Pope Francis!

[qfnol31]

The Sistine Chapel is a lovely building. I just wish the cardinals would wear more ornate miters.

I think that they shy away from that and fancy vestments during the Great Fast. It's something about the season that makes them want to wear simple miters, or at least that's what they tell me. ;)

 

I'm hungry to read everything this man has written. Hope to come across some good stuff.

I have been in contact with some publishers and I know that some of them are scrambling to get his books published. Several of them are working to get a book each published (in Spanish right now) in the US in the next month or so, and also within that same time period you'll see some books on the man who became Pope (including one on the transition from Benedict to Francis - Benedict's retirements and Francis' election), all in English. I bet there will be translations in the following months, though they'll be done quickly so we'll have to see how great they are. I know that Random House has the rights to one book (the top of the list in Apo's link), I think Ignatius and OSV each have a book to be released, and I'll let you know about more as I hear about them myself.

 

Yes, it could be helpful. Al's post where he talks about how Pope Francis looks as if he is going to focus on Rome and leave other local Churches alone would be very popular with Eastern Orthodox Christians. I think the statements issued by both the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Russian Patriarch show that cooperation between Catholics and Orthodox on moral and other issues (e.g., helping the poor) is possible.

I think that this was also a movement that I began to notice near the end of Benedict's time as Pope and I recognized it more and more as I reflected on the end of his papacy. I thought it was reflected most substantially in his retirement, which I still find a fascinating move by Benedict.

[FutureSister2009]

 

My Three Popes. :love:

 

JPII and Benny are like HEY!! And Papa Frankie is just like Hi. So cute

[Nihil Obstat]

 

Hybrid? Perhaps, perhaps not!
 
An excerpt from The Moynihan Letters Blog, by Robert Moynihan, PhD.
 

I very much want to believe that everything in that letter is true. :)

[Slappo]

on a sad note, I think Marini's days as Papal liturgist are numbered.

It's quite possible he'll be happy to go. If he's not permitted to orchestrate the liturgies he is used to under Benedict, he may not even want the job.

[Lil Red]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2013/03/historic-for-first-time-since-schism-ecumenical-patriarch-will-attend-popes-installation-mass/

 

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I will attend Pope Francis’s inaugural Mass. The Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office informed AsiaNews about the decision, noting that this is the first time such an event occurs since the Catholic-Orthodox split in 1054, an important sign for Christian unity.

 

The ecumenical patriarch will be accompanied by Ioannis Zizioulas, metropolitan of Pergamon and co-president of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church, as well as Tarassios, Orthodox Metropolitan of Argentina, and Gennadios, Orthodox Metropolitan of Italy.

 

Relations between Catholics and Orthodox have been improving since the Second Vatican Council through mutual visits, acts of friendship and theological dialogue.

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more at the link.

[Slappo]

Awesome news Lil Red!

[ToJesusMyHeart]

Papa Francis said his first mass as pope in the novus ordo, in Latin. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdWZWDqhCdA

[Lil Red]

Let's be skeptical of what we're hearing in the media, folks:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2013/03/the-skeptical-mind-hard-at-work.html

 

 

[BG45]

Michael Voris breaks silence on Pope Francis' election, comes out in support of his pontiff:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qFmX2c25fQ&feature=player_embedded[/media]

[tinytherese]

Let's be skeptical of what we're hearing in the media, folks:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2013/03/the-skeptical-mind-hard-at-work.html

 

And not just sceptical about it in regards to Catholicism.

[inunionwithrome]

What an awesome birthday gift! May God continue to guide and bless the Cardinals and the Holy Spirit give them a renewed sense and spirit of wisdom and understanding! :) :pope2:

[Ash Wednesday]

Good on Voris for soliciting support for our new pope. Regardless of how people feel about the pope, what expectations we have, he needs our prayers and support.

I liked the curious kids in that video. :D

[IcePrincessKRS]

I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh, but a friend of mine linked his transcript from yesterday on FB and I thought it was fairly interesting. It always amuses me when these non-religious (or outright atheists, if you saw the video [from a few weeks ago] with Penn Jillette discussing the Catholic Church with Piers Morgan) people seem to get how the Church works better than some self-professed Catholics.

