus (sic) this reads like a combination of mad libs and a baseball tipster’s sheet.
Amir Khalid
Help me out here. Which Marx are Limbaugh and the Pope talking about — Karl, Groucho, or Richard?
Violet
@Chyron HR: Here’s the actual Newsmax headline from the column just to the right:
Belafon
Wait until you see the Pope’s photo scandal: Participating in selfies in a place as solemn as a cathedral.
Napoleon
@Snarki, child of Loki:
I know a few Italian-Americans with that last name.
oldster
@Snarki, child of Loki:
My thought too: Fidenzio Volpi. Awesome name. What’s more useful than a faithful attack dog? A faithful wolf.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
Picture, if you can, a Newsmax headline:
I tried it, and failed.
Cermet
Marxism is an economic policy Christ would approve and JC often voiced some of its idea’s. Jesus was far more a Marist than a Capitalist.
EconWatcher
My somewhat estranged brother is an Opus Dei type. I can almost hear his head exploding, from miles away. He loved him some Benedict. Francis is doing the equivalent of a de-nazification of the Church.
MattF
We’re so used to the fact that Limbaugh, Beck, etc. are horrible human beings that when someone reacts to their bullshit as a normal, educated person will– it’s news. But anyhow, once again, good for Frank the First.
RSR
@aimai: yes, Rocco writes in an interesting style.
Here’s more traditional reporting on Francis’ changes regarding the Congregation of Bishops:
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/pope-francis-remakes-bishop-naming-team-new-image
A BFD even?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I very much admire this Pope. Words I never expected to write. I await the Opus Dei adjustment eagerly.
Woodrowfan
I haven’t admired a Pope this much since JP I. But then I’m Presbyterian so I’m not in his flock. But this is the first Pope in decades that I think is truly moved by the Holy Spirit.
Yes, I know, he still for an all-male priesthood and anti-gay marriage. But compared to JPII and Papa Nazi this Pope is moving the Catholic church in the right direction.
Woodrowfan
@EconWatcher:
Does he do that scourging stuff? ew,
Belafon
@Woodrowfan: Not that I’m saying this is what the Pope is doing, but remember when Obama was against gay marriage?
Ken
to quell the dissent that had erupted over the liturgy, improve unity within its ranks and get a handle on its finances
Call me cynical, but I think I know which of those things is why some conservatives are alarmed.
Higgs Boson's Mate
OT: I’m seeing an ad that reads “When I read the Book of Mormon, I feel closer to Jesus Christ.” Funny, when I read The Book of Mormon I felt closer to a bunch of made-up bullshit.
negative 1
@Cermet: I agree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_socialism
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Cermet:
Sinner! Your penance is to say ten Our Capitals and 10 Hail Derivatives.
negative 1
@MattF: I honestly think that movement conservatism should be quite concerned. If there is no spiritual cover for the naked greed, I think that a lot of people begin to question them. Remember — evangelical protestantism has preached that Jesus said ‘greed is good’ unchallenged for 30 years, but most evangelicals consider themselves Christians first, everything else a distant second. If they are forced to reconcile the idea that letting poor people starve isn’t what Christianity is all about, rethugs would definitely have to scramble.
Woodrowfan
@Belafon: yep, and he changed. So did a lot of people. good. Hopefully Francis will move his church in that direction.
Mandalay
Good to see that you are finally easing up on your mindless hatred for Pope Francis. There plenty of other religious leaders out there who are far more deserving of your bile.
Snarki, child of Loki
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: ” Funny, when I read The Book of Mormon I felt closer to a bunch of made-up bullshit.”
Needs moar invisible aliens and spaceships and volcanoes.
and a decent editor.
wenchacha
Bill Donahue and his League of Extraordinary Catholics must be having conniptions every damn day.
Thank you, Pope Frank!
GregB
@negative 1:
They have been praying to the wise words of Pope Gekko.
Greed is good.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Mandalay:
WTF are you talking about? I just read dpm’s posts back to Nov. 1st and I saw nothing like mindless hatred for anyone, let alone the Pope.
Take your meds.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
Noisemax is another one of those sewers that needs to be flushed.
And by flushed I mean with tumbrels.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay:
Lol wut?
Cervantes
@Linda Featheringill:
Bravissima!
