Popes: Images that Signify

A sigh of despair generated by one image, 

delighted laughter by the other. 

Guess which.

#CatholicSpring

Popes: Images that Signify

Driven to despair by one,

invited to hope by the other. 

Guess which.

#CatholicSpring

The Pope Leaving Office . . .

looks like this on Twitter . . .

More evidence that the Vatican 

has never understood

the "social" in social media.

Pope Benedict XVI Resigns. Veni Sancte Spiritus.

I remember the day Ratzinger was elected pope. Although I was still on a parish staff, I was not in the office -- not at first. I zipped back there when I heard on NPR that white smoke was blowing and a new pope would soon appear before the crowd gathered in St. Peter's square.

When he did and it turned out to be Ratzinger, our entire parish staff groaned. My priest-boss dropped his head in his hands. Franciscans were visiting at the time to lead our Lenten mission. "Get ready to wear a full habit again," quipped the brother to the sister.

Pizza arrived and we stuffed the rest of our feelings down with that. Double fudge brownies for dessert. With a brownie in his mouth and one in each hand my priest-boss mumbled to no one in particular, "Chocolate is good for stress, right?"

I would leave that parish job, that parish; serve as a lay liturgical minister in another; move from Princeton to Baltimore; join the parish rolls of Jesuit-led church and then stop going to Roman Catholic Mass shortly after the "new" Roman Missal appeared on the scene.

After several failed attempts to generate traction on Twitter for the hashtag #CatholicSpring, I basically gave up. Dumping the Roman Catholic Church in all its messy glory at the foot of the Cross seemed the prudently prayerful way to go.

This morning, my Episcopal Canon husband woke me up with these words, "I am not kidding and this is not a joke: Pope Benedict has resigned. There will be a new pope by Easter."

No (more) words for now. This prayer: Veni Sance Spiritus.

Quote du Jour (Hallelujah Department) | NCR Endorses Ordination of Catholic Women

Today's social media streams are buzzing with the Vatican's latest announcement about the Pope's new Twitter account, something I wrote about after last year's Vatican announcement about the Pope's new Twitter account (The Pope tweets sort of...)

Escaping notice thus far, but not by me, this editorial from the ever-fearless National Catholic Reporter titled, Ordination of women would correct an injustice.

In it, NCR editors review the history of Rome's response to the faithful's ongoing call to ordain women, including a description of the usual internecine kerfuffles about language that might indicate something like movement.

The piece continues with a plea for Catholics to speak up even more "in every forum available to us." The comments include the usual spew from self-appointed "real Catholics" who call for the excommunication of, I guess, unreal Catholics who speak truth to power in this and other hot topics.

The kicker paragraph is today's Quote du Jour:

Our message is that we believe the sensus fidelium is that the exclusion of women from the priesthood has no strong basis in Scripture or any other compelling rationale; therefore, women should be ordained.

We have heard the faithful assent to this in countless conversations in parish halls, lecture halls and family gatherings. It has been studied and prayed over individually and in groups. The brave witness of the Women's Ordination Conference, as one example, gives us assurance that the faithful have come to this conclusion after prayerful consideration and study -- yes, even study of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.

─  NCR Editorial Staff, December 3, 2012

Can't Make This Up: The Vatican Promotes Latin Studies. Not *that* Latin.

Somehow I missed the big Vatican announcement last Saturday about B16 instituting the Pontifical Academy for Latin Studies.

That would be "Latin" as in the language no one reads, understands or uses, not "Latin" as in appreciating the culture of those Roman Catholics from Central and South America who have not yet fled the church.

Some of the headlines for this latest bit of je ne sais quoi (that's French) from the Vatican: "Vatican promoting Latin studies to put Catholics in touch with their roots."  Had they asked, I would have recommended adding Hebrew to First Holy Communion prep.

As a (clearly too slowly) recovering masochist, I couldn't stop myself from re-reading this kicker from a Reuters release: 

"The new academy's statutes, written of course in Latin, say its goal is to promote both written and spoken Latin through publications, conferences, seminars and performances."  

Performances. Carmina Burana, perhaps?

Not giving up social media for Lent . . .

...and not giving up Twitter or LinkedIn and especially not Pinterest. In fact, I'm planning to spend even more time on Pinterest, pinning sacred images that support my Lenten journey.

Some people get all in everyone's face about giving up social media for Lent. A few years ago, I would have agreed with them about how futzing around online can be a distracting time-suck.

Much has changed in the years that Facebook (8), Twitter (5), and Pinterest (> 1) have been around. These days there are lots of great reasons for making social media use an integral part of Lenten devotions. My thoughts about this are trotted out in more detail in today's Blogalogue question on dotMagis, where editor Jim Manney asked me about giving up social media for Lent. You can read it here.

