Traditionalists and Pope Francis: Can We Take a Deep Breath and Please Calm Down? ~ Dr. Taylor Marshall | Canterbury Tales

I think I have to say I am a Hypocrite when it come to our poor Holy Father Francis I myself have said some things I regret, mainly to my confessor.... but still, Dr. Taylor Marshall tells it like it is...!

Traditionalists and Pope Francis: Can We Take a Deep Breath and Please Calm Down? ~ Dr. Taylor Marshall | Canterbury Tales

The "Magic" Words

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum;
habemus Papam:

Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Georgium Marium Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Bergoglio qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum

Soo, What Just Happened?

And then there was this... It's the Latin phrase that was heard all over the world. 'Habemus Papam,' which translates to 'We have a Pope, was announced by Cardinal Deacon Jean-Louis Tauran, as he looked over St. Peter's Square and introduced Pope Francis I.
 But then I think his Holiness had some hard competition to deal with today:
 

Pope Francis!!!

The first pope from the Americas!


Seems like a nice bloke..... And Francis was a great reformer of the church..... I wonder.

First conclave vote ends with black smoke (fumum nigra est)

Ego Ambulate Vulgi

DearReader,

Wednesday after Classes found me off to the Vatican to buy some stamps,Benedict XVI P.M.,  Benedict XVI P.E., the Sede vacante editions, or at least, what little they had left. However, I was quitedepressed about the prices, especially when it is concerning me and my lack offinances to indulge in snail mail. When I first arrived here in Rome, it wouldhave cost me €1.00, at least for a postcard stamp to Australia, against thecurrent price of €2.20. Now I understand that of course, it must be because ofthe price of inflation, but really? At least it reflects the Italian statesprice also.

These sad things aside, I shall relate the journey from University, kept ingood company, towards The Holy See, where the throne of the principle of theapostles lies bare and stone cold.

So after finishing a class with patristics and moral theology, we left fromlargo Angelicum, and down the stairs to the forum of Trajan, built during thegolden age of the empire.  We crossed the piazza Venezia with the giantmonolith that is the Victor Emmanuel monument off to our right, what little sunthat is shining through the clouds reflecting off the white marble.  Andwe were down the Corso of the same name. Continuing along this vein of thecity, we pass the Gesú, Chiesa Nouva and Sant'Andrea della Valle, but not inthat order of course, because that would be too much walking. Continuing acrossthe Ponte (Bridge) Vittorio Emanuele II, we stopped to glance across the poorand dirty Tiber to look upon greatest dome in the world. That humble cross, confrontingyou from the pinnacle or the orb that is surmounts.  This dome hasthe ability to be seen from at least 19 ½ kms away! After recollectingourselves, we completed the crossing of the bridge, walked down to the Vaticanpost office and purchased the stamps.

Atleast, that’s what should have happened. Due to the wet conditions, we decideit was optimal to head home. That would take us straight Via Nazionale to themetro station Reppublica. Oh the sights and smells that I recall. The firstthing I said to my friend when we got on the #64 bus was “FEET”. We sort oflooked at each other and laughed rather loudly as I had said what we were boththinking. The wet dog smell had also made its way onto the bus, but, seeingmore people than dogs on the bus, I guess my nose had failed meand  assumed the worst. After being released from that little crowdedpurgatory, my nose had a great, albeit a brief, relief from the foul smellsthat somehow made their way to my nose. 

Westopped, why I don’t know, outside of one of the restaurants, and boy-oh-boy,my senses tingled at the delight of the ‘profumo piacevole’. The glee, for wantof a better word, that I felt brought back to me the smell of the coffee house(Ah, Coffee! *SNIFF*) at Piazza Sant’Eustachio, just a stone’s throw from thePantheon and all the other smells of the area. Good friends, fun moments, heavymeals, and even in a weird way my mother’s cooking. Is this how a dog mustfeel? Enjoying such a keen sense of smell? So I got off the metro after a shorttrip to my stop, and boarded the train. The first carriage is the best for meas it opens on the stair and I can get home that little bit quicker. It is alsoa popular spot for the gypsies. Now they are some interesting smells that are quite like....another blog perhaps?

 

ValeAmicus, till next time.

P.S. I am off to Mass tomorrow morning in St. Peter's Basilica at the Altar of the Transfiguration. You are in my prayers. God bless you.

Pontifices maximi collationibus magis plebis.

Dear Reader,

So I was reading through some of the books that I have in the App I brought called 'iPieta' (Available in English, Deutsch, Español, and Français $2.99 in the iTunes app store) when I chanced upon a book entitled 'Faith of our Fathers' by a James Cardinal Gibbons, once Archbishop of Baltimore, U.S.A. It is a excellent view into the apologetics of the Catholic Church in  the USA and most likely in the English speaking world at that time (c. 1876). On chapter which struck me was one on the papal states and the contributions that the papacy has had on the city and territory. Although romanced at times, I am positive that it is an accurate picture of the state of the State at that time.

Being a young seminarian in the big city of Rome is a wonderful experience, but I am often nostalgic for a return to the Papal States. Why? Perhaps I am tired of the Italian Bureaucracy Even though I have only been living here for two and a half years? that being said, I am not going to assume that it would be smooth sailing, free from vice and corruption. Oh no, if anything, it would probably be worse when I come to think of it.

However, please find this interesting chapter/article written by his Eminence. The Publication details follow at the end of the article.