Here’s public intellectual and Catholic theologian Terry Eagleton in a recent interview:
His 2011 book, Why Marx Was Right, takes on and debunks popular assertions about Marxism by delving into philosophy, politics, literary criticism, and humor. In the process he reminds us that Marx did have some good things to say about capitalism and the middle class.
Botsplainer
@Woodrowfan:
I’m wondering how many Cardinals from the conclave that elected Ratzinger were still voting this time, and just when it dawned on those voters that electing a guy who had been in the Hitler Youth and who spent his time in senior positions in the Vatican 1) stomping the shit out of people who were working to uplift impoverished humanity 2) revancheing liturgical forms and dogma to hidebound tradition and 3) emphasizing pharisaic condemnation of all might not have been a great idea for inspiring devotion among the people of Western Europe and the Americas?
And what would anybody have given to be a fly on the wall during the conversations that led to his “retirement”?
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes:
Marx was inspired by Adam Smith.
Goblue72
@EconWatcher: if you want to storm the beaches of Normandy, send in God’s Marines.
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est: Aren’t we all?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Woodrowfan:
If the RCC declared that gay marriage was against their doctrine but stopped spending their money on anti-gay marriage statutes, that would go a long, long way.
IMO, the most damaging doctrine the Church has right now is the one that underlies the worst of their anti-abortion decisions, which is that if two people’s lives are endangered, it is immoral to intervene to save the life of one of them if it means the other one will die. That’s the belief that’s behind horror stories like the death of Savita Halappanavar, but it’s also led to things like the parents of conjoined twins being told that they can’t have them separated if it means one would live but the other would die. They’re told they have to let both twins die rather than interfere with “God’s will.”
It’s one thing to hold that as a private moral or religious belief, but it’s a very different thing to base medical decisions on it and force people who don’t share your beliefs to endanger their lives for your fee-fees.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes:
Those of us who have actually read him, yes.
There’s a reason we’re called elitists, you know. We’ve actually read the damn book.
Villago Delenda Est
Noisemax headline:
Gingrich: Democrats’ Income Inequality Ideas ‘Baloney’
Well, so much for that brief foray into the world of decent human beings from last week for ol’ Newt.
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
Gingrich is, at best, a moron. I don’t waste time on his “ideas.”
In keeping with the topic, here’s his religious epiphany:
That was spoken in 2011. Has he said anything yet about the new Pope?
Mandalay
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Well here are four OPs from him within two weeks of Francis becoming pope. Looks like pretty mindless hatred to me, little different to the kind of stuff stuff spewed out by wingnuts that is regularly mocked here, but YMMV…
Eric U.
I know that the ads on this site are often due to my own browsing history, but I’ve been getting some car ads that basically bring the page to its knees. Had to install noflash, which is a pain. Firefox, Linux, car company called “yo”
I am really surprised that they let this guy become pope. As someone said above, the Popes since JP1 have been a disaster. Even JPII made some anti-war and anti-greed noises, but on the whole he promoted those things.
maya
Shouldn’t Darryl Issa be holding closed hearings, cherry-picking selective intelligence and forming a committee to impeach Pope F1 ?
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay:
Well, to be perfectly honest, that was at the start, no one knew Francis would say all the things he’s said since then. After all, he was selected by JPIIs college of cardinals, and JPII was a reactionary asshole, like his immediate successor.
Some of those observations about the historical context are right on, too.
Francis is turning out very different than Benedict imagined he would, I’m sure.
We shall see. This is an ongoing process. The guy is pressing the buttons of scum like Limbaugh right now. Naturally, we cheer him on.
Mandalay
@Woodrowfan:
This. Even President Obama didn’t support gay marriage until last year FFS.
Expectations from some about what the Pope could and should do are absurd.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes:
“Francis makes Vladimir Lenin look like David Koch.”
Kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m enjoying the panic. Someone should tell him the pope isn’t a “Democrat”.
They’re really such cowards. 542 low wage workers walk off, it gets some sparse media coverage and it’s all hands on deck! It’s like I can hear sirens whooping. They ALL come out- Gingrich, those ridiculous Third Way people threatening Elizabeth Warren, the American Enterprise Institute. God forbid we have a real debate where they don’t define the terms and set all the rules of engagement.
