www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Article on Pope Francis from Christianity Today

Not something I expected to see--I guess you could say it made my day! Our Francis, Too [christianitytoday.com]

What a disappointing article. Is it not possible to discuss our new pope without disparaging the last? Even if I were impressed with ostentatious displays of humility (as apparently is the press) is it so difficult to understand that Benedict's faithful adherence to the trappings of the papal office was true humility at work, allowing himself and his preferences to be eclipsed by his office? Hasn't everyone long since caught on to the foolish game played by all the Father Sneakers-and-Golf-Shirts "hey I'm just one of the guys! See? I wear jeans!".

I think one of the problems is that Catholics are largely ignorant of their own symbols and traditions. Some of those papal "trappings" have great significance and meaning.

Most of them are innovations no older than the Counter-Reformation, and have nothing to do with the essence of the Petrine Ministry.

I'm afraid too many Catholics don't even know about the last 100 years, much less the Counter-Reformation.

Petrine ministry? If you can get some agreement between east and west on what that even is, I predict you will become an extremely wealthy man.

That is entirely beside the point, and the second half is wrong.

I don't want to get into a big kerfuffle about the Petrine Ministry, but a symbol can be excellent without stretching back to antiquity. Moreover, if a wrong emphasis has warped the understanding of the papacy such that certain symbols proper to the entire episcopacy have been confined to just the papacy, this fact doesn't negate the usefulness of the symbol.

So, are you *really* putting Pope Francis on the same level with "Fr. Sneakers-and-Golf-Shirts?" I personally have a deep admiration for Pope Francis, and I think he has a keen appreciation for the symbolic value of his actions.

Agreed. However, symbols mean different things to different groups of people. A good example of this would be the Confederate flag--for some, it represents Southern pride, while for others, it's a sign of brutal racist repression.

Similarly, the trappings of aristocracy (such as papal red shoes) symbolize different things for different people, and if the Pope sees fit to forego them, I'm not going to criticize him for it.

I don't see what this comment has to do with Pope Francis.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

And symbols can be used in different ways, changed, etc.

That is the ubiquitous power of a symbol as well.

Alex

A little, I am, yeah.



The red shoes are a symbol of martyrdom. Anyway the shoes aren't the point. This is where the Fr. Golf Shirt comparison comes in. It's not humility that has him skipping his collar, it's pride, and disdain for the office, like dads who want to be friends.

But let's examine your point about "trappings of aristocracy". What would be your perspective of an eastern hierarch who refused a mitre? "a hat based on a crown? I'm too modest for that! I refuse. I am unique in my modesty and individualist in my humility!"


It doesn't. It concerns Stuart's broad point about the Petrine Ministry and symbols.

No, Epiphanius is correct. Your Supreme Pontiff got them, like that title, from Caesar, who alone was allowed to wear purple boots (there is no distinction between red and purple). Btw, the caliphs got the same tradition, from the same source.

I think I get the point you are making, JDC. But I think it is wildly overstated. I don't see how the Pope is somehow refusing to be Pope because he's discontinued some of the distinctively papal trappings. Most of these, by the way, had already been basically discontinued, only having been reintroduced by Pope Benedict.

Thank you for informing of this, O All-Wise Reader of the hearts and minds of men!

I would be so glad if our priests abandoned the clerical collar in favor of the cassock and pectoral cross. The clerical collar, by the way, is a quite recent invention of the Western Church.

A lot of the papal regalia has more to do with his role as a medieval king than as a bishop. The pope can do away with all that as far as I am concerned. And I also wouldn't care if bishops of all rites laid aside headgear and all adopted some form of pallium/omophor as The symbol of the episcopacy.

I'd like that too. It is, again, beside the point. Are you fond of pointing out things which, true, are beside the point? You're very good at it. Usually I find it more entertaining than today.

That's not what I said. I said Benedict's obedience to all that was a sign of humility, and not the pride the press interprets it to be. And likewise, while the press nearly wet themselves when Francis got on the bus with the cardinals, and every time since that he's done anything without the pomp Benedict usually did, none of this is necessarily a sign of humility, and when what you're doing is causing everyone to swoon at your humility and modesty, it's a good sign that you're doing it wrong.

