21 February 2015

It's a gun culture down there in the Wild West of Rome ...

Having discharged his kalashnikov at the curial cardinals and their staffs just before Christmas, our beloved Holy Father has now loosed off his twelve-bore into traddy seminarians! From Most Eminent Suburbicarian Cardinal Bishops, primores inter patres purpuratos, right down to the very humblest aspirant for the tonsure, he's got you all in his sights! Bang bang!

Both the Urbs and the Orbis must be seething with clerics whose keyboards are positively itching to deliver an extensive response in kind to the Sovereign Pontiff's own practised and laudable parrhesia!

8 comments:

Liam Ronan said...

You've done it again, Father! I was unaware of the meaning of the word 'parrhesia'.

The closest match I could come up with in my search was 'neurasthenia'.

Fr. Michael LaRue said...

I live in a "gun culture" in Texas, and fail to see the parallel. To take an example, at the collation following my father's funeral, my wife (who is not from Texas) expressed her concern about this gun culture in here. With that, an elderly cousin, a very proper and well dressed Southern Lady, said, "Well I carry a gun—for protection," and proceeded to produce a small pistol from her purse. Two other ladies of the same type seated with us proceeded to do the same.

The same ladies, I can safely say, would certainly refrain from accusing traddy seminarians of having "psychological and moral problems" as being a breach of courtesy, and, though not Catholic, would doubtless admire their "pluck" for swimming against the stream.

Unknown said...

We have stepped back in time. It's a bit like one of those disc jockeys who dedicates an hour of his show to "blasts from the past". For those of us of a certain age, this is a less unpleasant experience than might be first imagined.

Meanwhile, in other news, I'm disappointed that Greece has not left the EU. If the club med countries could follow suit including France then that would be a trip down memory lane! The dream scenario would be for Germany to follow (whilst "doing the locomotion"?) to leave the hilarious Vatican II laboratory which is Belgium to ponder its future. Given that the latter has spent the last fifty years pondering nothing of any worth then this would represent progress.

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Father. Witty, wry, and sly. What's not to love about your comment. Smashing

Donna Bethell said...

Bravo! Got 'im with both barrels, Padre! We need to start a club and issue tee shirts (vests to you Brits, I think): "I've been dissed by the pope!" I feel better already -- what splendid company!

Dale Crakes said...

The Well Dressed Southern Lady: Firearms Forever how Confederate.

Belfry Bat said...

Dear Father,

I was pointed to a worried Rorate article that pointed to a ZNT article, one other the other which I must guess you were alluding to, in which "traditionalist" and "psychological and moral problems" do indeed apear in adjacent sentences of the ZNT script; but it's not at all clear what His Holiness actually said, nor what point he was trying to make in his parrhesic manner. My own best guess is: let not "traditionalist" become a password to the seminary.

Athelstane said...

let not "traditionalist" become a password to the seminary.

Which is, to be sure, not exactly something that has been a raging problem in Catholic seminaries in the West over the last five decades - notwithstanding whatever might or might not have happened in the Diocese of Albenga-Imperia.