Belafon
@Kay: 100+ years ago, these people weren’t afraid to pull out the guns. It won’t be easy to get a fair discussion of labor rights in this country.
El Cid
Because if you don’t speak the language of the Roman Empire whose forces were occupying Jerusalem and who crucified Jesus, you’re not being faithful to Jesus?
aimai
@RSR: Yes, I read a very interesting account of the de-latinization issue and its pretty clear that what Francis and his guy Volpi are doing is intervening in a situation that is really getting out of hand. Its not so much, or not only, that the Latin Mass is being fetishized its that the community itself is being split into an in group and an outgroup in which the Latin Mass is serving as a kind of secret handshake or gang sign. Francis and Volpi seem to be trying to split up a faction which, to their mind, has lost its focus on actual Christian good works and which is determined to privilige mere ritual acts.
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: I think he’s turning out very differently than I expected. I expected him to be more of a placeholder pope than a reformer. But he seems to be reforming with zeal. I realize that this is the chance for a Pope who came up from the Western Hemisphere – and who knows when that will happen again. It would appear that these are reforms aimed at the south american, african and philippine churches – the churches in countries where huge numbers of Catholics live but very few cardinals come from.
RSR
‘What do you mean demoted? Hey look over there! Abortions! And hippies!’
Joshua McElwee
@joshjmac
Cardinal Burke, just removed by @pontifex from key #Vatican role, criticizes pope’s lack of focus on abortion.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/burke-pope-should-highlight-abortion-didnt-write-officially-capitalism
Villago Delenda Est
@aimai:
They’ve lost their focus, and Francis and Volpi are trying to help them get it back.
Unfortunately, so much of this stuff is window dressing for a serious sickness. Francis realizes this and is working to correct it. It won’t be easy.
maya
@El Cid: ” Because if you don’t speak the language of the Roman Empire whose forces were occupying Jerusalem and who crucified Jesus, you’re not being faithful to Jesus? ”
Yeah. The mass should be done in Yiddish.
Villago Delenda Est
@RSR:
Good example of a vile creature who should be left in an iron maiden to die.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: He was impressed by the joyfulness of Benedict? Isn’t that like being struck by the serenity of Charlie Sheen?
Villago Delenda Est
@maya:
Aramaic. Yiddish is a very way post 70CE or so thing.
handsmile
@Cervantes:
A link or reference to the source of that Eagleton quotation, if you’d be so kind. (My clicking onto the highlighted text didn’t help.)
In October, Eagleton participated in a panel discussion, “Uneasy Grace: Can Faith and Doubt Co-Exist?,” hosted by Fordham University’s Center for Religion and Culture (Fordham is a Jesuit institution.) Regrettably I was unable to attend that evening, but here is a video clip of the event that might be of interest. (I’ve listened closely only to Eagleton’s remarks, half-eared to the others.)
http://digital.library.fordham.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/rc/id/71
(also too, Tony and Terry in the same morning! – a tip o’ the trilby)
Comrade Mary
@Mandalay: Take a lesson from Francis on accepting criticism with some equanimity.
Mandalay
@Cervantes:
And rightly so, yet the myth that Gingrich is highly intelligent and overflowing with good ideas persists despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
I have never seen anyone call Gingrich on his bullshit better than Mitt Romney. He eviscerated him during a Republican presidential debate …
In just a few seconds Romney showed Gingrich to be a pandering windbag who was full of nothing but shit and lousy ideas.
Kay
@Belafon:
100 years is a long time ago. When’s the last time Newt Gingrich did anything more taxing than going from the SUV at the curb to the fundraiser? He won’t even do that unless he gets a cut.
This is the latest Koch-backed group. Everyone is getting paid.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay:
I don’t know. I’m still pissed that the world of 2001: A Space Odyssey is not the one we’re living in We SHOULD have a base up there on the Moon right now..
But Rmoney, for once in his miserable empty greedhead life, was right about one thing…Gingrich was pandering.
maya
@Villago Delenda Est: Modernization of the church calls for fresh ideas. Aramaic is so…. last millennium
Belafon
@Kay: I meant “these people” as the wealthy elites who will do anything to keep their status. It was in response to this:
Roger Moore
@Eric U.:
You might try Flashblock instead. It’s slightly nicer in that it only prevents flash things from starting automatically. You can still start them manually by clicking on them, so you don’t need to turn it on and off to watch the flash stuff you want to see.