Big deal. The Romans were in the habit of pouring wine as a sacrifice to their pagan gods. Will you now argue that Jesus made a hash of his symbolism?

And a Byzantine mitre is suspiciously similar to a Byzantine crown, while we're discussing bishops in kingly gear they ought to cast aside. I disagree, but at least it's consistent.

Hey, no problem. But I'm not all-wise, just relatively perceptive. Or did you mean that Fr's. Van Halen T-shirt is really just a ham-fisted "that Christ may increase and I may decrease" strategy?

More like arrogant presumption.

Given the seder in the Penteteuch, and Barukh of Hebrew meals, no.

As for your supreme pontiff trying to fill Caesar's shoes, if the shoe fits...

Sorry, but is this you switching sides and arguing my side of it?

Not really so much lately, but earlier, sure. What's that got to do with it? Are you not accepting that the meaning of a symbol may change, or at least develop? What makes this so different from all those Russian bishops wearing crowns of Eastern Emperors for mitres?

Yeah, I'm good with that: I make arrogant presumptions about priests in Van Halen T-Shirts. I'm a bad person.

For the record, I have never seen a priest in a Van Halen t-shirt. Since I don't think much of Van Halen, I confess that I too would probably harbor some arrogant presumption.

I think I was more concerned with the implicit comparison of Pope Francis's decision to said priests (or to dads who don't really want to be dads.) I think a lot more can be said for the account you offered of Benedict's decision to retrieve some symbols and trappings as an act of humility than for your negative appraisal of Pope Francis's decision not to continue the same.
Fair point, no?

You claimed to "correct" someone who claimed the red shoes were part of the pomp

None of my remarks towards you had anything to do with any judgment you have passed towards priests in Van-Halen T-shirts; rather, they concerned your passing judgment on Pope Francis.

Oh, I see. Well then, I do not claim to have been charitable in all my remarks, and certainly a better man would have been. But I do stand by my assertion that the Holy Father's humility is ostentatious. I ought to be clear that I do not know or pretend to know his motives for it all, only to comment on the effect.

It is interesting to note that the original article has plenty of judgment of Benedict XVI, by presenting him as the pompous foil to Francis' much-celebrated modesty, but I'm the only one taking exception to that.

("much-celebrated modesty". I believe that's my whole point of view right there).

I think a lot can be explained as the difference between a professor and a pastor.

The Byzantine mitre (crown) was not worn by bishops until AFTER the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Its adoption reflects the role of bishops as civil authorities over the Rhum Milet under the Ottoman Sultans. Prior to that time, bishops wore monastic headgear--either a klobuk or a cowl.

I think you overstate the point, but I get it. Fair enough.

According to Father Robert Taft, the new official Vatican directory, which lists every person by title and position, Francis is now officially listed as "Bishop of Rome", which, according to Taft, shows that the man knows his theology: He is Pope because he is Bishop of Rome; he is not Bishop of Rome because he is Pope. The primacy attaches to the see, not to the man.

I see, so it's an innovation from the (very) late middle ages and a symbol of temporal power, having nothing to do with the essence of the episcopacy, which now, distant from its root, has spread and taken on new symbolic meaning?

What a delicious glass house some of us are living in. Thank you kindly for your post.

I agree with both the perspectives being presented here to some degree. I am not a fan of "ostentious" displays of humility. It seems showy. Like the "humble" equivalent of pentecostal tongue speak. True humility is truly empowering and beautiful.

Speaking of beauty, why not present the Church in all her glory at all times? I was enthralled with Pope Benedict's restoration of the sacred and beautiful. What's wrong with red shoes, and who cares if it evolved from Caesar? The Christian Church evolved from and through the foundations of the Roman empire and her suburbs. You wouldn't mind the queen in her crown, a sultan in his turban, nor a UK judge in his powdered wig - no matter how silly and ridiculous it looks, or how about a US President speaking at an official function in his basketball gear - is that humble and simple?

You got it. Like a lot of other people, you're espousing not Tradition, but "traditionalism". And, like a lot of other people, you seem to hold what Father Taft calls a "Disneyland" vision of Church history. Unless you know history, you'll never liberate yourself from "theology by cliche".

