Today at The Tablet blog, Rob Mickens comments on the pope and his tiara.
The Pope with the tiara and the Lutherans
Comments
28 responses to “The Pope with the tiara and the Lutherans”
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Argh… he should have known better. Insensitive and especially undiplomatic since this was an ecumenical service and not strictly a R.C. prayer service.
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When will Rome ever learn? I worry sometimes for its health!
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“sometimes there is a good reason to throw things out or put them on the shelf for good. Not everything that was deemed necessary in the past is good for the present – or helpful in moving into the future”.
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Such as the mitre, the purple stuff, and most of the vestments with the possible exception of the alb and stole.
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It’s very disappointing.
When I think of my years in the seminary I keep thinking “bait and switch.”
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When I see that kind of thing, it just as a prompt to hit the IGNORE button. That’s what it communicates these days.
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Oh, we understand these things. Rome is so schizophrenic when it comes to ecumenism. In 2003 I studied “Ecumenical Theology from a Roman Catholic Perspective” at the Centro Pro Unione in Rome. The students were evenly divided between Lutherans and Roman Catholics. It was the most exciting and most frustrating 3 weeks I’ve ever spent. The frustrating part was the fact that Rome spoke of compromise and dialogue and what it alway came down to was “come home”.
Ut Unum Sint gave me much hope as has my membership in the Society of the Holy Trinity, an Order for Lutheran clergy. One of the points of our Rule is that we seek reunion with the Bishop of Rome. As I approach the 6th decade of my earthly life, I get more realistic and less hopeful that any reunion will be possible.
In the meantime, this Pontiff is returning to the Imperial Papacy unlike any other in my lifetime, but he also understands Lutherans better than any Pope ever.
Such are the paradoxes of Lutheran Catholic theology, and probably Roman Catholic too.
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He wore a stole specially made for Leo XIII at Westminster Abbey — Leo was the author of Apostolicae Curae, the document declaring that Anglians didn’t have valid orders.
Conservative commentators interpreted this as the Pope making a point. I wonder about that. Sometimes a stole is just a stole.
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With this pope, everything is calculated, everything is manipulated. Just another slap to the face and stab to the back directed against those with ecumenical dreams. It’s just too bad the good Lutherans didn’t have the gumption to make a whip and drive this sad, craven old man out of their presence.
Thanks for bringing this to everybody’s attention, Fr. Ruff. We have to keep the spotlights trained on these dark corners and ratholes! ๐
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dear Sandi, don’t you mean “Ratz-holes” ???
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It might be worth recalling in this context that Pope John Paul II, in the homily at his Mass of Inauguration, proposed an alternative interpretation of the tiara. Here it is:-
“Perhaps in the past, the tiara, this triple crown, was placed on the Pope’s head in order to express by that symbol the Lord’s plan for his Church, namely that all the hierarchical order of Christ’s Church, all “sacred power” exercised in the Church, is nothing other than service, service with a single purpose: to ensure that the whole People of God shares in this threefold mission of Christ and always remains under the power of the Lord; a power that has its source not in the powers of this world but in the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection.”
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It’s more a post-hoc rationalization than a reason. Meh. The more courtly, less liturgical vestures of the past (note, I am not talking about vestments that have a strong liturgical use, even maniples), if revived, will smack more of the Society for Creative Anachronism than of Christ Crucified, Risen and Glorified.
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The folks over at Rorate Caeli (no endorsement, those people are sick) called the Lutheran bishop who had participated in the joint Catholic-Protestant prayer service a “bishopess“.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about women Christian clergy, human dignity and respect for any professional, and indeed any person, are necessary. If a Roman Catholic priest is so insecure in his vocation or a layperson so insecure in his or her faith to make snide remarks about women clergy, then there is a serious lack of charity in our community towards other Christians. Mocking titles such as “priestess”, “bishopess”, or “bishopette” demean and objectify those who, while not clergy by our beliefs or practices, quite often possess pastoral gifts.
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I don’t recall you similarly objecting to commenter Sandi Brough’s recent reference to our Holy Father as “Ratz” a day or so ago on another post?
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If I had to guess, I’d say many of the regular commenters here are ignoring Sandi Brough’s posts as deliberate parody. (Sort of how Gerard Flynn categorized M. Osborn Jackon’s comments.)
(No offense, Sandi.)
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John Drake on September 25, 2011 – 5:10 pm
Yes, calling Pope Benedict “Ratz” is just as bad. I just didn’t catch Sandi’s snark.
I suspect that Pope Benedict wasn’t all that perturbed by the presence of a woman Lutheran bishop. Maybe the ultramontane set is more up in a fuss about it than the Pontiff. I have a feeling Pont. Max. took things in stride, and even greeted the bishop with charity.