I think some of this stuff is actually the desired effect. My gut feeling is that the real conflict within the College of Cardinals is between the central bureaucracy and the pastoral bishops, and the bureaucracy has obviously been getting the best of things under the past couple of popes. Francis was presumably elected with the idea that he would re-emphasize the pastoral mission of the church and clean house in the bureaucracy. Cleaning up the Vatican was clearly necessary but painful, and it was also one of those things that was going to be ever more painful the longer it was put off. I don’t think the Cardinals elected a Latin American Jesuit without knowing and accepting the likely consequences.
Big R
@Villago Delenda Est: And Joseph Silk look like Adolph Eichmann.
burnspbesq
@wenchacha:
One certainly hopes so.
Roger Moore
@El Cid:
This. What the Latin Mass people don’t get is that the Latin Mass was originally adopted because Latin was the vernacular and the Church wanted people to understand what was going on. Holding mass in the vernacular is going back to the original spirit of the Latin Mass, not undermining it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
An understanding of historical context is not one of the strong suits of mindless reactionaries.
See: The Endless War on Christmas
Mandalay
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m with you (and Gingrich) in spirit, and I’d love to see us spending more on NASA and less on military hardware that is not wanted or needed.
But it was incredibly dumb of Gingrich to blather about a moon base while the entire Republican Party was having a massive meltdown about government spending. Forget about whether a moon base is a good idea or not….the bigger issue was that Gingrich just displayed such horrible political judgment.
I suspect his massive ego was the root cause. He probably thought he was going to bring a new morning in America with his moon base idea.
Cervantes
@Mandalay:
Except that Romney’s underlying assumption — that corporate executives are capable of properly judging the value of investments — never mind public investments — is itself worse than nonsense.
burnspbesq
@RSR:
That’s some serious insubordination there. When the Pope speaks ex cathedra on matters of faith, he is by definition infallible, and no pipsqeak American cardinal gets to say otherwise. I hope Frankie follows through and sends this turd to a retirement home.
chopper
@Villago Delenda Est:
Iron Maiden? excellent!
Poopyman
@Kay:
My first thought was the fight to unionize like at Blair Mountain that included bringing in the US Army, or the Homestead Strike where Andy Carnegie brought in the Pinkertons.
Do you think the Kochs and their ilk would hesitate to bring in Blackwater or some similar private firm? Or that Scott Walker or one of their other governors would hesitate to call in the Nat’l Guard if the 99% got too far out of hand? The free use of force against the relatively peaceful Occupy movements argue otherwise.
Kay
@Belafon:
Do we know that, though? I think they’d be much more likely to spend time raising an army made up of lawyers and marketing people, maybe hire someone to Tweet a lot.
burnspbesq
@Roger Moore:
I’m related by marriage to some of those Latin-Mass kooks. That’s far from the only thing they don’t get.
MattF
@Roger Moore: I tend to agree that the College had a good idea what they were doing when Frank was elected. I think, also, that Benedict’s abdication was an admission of failure. Something had to be done.
Cervantes
@handsmile:
It was in The Oxonian Review (what used to be the ORB). One of the questions the interviewers asked was:
What I quoted above was part of Eagleton’s response. The full interview is available on line.
Thanks for the link to the Fordham panel.
Suffern ACE
@Cervantes: Yeah. It was pandering alright. Just like telling a bunch of well-heeled 1%ers that he had their back and that those 47%ers were the real problem wasn’t also huckstering. Oh, I’m sorry, he was being “candid” with them, perhaps giving them some “inside information” because “everyone in this room is really importantant to our future plans.” Nope. No pandering at all in the 47% speech.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay:
Of that I have little doubt. And there’s nothing that a megalomaniac like Rmoney hates more than another megalomaniac.
Belafon
@Poopyman: This is what I was thinking of as well.
handsmile
@Cervantes:
Much appreciated. My, that looks tasty!
(e.g., “the advantages of a left downturn”; “Culture can’t hold a candle to religion”; “It’s not a good time to be in universities”) Yummy!
Mandalay
@Cervantes:
You have a point, and maybe it’s revealing that Romney phrased his answer to Gingrich in terms of a corporate environment rather than a presidency.