A little ecumenical scholarship would help:

Ecumenical scholarship

All scholarship worthy of the name is historico-critical, objective, fair, and representatively comprehensive. But ecumenical scholarship is not content with these purely natural virtues of honesty and fairness that one should be able to expect from any true scholar. Ecumenical scholarship takes things along step further. I consider ecumenical scholarship a new and specifically Christian way of studying Christian tradition in order to reconcile and unite, rather than to confute and dominate. Its deliberate intention is to emphasize the common tradition underlying differences which, though real, may be the accidental product of history, culture, language, rather than essential differences in the doctrine of the apostolic faith. Of course to remain scholarly, this effort must be carried out realistically, without in any way glossing over real differences. But even in recognizing differences, ecumenical scholarship seeks to describe the beliefs, traditions, and usages of other confessions in ways their own objective spokespersons would recognize as reliable and fair.

So ecumenical scholarship seeks not confrontation but agreement and understanding. It strives to enter into the other’s point of view, to understand it insofar as possible with sympathy and agreement. It is a contest in reverse, a contest of love, one in which the parties seek to understand and justify not their own point of view, but that of their interlocutor. Such an effort and method, far from being baseless romanticism, is rooted in generally accepted evangelical and Catholic theological principles:

1. The theological foundation for this method is our faith that the Holy Spirit is with God’s Church, protecting the integrity of its witness, above all in the centuries of its undivided unity. Since some of the issues that divide us go right back to those centuries, one must ineluctably conclude that these differences do not affect the substance of the apostolic faith. For if they did, then contrary to Jesus’ promise (Mt 16:18), the “gates of hell” would indeed have prevailed against the Church.

2. Secondly, the Catholic Church recognizes the Eastern Churches to be the historic apostolic Christianity of the East, and Sister Churches of the Catholic Church. Consequently, no view of Christian tradition can be considered anything but partial that does not take full account of the age-old, traditional teaching of these Sister Churches. Any theology must be measured not only against the common tradition of the undivided Church, but also against the ongoing witness of the Spirit-guided apostolic christendom of the East. That does not mean that East or West has never been wrong. It does mean that neither can be ignored.

3. An authentic magisterium cannot contradict itself. Therefore, without denying the legitimate development of doctrine, in the case of apparently conflicting traditions of East and West, preferential consideration must be given to the witness of the undivided Church. This is especially true with respect to later polemics resulting from unilateral departures from or developments out of the common tradition during the period of divided christendom.

4. Those who have unilaterally modified a commonly accepted tradition of the undivided Church bear the principal responsibility for any divisions caused thereby. So it is incumbent first of all on them to seek an acceptable solution to that problem. This is especially true when those developments, albeit legitimate, maybe perceived by others as a narrowing of the tradition, or have been forged in the crucible of polemics, never a reliable pedagogue.

5. Within a single Church, any legitimate view of its own particular tradition must encompass the complete spectrum of its witnesses throughout the whole continuum of its history, and not just its most recent or currently popular expression.

6. Finally, doctrinal formulations produced in the heat of polemics must be construed narrowly, within the strict compass of the errors they were meant to confute.

In a secret ballot, you would probably get a fair share of Orthodox bishops supporting at least reducing use of the Crown. Laity would probably be outraged out of fear of change though.

I will read the full of your post later. I am reading on my phone now.

I am not sure you know me well enough to make the determination above, or if you are just assigning to me the traits of a common internet character.

I'm well familiar with that character, and his perspective is neither the one I espouse nor what I am arguing here.

A modern sort of priest once told me, with scorn, that "the Catholic Church (read rc) is like an old woman who never throws anything out.

I never saw what was wrong with that.

We joke that when Grandma finally dies, her house is so full that we'll have to set a match to it rather than engage the task of sorting through all the stuff she's accumulated. But then, when she does die, we sort through it and discover that we're all rather attached to her old junk, and find among it a storehouse of our history and identity.

I have inherited an old photograph of a man I can't identify, in a place I haven't been. It might have been thrown out on the reasonable grounds that it wasn't "essential to Granny's mission or office" and besides, who could have known that my own son would turn out looking so much like his forgotten relative in the photo?