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Sadly, the term ‘Catholic ecumenism’ seems to be an oxymoron.
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Crystal, ecumenism is a word of Greek origin and many Catholics find it difficult to pronounce, let alone comprehend.
Those who tackle this two-fold challenge usually pronounce it “You-come-in-ism.”
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Lest we forget…
One of the last surviving members of the Second Vatican Council, former Benedictine Giovanni Franzoni, remembers Paul VI setting aside the tiara:
“Well, a few days later, Maximos celebrated a Byzantine Rite liturgy at St. Peter. Sitting on a small throne placed on the opposite side of the transept, Paul VI attended the Mass with the tiara on his head. At the offertory, the pope took off the tiara (that precious one that Catholics in Milan donated to him when he was elected pope in 1963), rose, crossed the entire sanctuary, and placed it on the knees of patriarch. I saw in this gesture – and I’m sure the pope meant it that way – as the decision to end the era of temporal power of Popes, a power that was represented by one of the three crowns of the tiara (also called a “Triregnum” for this reason). That is to say, it wasn’t just any gesture but, rather, a premeditated strategic decision. It should be noted that in fact, no pope after him has appeared in public with the tiara on his head. It can be assumed that Paul VI had wanted to express something about the definitive elimination of this arrogant symbol of the power, also political, of the papacy.”
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Graham – it doesn’t fit Msgr’s R4R hermeneutic of continuity. Or some attempt to tell us that the “real spirit of VII” is JPII’s retroactive rewrite of history.
Often wonder if JPII learned his rewriting of history from the masters – the totalitarian isms of the 20th century and if he was ever even aware that he at times his methods closely paralleled theirs.
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Looking up papal tiaras at Wikipedia was interesting. The page states, as mentioned above in another comment, that Paul VI took off his tiara as … a sign of the renunciation of human glory and power in keeping with the renewed spirit of the Council. Since then, none of his successors has worn a tiara. It was announced that the tiara would be sold and the money obtained would be given to charity.
Until Benedict ๐ There are quite a number of past tiaras kept in the vatican treasury …. think how much charity work could be done if those were sold, as Paul VI chose to do with his.
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The thing with the Vatican selling their priceless (well, not that priceless!) artifacts is that:
1. the Vatican is now out an artifact,
2. the buyer now owns the artifact (in exchange for his money), and
3. the Vatican is out the money, which is given to charity.Now, I’m not at all against the Vatican donating to charitable causes. But why should some wealthy investor get something out of the Vatican’s acts of charity? Why not…
1. the Vatican makes a charitable donation, and
2. the wealthy investor makes a charitable donation? -
You can see many of the papal tiaras at http://www.youtube.com/user/CaeremonialeRomanvm#p/search/0/2JRL8GGZZMA . I didn’t count them, but they seemed to be enough so that no pope would need to wear any of them more than once even if popes still wore them to high occasions. If you view the video, I recommend that you not view the comments left by other viewers enthralled with papal majesty and symbols of authority.
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Thanks for the video link. My two favorite comments to it … “Jesus Christ would๏ปฟ sell the jewels and feed the poor…” and “The music is starting to make me๏ปฟ scared of the pope…” ๐
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Crystal, I must agree with the comment on the music. I know it’s not the Star Wars theme, but after hearing it, I could ‘see’ Darth Vader striding down a corridor on the Death Star.
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Temporal power of the Pope is already from a long ago time and I doubt the appearance of the Tiara is going to rekindle or threaten whole peoples into thinking that the Pope will somehow form a army and march on the lands in conquest in this day and age. I for one am happy to see it on the stole and would like to see it used in perhaps the Easter and Christmas Blessings. The Tiara is also symbolic of the Papacy, not just previous temporal power, and this is what should be focused on in these contemporary times. The leave it behind glass in a museum does not invoke that principal of continuity with the past that the Holy Father so often speaks of. We may not need to see it at every turn but a few times a year would be nice.
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Is this something that actually bothered the Lutherans, or is this more a case of a small subset of Catholics who dislike the papal tiara being offended on their behalf? I’d be more interested in hearing a Lutheran perspective.
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Next time the Lutherans should have a little velcro Martin Luther w/ a bubble calling the pope the anti-Christ that they can stick on their stole at the last minute if B16 is tacky enough to wear a controversial stole at the next ecumenical service.
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@Jack: some Lutherans (the knee-jerk variety) will be looking up those passages about the anti-Christ, but most Lutherans will not care one way or another. Personally it was picture of Pope Benedict in his Camauro that still gives me a shudder!
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