But any president’s policy on space exploration is ultimately a value judgment based on a mix of vision, priorities, politics and optics. Spreadsheets full of numbers probably aren’t going to be the deciding factor.
Cervantes
@Suffern ACE: Exactly.
If Romney eviscerated Gingrich that night, it’s cause for celebration, sure.
But when he criticized Gingrich for “pandering” by suggesting to a crowd of Republicans that “business executives” are uniquely qualified to judge the value of public investments — well, need I say more?
Botsplainer
@chopper:
“we gotta go save the babes”.
pacem appellant
@Cervantes: Bravissimo, right? The Pope is a dude, though no doubt does look good in a dress, so I can let this slide, this time.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
One other point that I think people have been missing is the whole bit about Francis surviving as a Jesuit bishop during the Junta. It seems to imply some combination of ruthlessness and political acumen that it would be unwise for his opponents to ignore.
Cervantes
@Mandalay:
I agree that the man should be given some time to show what he can do.
I also think the institution he leads should not be exempt from criticism while we wait for him to find his legs, move beyond words, etc.
(It was all I could do in the previous sentence not to add an adjective before the word “institution.”)
Cervantes
@pacem appellant:
The “Bravissima!” was meant for Linda, to whom I was responding.
But thanks in advance for your forbearance — I’m sure I’ll earn it fair and square before too long.
Cervantes
@handsmile:
That’s Terry for you.
rb
@Mandalay: In just a few seconds Romney showed Gingrich to be a pandering windbag who was full of nothing but shit and lousy ideas.
Takes one to know one, apparently.
schrodinger's cat
Pope Francis is giving the loonies a sad. I approve.
Cervantes
@Suffern ACE:
From the Philippines, my favorite Cardinal: Jaime Sin.
(If only for his name.)
wenchacha
@Mandalay: Shirter RMoney: Newt stole my grift playbook.
schrodinger's cat
BTW does Francis wear cute red shoes?
Chris
@Cervantes:
I’ve heard the phrase “a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like” before, I don’t know who the first person it was applied to was, but I’ve never heard anyone that I thought it applied to more perfectly than Newt Gingrich.
Probably because instead of making his public persona a tough guy or a moralist or a canny businessman, he actually tries to project the image of an intellectual/philosopher type.
El Cid
I do find it interesting that people keep wanting to believe that if they just use the correct code / language, that suddenly they and they alone are conversing with God.
I would say something about mathematics coming close, but people just go off and do their crazy version of spooky numbers and math with their preferred occult twist anyway.
Pogonip
@burnspbesq: Tell us more, please. I’ve never met a Latin-mass kook. My big peeve with the Mass is being forced to shake hands with the person behind me who has been coughing and sneezing into his hand for the previous 45 minutes.
Cervantes
@Chris:
First I saw the phrase was when Elizabeth Bowen used it to describe Aldous Huxley (although, to be fair, she said he was both “the truly clever person and the stupid person’s idea of the clever person.”) More recently I’ve seen it applied to Stephen Fry (without the complimentary part); and then, of course and famously, Ezra Klein applied it to Dick Armey.
It fits Gingrich, too, I agree.
Chris
@fka AWS:
Funny you should say that; I remember reading somewhere that Opus Dei had been the ideological enforcers of the John Paul II and Benedict XVI eras, particularly against the Jesuits who were viewed as too independent.
Now that there’s a Jesuit in charge, one can only hope that a reckoning is, indeed, around the corner.
handsmile
@Pogonip:
As a former Roman Catholic, now NYC Secular Humanist, my own “big peeve with the Mass” was the theological cannibalism. Shaking hands with the consumptive, however, always seemed a more voluntary action. Nodding one’s head at the afflicted while mumbling “Peace be with you” passed muster as a devotional gesture at the parishes I once knew.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
It’s deeper than that, though — it’s an actual theological split. The Latin Mass crowd rejects all of Vatican II, not just the “Mass in English” part. The previous two Popes were accommodating to the anti-Vatican II crowd, but it looks like this Pope will not be putting up with that bullshit anymore.