Should grandmothers never clean up? Of course not, but I rejoice that when they do, that they err on the side of caution.

I only ask the Church to do the same.

I shudder at the thought of opening your refrigerator.

Possibly you are yourself so extreme that you cannot conceive of moderation in others. Nonetheless you are always welcome to my spend time at my fridge provided you will also spend time at my table. I trust you are not some extremist tea-totaller, dear Brother in Christ, if not a lot else.

Looks like there's a debate about clerical garb in Greece as well:

http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2013/06/the-debate-on-clerical-attire-in-greece.html

Translation by Google, I suppose?

It is a fundamental rule of moral theology that a lesser good must always be subordinated to the greater good (in fact, since absolutely *nothing* God created--even Satan himself--can be considered intrinsically evil, it follows that *all* evil involves choosing a lesser good over a greater one).

Now, there was a time when it was more-or-less axiomatic for a Catholic to have the attitude, "if those Protestants are offended by something like red shoes--let them be offended!" Things have changed a lot since then, and since Vatican II we have been repeatedly exhorted--by the popes themselves--to seek unity in Christ with all who call upon His name.

So here we have a prominent Protestant commentator (who presumably knows the hearts and minds of Protestant believers better than you or I), saying "... the humble Francis of Assisi is a saint for everyone ... We see already an intimation of Saint Francis in Pope Francis." What does this mean?

Pope Francis is reaching out to them by his actions, and they are responding--can you really say this is a bad thing?

The question is not whether I would mind these things. The question is if I were a monarch (or a sultan, or a judge) and I decided to set aside these trappings because I wanted to reach out in charity to a group of people who felt alienated by them (for whatever reason) and it worked, whether you are justified in criticizing me for it.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Did you notice the part in the article where it says:This doesn't sound like disparaging to me.

Far be it from me to speak negatively of the Pope, Father Deacon. I did not criticize, but I don't see the point. Protestants often assume that any "loosening" of the visible is a step toward their vision of church - each slightly varies according to their tastes, of course. An evangelical pro-Pope Francis pastor now thinks the Pope is this--much closer to tearing down all that "Mary stuff" and "idolatry", after all, look at him - he doesn't wear all the gold and red slippers. We know this isn't the case, so why make him think it?

First of all, it's important to realize that not all Protestants are "of one mind" with people like Jack Chick. Sure, there are some, but if we were to use them as an excuse not to reach out, we would be--well, wrong.

Possibly then you accept the premise that Benedict was not, himself "the pastor, a shepherd who knows and loves his sheep and wants to lead them in love and humility"?

I feel like we're overstating the importance of this all round. When it comes to the red shoes (among other things), Pope Francis is no iconoclast--he is returning to the same pattern as John Paul II.

To my mind, the most that can be said for the fanon, for example, is that using it is a matter of indifference. I really do not think it prideful to sand back the build up--I am frankly very glad that recent popes have preferred the mitre of their pastoral office to the tiara. I do not miss the gloves at all either, and I find it perfectly acceptable that they choose to walk on their own feet rather than being carried around in a sedan chair. Is any pruning really unacceptable?

It never bothered me at all that Pope Benedict reinstituted the red shoes--along with several other distinctive papal accoutrements--nor does it bother me that Pope Francis has chosen not to continue the same policy. Overall, I support the emphasis to the Pope's proper office as bishop, and I'm happy that popes have decided to look like bishops. Several popes have now shelved the tiara entirely in favor of the mitre, but Benedict was the first to do the it in his coat of arms. Francis has followed suit.

It's been rightly pointed out how overstated the contrast between these two has been in media coverage. I think we should try hard to avoid reproducing it in our conversation here.

Pope Francis did not suddenly acquire humility when he was elected Pope. He is simply continuing the lifestyle he lived as a bishop; living in an apartment rather than a palace, and using public transportation rather than a chauffeured car. It's probably the lifestyle he lived as a priest before becoming a bishop. It's the lifestyle of the Saint whose name he chose to adopt.

In short, Pope Francis is not being humble to get the attention of the press. The press gives its attention where, and to whom and, to what it chooses. I'm just happy they're focusing on the Pope's apparel rather than some new scandal.