Imagine my surprise to wake up to a  news story about Pope Benedict XVI (or his team on his behalf) getting involved with tweeting during Lent. Looks like we finally agree on something in addition to loving cats and the music of J.S. Bach.

Quote du Jour (Religion Department)

Hoping to God that all who are big time stuck on orthodoxy and orthopraxy at the expense of spiritual growth -- their own and that of others -- let these words from Pope Benedict XVI touch their hearts:

“Agnostics, who are constantly exercised by the question of God, those who long for a pure heart but suffer on account of our sin, are closer to the Kingdom of God than believers whose life of faith is 'routine' and who regard the Church merely as an institution, without letting their hearts be touched by faith.”

─ Pope Benedict XVI


Source

The Pope tweets, sort of . . .

Yesterday's big news: Pope Benedict XVI's first tweet, launching the website where Vatican news will be aggregated and available, News.va. 

Brilliant PR maneuver. Really! Not being snarky!!

By mid-afternoon, I'd already had several public and back
channel conversations about this on Twitter.  Later that evening, I was  in conversation with The Daily reporter, Carl Franzen (@CarlFranzen) whose article, "Tweet Heavens!" rolled out this morning. 

Things move very quickly via social media, which is more than I can generally say for my beloved church. You do know that joke about responsiveness within the Roman Catholic church, right? "We'll get back to you in 400 years."

Franzen nicely captures my view about the trajectory of this "news," so I hope you'll read his article. It's blessedly short. What space did not permit there was my riff about the tension between what is symbolic and what is real, which is this: 

Let's get real, the Holy Father did not and probably will not be crafting tweets. And this is not "cheating" or "lying" or "disingenuous." This is the reality of issuing communications by and from a high ranking church official.


Although my experience in church communications is primarily within and for the Catholic church, I say with all confidence that it's not unusual for leadership in all denominations to rely on the skills and smarts of communications professionals.

Be assured that those of us called upon to (holy) ghost write for archbishops, bishops, and parish-level clergy view this use of our talents as a great privilege.

Our work is generally vetted up the cleric food chain, often with Canon lawyers weighing in. The tweet issued by the Pope was innocuous enough to sail through the process. 

I say that tweet, no matter who wrote it, had great symbolic value. Who knows what will show up next? Should be real interesting.

My Proposal to the Vatican: Year of the Kitty

Unless I'm missing something on the Vatican website, it looks like the Holy Father has yet to declare it the year of anything. A priest buddy* told me it was going to be the Year of Marriage. I think he was goofing on me.

But even if the Year of Marriage is slated to follow the (dreadful) Year of St. Paul and the (even worse) Year of the Priest, I'd like to suggest Pope Benedict XVI exercise his ex cathedra option and declare it Year of the Kitty instead.

Doing so would be a nice nod in the direction of acknowledging all God's creation while providing plenty of fodder for members and observers of the Roman Catholic church. After all, who does not know that Pope Benedict XIV loves cats? Thus, Year of the Kitty would provide something for everyone ─ like those who love cats and hate the papacy; those who love the papacy and hate cats; and everyone along the spectrum in all directions.

And really, who wouldn't enjoy spending a year singing All Creatures of Our God and King:



and My Favorite Things:

*You know who you are.

Blogalogue with Paul Brian Campbell: Day Five

Love when a man of God is also wise, smart and a good sport! Paul Brian Campbell, SJ is certainly all that and more, especially considering the conditions under which he's writing this morning to answer my question: "What do you make of Pope Benedict's latest statement calling for the Church to do penance?"

Meredith,

I write this under unusual circumstances as I have a three-year old crawling all over me and offering to help me type. I’m staying with friends in Southern California because last night I sponsored their eldest son at Confirmation.

My hostess is the quintessential “good Catholic mother.” (She claims her mother wouldn’t agree but she says that at least she tries.) She told me she nearly stood up and had a “Joe Wilson moment” during the homily on Good Friday when her Pastor preached on how attacks on the Pope were attacks on all of us. She was not impressed with the latest from the Holy Father. I think the Vatican has lost nearly all its credibility with people like my friend.

I think that Pope Benedict is saying the right things or at least better things but I’m concerned that it’s too little, too late. I am reminded of the British queen who initially failed to respond to Princess Diana’s death and only appeared on TV with a stilted appreciation of Diana because the British people were outraged and demanded that she do something. Queen Elizabeth did enough to appease the nation and is still on the throne. I imagine Pope Benedict will also survive this crisis.

This has not been my most cogent post, I’m afraid, but I’d rather write with my god-daughter hanging around my neck than do anything else on earth.