@Cervantes:
Applied to this Stephen Fry, or someone else with the same name?
aimai
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, that was my point, actually, with “not so much or not only…” The Latin Mass is coming to serve as a stand in for all that stuff and as a bright line demarcating “true” believers from false–this has been going on a long time and everyone knows it, at least if they have been paying attention. Mel Gibson’s dad is one of the kookiest of the rejectors. But in this specific case the split is happening right inside a very small, manageably small, order and Frncis and Volpi are intervening on the side of the non Latin Mass people. They aren’t demonizing the Latin Mass or pointing the finger of blame at it but they are signaling that they won’t allow this kind of hiearchy to arise or be imposed among the believers within a particular religious community. Reading these accounts is quite a bit like reading the beginning of the Name of the Rose with its descriptions of doctrinal schisms and arguments in the run up to the murders that are at the heart of the book.
Captain C
@RSR: With any luck, the good Cardinal will soon be “gently asked” to spend the rest of his days in a spare monastic cell, praying for enlightnenment and only coming out for simple meals and a daily constitutional.
Villago Delenda Est
Nuked dupe!
Villago Delenda Est
@Captain C:
You mean the punishment doled out by Ratzi the Nazi to Raymond Hunthausen for refusing to pay his income taxes to support the shitty grade Z movie star’s program to upgrade and expand the US nuclear arsenal?
burnspbesq
@Pogonip:
Mnem and aimai pretty much nailed it: Vatican II rejectionists. A lot of them are also wingnuts.
Bex
@oldster: Like St. Francis’s taming of the wolf of Gubbio?
Another Holocene Human
@gelfling545: To be fair, to men of Limbaugh’s class and generation Communist == race mixer, thanks to the efforts of the CPUSA and its successors, the CIO and CIO-unions post AFL-CIO merger such as AFSCME.
(That Marxist == Communist goes without saying in such anti-intellectual waters. I’ve met plenty of white-privileged, cisheteromale-privileged soi-disant Marxists, fwiw, and heaven knows there are Marxist theorists who are DEEPLY CONCERNED about the academics who look at race/gender/class because as well ALL KNOW there is ONLY CLASS. They don’t see race, people tell them they’re white and they believe it because they down their body weight in coffee and cigarettes before breakfast.)
Pogonip
@burnspbesq: What if you’re too young ever to have been to a Latin Mass but aren’t too worked up about Vatican II one way or the other, believing it a product of its times and no more, or less? Does that make you a kook?
Not that I know anybody like that…
Another Holocene Human
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: When I read the book of Mormon and asked pointed questions the missionaries got really nervous and starting spouting the names of books (D&C, PoGP) they helpfully hadn’t provided me. I guess the “marks” don’t tend to actually read the damn thing? Anyway, Twain was right about what a dreadful read it is. Makes the battle scenes in the fucking Iliad seem poetic and inspiring.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne:
That’s the one.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): It’s also a novel doctrine that was basically invented as an attack on birth control. (The story of Hannah, mother of Samuel, is the favored biblical precedent.)
If you dig into the history of Christiandom, the kinds of interventions that were attempted even with the utterly sorry state of anything approaching ‘medicine’ at the time is truly astounding. During the high medieval period it wasn’t uncommon for hospice/hospital/clinics to be run by religious orders and while I suppose they later got a reputation as a place to die, archeological evidence shows that during their first run they actually did a lot to treat people, keep them alive, and palliate their suffering. It seems like to these monks, mortification was a spiritual exercise. The Catholicism I grew up with, however, still viewed it as a literal exercise (though the Church has really dropped it wholesale in recent decades, perhaps all those priests with advanced degrees in psychology realizing how unhealthy the whole practice is).
I wonder if the 19th century church, in retreat, adopted a reactionary stance as governments and secular charity societies started to take over charity medical care. They were reactionary on damn near all else at that point. The Italian nationalism movement deranged what was left of those popes’ fragile little minds.
Catholicism as death-cult. Your suffering springs souls from purgatory. (Before Luther, prayers for the dead–yeah, it started as prayers, okay?–could be replaced with ample payment; after Luther, hairshirts, autoflagellation, the suffering of disease, by self or by proxy, just take those horrid scam “hospitals” in Calcultta that didn’t provide clean needles or adequate pain management because their suffering would send the dead to heaven. But let’s not blame Luther; I think it’s plausible that the Middle Ages end due to bubonic plague, at which point a violent, xenophobic anti-Semitism emerges as well as a theodicy problem that blames a lack of faith for human suffering, auto-flagellation offered as plague preventative. While there were positive sequellae to the big die-off I think it totally deranged religious and philosophical life. PS: you can still pay the Church a lot of money to do a special mass for your deceased loved one. I believe Buddhism has a similar system.)