 

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/03/14/drive_bys_shocked_to_learn_pope_francis_is_catholic

 

I don't know if this really fits in this thread at all, but I didn't want to start a whole new thread for it. (The following is an excerpt from the transcript.)

 

Pope Francis I is bad news for the Drive-By Media. He is adamantly opposed to abortion. He is adamantly opposed to euthanasia. He has called the pro-choice movement a culture of death. He opposes same-sex marriage, which he has called demonic in origin. He opposes gay adoption on the grounds that it is discriminatory to the child. He opposed Argentina's legalizing of same-sex marriage. He called it a real and dire anthropological throwback. He was exiled by the Cristina Kirchner government. He was dispatched to the northern climes and the outposts of Argentina. He literally was cast out by the government.

And you know who rescued him? John Paul II. He's a protege, by the way, of John Paul II. John Paul II rescued Pope Francis from what essentially was internal exile, and he was made archbishop of Buenos Aires. And this just happened in early 2000. It's not that long ago. The Argentinean government had basically taken this pope, cast him out. He was teaching math. He was teaching high school math in small, little towns in northern Argentina because he refused to go along with Cristina Kirchner at present and her husband, who was her predecessor. He refused to go along with any of the cultural modernization, and as such they had nothing to do with him. And the Jesuits, of which he is one, had many left-wing members, and they were eager to cast him out, which they did. Oh, yeah, there are left-wing and right-wing Jesuits. There are left-wing and right-wing Catholics, as you know.

And this man, if you had to categorize him, you would have to call him -- and I really don't like doing this, but if it will help facilitate, help people understand, it would be accurate to say that he is a conservative. He's a conservative theologian. I had somebody that I really trust in these matters, a Catholic, who is in Rome, tell me today that in their opinion, Pope Francis is the Catholic equivalent of our Founding Fathers on federalism. But I find it fascinating that he refused to accede, refused to go along with any of the cultural modernization, which was same-sex marriage, contraception, abortion on demand.

And the Jesuits, the left-wing Jesuits working with the Kirchner government, basically threw him out. And he's rescued by John Paul II, made archbishop of Buenos Aires, and then a cardinal, and almost became pope when Benedict became pope, but the people that put him up -- he didn't want to be pope -- the people that put him up for pope in the conclave in 2005 were simply trying to block Benedict. And they failed. He's not crazy about being pope now, apparently. But he accepted it.

 

[Lil Red]

This is awesome: http://goodjesuitbadjesuit.blogspot.com/2013/03/pope-francis-i-would-like-to-speak-with.html

[Lil Red]

Two Cheers for Pope Francis so far:

http://www.aleteia.org/en/op-ed/documents/two-cheers-for-pope-francis-so-far-556001

 

I hope that Pope Francis’ personal experience of how government intrusion in the economy generates mostly chaos will inform his proper concern for aiding the poor. In his home archdiocese, then-cardinal Bergoglio was noted for directing the Church’s own money and laymen’s efforts to the plight of the impoverished. He even imitated St. Francis among the lepers, tending and kissing the feet of dying AIDS patients. That’s a lot less fun than issuing press releases demanding more government programs funded by taxes, then flying off in one’s private helicopter—something Cardinal Roger Mahony was famous for doing. But it’s arguably more Christian.
 
The personal austerity and simplicity of our new pope may be precisely what is needed in a pontiff, at a time when the Church as a human institution has been tainted by squalor and scandal. The sight of a bishop (much less a pope) paying his hotel bill was one I won’t soon forget. There’s an old saw that the day man’s made a bishop, he will never again eat a bad meal or be told the truth. The fact that Cardinal Bergoglio used to cook his own bachelor meals suggests that he is a wholesome exception.
 
The only anxiety I have about the election of Pope Francis concerns the liturgy, whose restoration to sacredness was high on Pope Benedict XVI’s priority list. I simply do not know how the new pope regards the tentative moves Pope Benedict made toward “reforming the reform,” or whether these crucial moves will now continue. At this point I can already hear some readers’ eyes starting to roll, and some exasperated voices say: “He’s orthodox, and he loves the poor—why do you care what he’s going to do concerning some recondite questions of liturgical practice? Especially at a time when the Church is hemorrhaging members and credibility?”

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I really admire John Zmirak, and he's as funny in person as he is online, and he makes some good points. go read the whole article.