Thank you for the last week of dialogue. It has been wondrous. Bless you.

Paul

____________

You'll find my answer to Paul's poignant question (from a poem by Mary Oliver) over at People for Others.

Pope Mounts Vatican Sex Summit

Although it was announced weeks ago, until now there hasn't been another peep from the pope about meeting with Irish bishops. They've been summoned talk about the grotesque magnitude of persistent sexual abuse within the Irish church.

The Vatican Sex Summit is currently taking place behind closed doors. According to one news report, each bishop will have seven minutes to speak. If my calculations are correct, this adds up to a "chapter of faults" lasting nearly three hours. No information about what these men will be doing during the rest of their time together.

I, of course, have a suggestion, one based on a decade of experience teaching Sexuality and Society to college juniors and seniors. Please note that my professorial career took place during a time of relative innocence and no shortage of ignorance about sexuality.

For example, I couldn't begin discussing the sociology of sexual identity, behavior, or preference without first teaching basic anatomy and physiology. This included teaching the correct spelling for esoteric terms like "penus." I mention this because given their median age, I figure the Irish bishops are probably as knowledgeable about sex as my former students.

And so, I suggest the bishops be allowed to play with anatomically correct dolls and observed while doing so. For how long? Oh, maybe eight hours? Surely that should be enough time for qualified sex educators to assess the bishops' baseline knowledge and speculate what might have been going on. Behind closed doors.

One month into Year of the Priest and I'm thinking "deacons."

If I didn't know any better, I'd credit Pope Benedict XVI with an exquisite sense of irony. But after watching this pontiff stumble through one public relations gaffe after another, I'm thinking the Year of the Priest was declared without much regard for timing. What's that? How was B16 supposed to know back in March that Ireland's version of everyone else's child abuse scandal would explode in May? My WAG at an answer: that investigation had been going on for nine years.

And what's up with calling Roman Catholics to pray for "spiritual perfection in priests"? Rather ambitious, don't you think?

I think we should start with more modest goals. Praying for priests' willingness to work well with lay leadership comes to my mind. Let's pray this for six months and then review our progress. Finding evidence of willingness, we could then devote the remaining six months to praying for their ability to work well with lay leadership -- or with deacons.

Deacons! Why didn't I think of them two paragraphs ago? (Make my own point.)

Why don't we spend what's left of the year praying that priests treat deacons with more gratitude and respect. This should certainly be easier to accomplish than "spiritual perfection."

While it's true deacons may resemble lay leadership, in that some have private sector experience, deacons are ordained. And, they're men. (We could work on the gratitude and respect thing for religious and lay women later. The Roman Catholic church has been ambling along like this for over 2,000 years, so what's the rush?)

Speaking of irony, I must note that I'm writing this within hours of suggesting (via Twitter) that everyone in Christendom read the editorial, "Community of Disciples" in America magazine. In that fine piece, we are called to stop all rhetoric that is "harsh and often lacking in respect or courtesy."

LordJesusChristHaveMercyonMeaSinnerAmenHailMaryFullofGrace... That ought to do it.

"These children are mine."

Here's an excerpt from "Today in Jewish History" at Aish.com:

9 Shvat

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Eliezer Silver (1882-1968), who served the Jewish community of Cincinnati for four decades. Rabbi Silver is best known for spearheading efforts to rescue Jews from the Holocaust...

After the war, Rabbi Silver traveled to DP camps to help Holocaust survivors start a new life. He also sought out hundreds of Jewish children who had been placed by their parents in Catholic orphanages, to spare them the horrors of the concentration camps. Often, the parents were killed during the war and there was no one to claim them.

Rabbi Silver discovered that the priests operating the orphanages were often unable (or refused) to identify which children came from Jewish families. So Rabbi Silver had a solution:

He strode into the lunchroom, stood on a chair, and proclaimed in his loudest voice: "Shema Yisrael, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!" Suddenly, the orphanage was filled with children's cries for their mother. Rabbi Silver looked at the priest, and said, "These children are mine."

A rabbi, a priest, and a minister...

I broke my fast from religious news yesterday. Thanks to God's infinite grace and good humor the top commentary on David Gibson's blog was titled, "What is the point of interfaith dialogue?" John L. Allen titled his column, "Interreligious dialogue impossible, pope says, but intercultural dialogue good."

Being me, I immediately envisioned the Vatican's repeal of the Nostra aetate document. Turns out B16 is trying to make a point about shifting the focus of interfaith dialogue from apologetics to practical matters of mutual concern -- like world peace.

I'm thinking we should switch to interfaith stand-up.