Another Holocene Human
@Pogonip: I take it you don’t even bother with the holy water, then?
@Chris: Opus Dei only really got power late in the JPII era. His early reign was still high on Vatican II.
@Mnemosyne: Bingo, it’s all of Vatican II they hate. Note that the Tridentine mass has a number of differences:
The language of the mass is Ecclesiastical Latin, which probably only a few hundred people in the world are actually fluid in. Even in the late medieval period many parish priests in many areas did not know latin, making the Mass a farce.
The celebrant faces away from the laity. Whatever that is supposed to symbolize in effect it cuts the laity out of the proceedings because they can’t see or understand what is going on. Devices such as bells were invented to cue the congregants’ actions because the proceedings were so obscure. Bringing the laity into the full spiritual life of the Church was a huge focus of Vatican II and naturally part of what pisses off the arch conservatives.
The Tridentine mass includes a sequence for every Mass. The sequence was a rhyming poem in Vulgar Latin which explained what the f*** was going on in that day’s Bible passages for the medieval masses. The only problem is that Vulgar Latin became Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Germanic-language speakers can’t make it out at all. Just more unintelligible chanting. The sequences got dumped with the switch to modern, vernacular languages.
Lay people participating–giving communion, reading Bible passages–at important parts of the Mass as more than just cantors, ushers, or–this is a European favorite–church cleaners. I imagine this really bedevils the minds of arch conservatives. In some regions, there are lay celebrants (they use pre-consecrated host). In some regions there are FEMALE lay celebrants!!
Btw, bar mitzvah is about a boy becoming a man by joining the religious life of the community by reading from the Torah during services. So if it can be done in any synagogue on any block in America these douchebags should not be shocked by Altar Society ladies reading from Pauline epistles or what-have-you. (In my experience the celebrant always read the Gospel passage… There was extra magic gestures before reading it, too. I guess that would make Dispensationalists cry because “Paul” is their lord and master. Fwiw I think Paul is as much a figure of fantasy as Jesus.)
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
Can I ask what the basis was? He seems like a pretty smart guy to me. I’m guessing it was a conservative who didn’t like something Fry said.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human:
This among other things was a major problem for the early Renaissance reformers who gave birth to the reformation.
Mnemosyne
@Pogonip:
It’s kind of hard to say that VII was “a product of its times” because 80-90 percent of it is what’s in force today. It’s like saying that Social Security was a product of its times (because it was founded due to a specific event, the Great Depression) so you don’t really care one way or the other.
The Pius crowd may bitch and moan about the Latin Mass, but they don’t dare complain out loud about anti-semitism being removed as official policy.
ETA: Also, too, not implying that non-Catholics need to give a shit about all of this inside baseball stuff, but since people seem to have questions, we’re providing answers.
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
I think the Church is like any traditional elite facing modernity. They had a great arrangement in the old days, living high on a foundation of cozy partnership with the other elites (monarchy and aristocracy) – with the help of a bunch of utterly baseless doctrines like “divine right of kings” that have as much to do with Christianity as the works of Karl Marx, but hey, it’s difficult to get a man to understand his religion if his status depends on his not understanding it. Then comes the modern world with the nationalism and the republicanism and all the crazy ideas of the French Revolution, and the Church loses its privileges both as a state church and as a social class. They react like any other elite would; they bawl that they want them back.
The Catholic Church experienced modernity in much the same way Southern slave owners experienced the Civil War or Northern robber barons experienced the New Deal – a traumatic experience in which all the things they thought they were entitled to were taken from them. As with America’s elites, not all of the clerics are assholes, but that sort of mindset still permeates much of their society.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne:
Fry is described as “the stupid person’s idea of a clever person” in The Dictionary of National Celebrity (2005) by Hermione Eyre & Willie Donaldson. (Willie was a satirist and co-producer of “Beyond the Fringe.” The book is satirical.)
Well, yes.
(See above.)
maya
@schrodinger’s cat: He can actually click his heels and say,”There’s no place like Rome. There’s no place like Rome.”