III. What The Popes Have Done For Rome.

"Although the temporal power of the Pope is a subject which concerns the universal Church, no nation has more reason to lament the loss of the Holy Father’s temporalities than the Italians themselves, and particularly the inhabitants of Rome.

It is the residence of the Popes in Rome that has contributed to her material and religious grandeur. The Pontiffs have made her the Centre of Christendom, the Queen of religion, the Mistress of arts and sciences, the Depository of sacred learning.

By their creative and conservative spirit they have saved the illustrious monuments of the past, and, side by side with these, they have raised up Christian temples which surpass those of Pagan antiquity. In looking today at these old Roman monuments we know not which to admire more—the genius of those who designed and erected them, or the fostering care of the Popes who have preserved from destruction the venerable ruins. The residence of the Popes in Rome has made her what she is truly called, “The Eternal City.”

Let the Popes leave Rome forever, and in five years grass will be growing on its streets.

Such was the case at the return of the Pope, in 1418, from Avignon, which had been the seat of the Sovereign Pontiffs during the preceding century. On the Pope’s return the city of Rome had a population of only 17,000(188) and Avignon, which, during the residence of the Popes in the fourteenth century contained a population of 100,000, has now a population of only 36,407 inhabitants. Such, also, was the case in the beginning of the present century, when Pius VII. was an exile for four years from Rome, and a prisoner of the first Napoleon, in Grenoble, Savona and Fontainebleau. Grass then grew on the streets of Rome, and the city lost one-half of its population.

Rome has naturally no commercial attractions. It is only the presence of the Pope that keeps up her trade. Let the Popes abandon Rome, and her churches will soon be without worshippers her artists without employment. Her glorious monuments will perish. Science and art and sacred literature will take their flight and perch upon some more favoured spot. The hundred thousand and more strangers who annually flock to Rome from different parts of the world will shake off the dust from their feet and seek more congenial cities.

Let the Popes withdraw from Rome, and it may become almost as desolate as Jerusalem and Antioch are today.

Peter preached his first sermons in Jerusalem, but he did not select it as his See; and Jerusalem is today a Mahometan city, with its sacred places profaned by the foot of the Mussulman.

Peter occupied for a time the city of Antioch as his first See. But, in the mysterious providence of God, he abandoned Antioch and repaired to Rome; and now, little remains of the ancient Antioch of Peter’s day except colossal ruins.

Had the Popes remained in Antioch, Syria would now very probably be, instead of Europe, the centre of Christianity and civilization. The immortal Dome of St. Peter’s would, doubtless, overshadow the banks of the Orontes instead of the Tiber; and Antioch, not Rome, would be the focus of art, science, and sacred literature, and would be called today “The Eternal City.”

Our present(189) beloved Pontiff, Pius IX., I need not inform you, is now treated with indignity in his own city. In his declining years, as well as in the early days of his Pontificate, he is made to drink deep of the chalice of affliction. His name is dear to us all. To many of us it is a name familiar from our youth; for thirty-one years have now elapsed since he first assumed the reins of government; and it is a noteworthy fact that, since the days of Peter, no Pope has ever reigned so long as Pius IX.

The Pope in every age, like his Divine Master, has his period of persecution and his period of peace. Like Him, he has his days of sorrow and his days of joy, his days of humiliation and death, his days of exaltation and glory. Like Jesus Christ, he is one day greeted with acclamations as king, and another day crucified by his enemies.

But never does the Holy Father exhibit his title as Vicar of Christ more strikingly than in the midst of tribulations. If he did not suffer, he would bear no resemblance to his Divine Model and Master; and never does he more worthily deserve the filial homage of his children than when he is heavily laden with the cross.

I envy neither the heart nor the head of those men who are now gloating with fiendish joy over the calamities of the Pope; who are heaping insults and calumnies on his venerable head, while he is in the hands of his enemies,(190) and who are confidently predicting the downfall of the Papacy, from the present situation of the Head of the Church, as if the temporary privation of his dominions involved their irrevocable loss; or, as if even the perpetual destruction of the temporal power involved the destruction of the spiritual supremacy itself. “The Papacy,” they say, “is gone. Its glory is vanished. Its sun is set. It is sunk below the horizon, never to rise again.” Ill-boding prophets, will you never profit by the lessons of history? Have not numbers of Popes before Pius IX. been forcibly ejected from their See, and have they not been reinstated in their temporal authority? What has happened so often before may and will happen again.

For our part we have every confidence that ere long the clouds which now overshadow the civil throne of the Pope will be removed by the breath of a righteous God, and that his temporal power will be re-established on a more permanent basis than ever.

But whatever be the fate of the Pope’s temporalities, we have no fears for the spiritual throne of the Papacy. The Pontiffs have received their earthly dominion from man, and what man gives man may take away. But the spiritual supremacy the Bishops of Rome have from God, and no man can destroy it. That Divine charter of their prerogatives, “Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,”(191) will ever shine forth as brightly as the sun, and it is as far as the sun above the reach of human aggression.

The Holy Father may live and die in the catacombs, as the early Pontiffs did for the first three centuries. He may be dragged from his See and perish in exile, like the Martins, the Gregories and the Piuses. He may wander a penniless pilgrim, like Peter himself. Rome itself may sink beneath the Mediterranean; but the chair of Peter will stand, and Peter will live in his successors."

The Faith of Our Fathers

Being a Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ

By James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore

Ninety-third Carefully Revised and Enlarged Edition

John Murphy Company Publishers, Baltimore, MD. New York

R. & T. Washbourne, Ltd., 10 Paternoster Row, London, and at Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow

1917

Vale Amicus, till next time.