More specifically, I'm suggesting that religious leaders sponsor open mike nights at local comedy clubs. Just a guess, but I think interfaith dialogue would go a lot better if our conversations started with this venerable invocation: "a rabbi, a priest, and a minister were in a row boat..."

Amen?

42nd World Communications Day -- Part II

Now I'm wishing the pope's message for the 42nd World Communications Day had arrived on my screen before I sent my final copy edits to Morehouse Publishing. B16's ongoing commentary about the perils of moral relativism continues in his message about social communications. He wrote:

"Today, communication seems increasingly to claim not simply to represent reality, but to determine it, owing to the power and the force of suggestion that it possesses...Hence, the impact of the communications media on modern life raises unavoidable questions, which require choices and solutions that can no longer be deferred."

But what I really wish could be included in The Word Made Fresh is his prayer:

"Let us ask the Holy Spirit to raise up courageous communicators and authentic witnesses to the truth, faithful to Christ's mandate and enthusiastic for the message of faith."

42nd World Communications Day -- Part I

Although yesterday was the Vatican-declared 42nd World Communications Day, I'm just getting around to posting about it now. The title set me back a bit: The Media: At the Crossroads between Self-Promotion and Service. Searching for the Truth in order to Share it with Others.

I immediately wanted to whip out my purple editing pen to debulk it. This, in turn, led to my musing about the fuss that would ensue. Some cleric would undoubtedly get twitched about my edits and then I'd have to explain that everyone's work, even the Holy Father's, benefits from copy editing.

To make this point, I'd wonder out loud if we know for a fact that the final Ten Commandments are the same ones Moses smashed when he saw what the ancient Israelites had been up to in his absence (Exodus 32). Maybe between the time Moses went berserk about the Golden Calf and went back up Mt. Sinai, God had tweaked either wording or ordering. Maybe Moses had some thoughts of his own during those forty days and nights without eating bread or drinking water (Exodus 34:27-28).

And maybe I'd go so far as to wonder out loud if Moses' face was "radiant" (Exodus 34: 29) because, after forty days and nights without physical sustenance, he needed protein and hydration. This would, of course, be wandering way off point -- something I'm working on, quite unsuccessfully, I should add.

I'd then have to explain that my musings fall within Judaism's fine tradition of midrash.

Guessing that no one in the pope's press office would have the patience for that, I decided dwelling on the title of our Holy Father's message was not worth the hassle. And so it came to pass around 11:30 PM last night, that I swapped my purple editing pen for a yellow highlighter and kept reading.

On the subject of papal cats...

The papal dogs would really be enhanced by kitten heels.

Anointing the "Cat" in Catholic

The headline for the April 21st New York Times article was absolutely correct, Cat Lovers Appreciate Soul Mate in Vatican. I certainly appreciate the pope's fondness for felines. I think this speaks volumes about his intelligence and sensitivity. No slobbering sycophantic pooches for this pope. Clearly, he realizes that "God" is not "dog" spelled backwards.

Yesterday morning, a gal pal and I chatted about B16's affinity for cats. She's distressed that he didn't move his kitties with him. "If I were pope, I would not leave my cats behind," she said. I'm not as disturbed by this, trusting that B16's decision was made after prayerful discernment. What do we know? Maybe there are more mice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith than at the Apostolic Palace.

At least the pope bothered to think it through. Let us remember, shall we, that Bill and Hillary Clinton schlepped poor Socks from the governor's mansion to the White House. They went dog after one term in office, something that also speaks volumes.

Again with the "real Catholic" thing...

In my mind's ear, I can hear my Jewish mother heaving a big Brooklynesque sigh and saying, "Oy vey, Maria."

This morning, I got around to reading yesterday's Wall Street Journal, the only secular newspaper I read. (I'm also a big fan of The Week magazine which delivers top stories and news analysis from a zillion national and international periodicals.)

Front page, below the fold: an article about scalping tickets for Pope Benedict's public appearances.

The lead: "Brooklyn native Charlie Pigott says..." blah blah about his ability to score seats for baseball games and his inability to get "his mother into the bleachers for New York's hottest event." Next, he explains why people are going to such costly lengths to see the pope. "To a real Catholic," he says, "it's the closest thing to God you're going to get."

Tempted as I am to correct Charlie's grammar and syntax, it's his view of Catholic reality that needs tidying up. Yes, Catholics tend to go gaga over the pope, but because "it's" the closest "thing" to God? Lord have mercy.

Someone -- maybe his mother? -- should remind Charlie that the papacy traces its origins to St. Peter. (Mt. 16:18) For this convert from Judaism and real Catholic, it's the extraordinary reality of apostolic succession that stimulates feelings of awe and reverence relative to the pope. Also his outfits, especially the shoes.