ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI
What did the media really expect to see
in the private papal apartment in Castel Gandolfo?
This CBS news reportage finds the papal bedroom 'remarkably simple'. DUH!
Because the Fondazione Vatican JR-B16 had earlier shown a picture of the bedroom as it was from B16's last use of it, no one can say that the bedroom made open to tourists since Friday was somehow dressed down from what it was when used by the popes. (In fact, the new pictures show a not altogether tidily made up bedcover, where it is less than carefully draped over the pillows.)
The bedroom was the only room in the private apartment that ABC News photographed in its initial slide show on the 'new' Castel Gandolfo Museum!
One will grant the bedroom in CG is more spacious than the bedroom we are shown for JMB at Casa Santa Marta, but his bedroom has a separate sitting room and little study beyond the bedroom (see photos in earlier post).
ROMEREPORTS video of the papal bedroom.
Considering that Venerable Pius XII and Blessed Paul VI both died in the papal bedroom at CG, which was also
occupied by Saints John XXIII and John Paul II (and by Benedict XVI, future Doctor of the Church), I really
think the bedroom and its adjoining chapel should have been consecrated as a shrine and pilgrimage site, and
treated differently from the rest of the rooms open to tourists. I think there should also be a historical
plaque on the balcony from which Benedict XVI delivered his last public words as Pope... Does no one at
the Bergoglio Vatican have any sense of history and sacrosanct places? The ROMEREPORTS video does not
show any explanatory sign for the visitor - as other museums would have - of how sacrosanct this papal bedroom is.
The ff post is not exactly sequitur, but it bears reading because it gives broader context to a relatively trivial public curiosity about papal bedrooms...
I cried when Pope Paul VI died
October 21, 2016
When Pope Paul VI died, the Bear and his bride Red Death were virtually walking out the door to head cross-country for a second assignment to Defense Language Institute for the Arabic Egyptian dialect course. Watching the coverage on the Bear's adoptive parents' television, we both teared up.
We knew next to nothing about the man. It never occurred to us to wonder whether he was a good pope or a bad pope. All we knew was that he was the Pope. He was a revered father figure - a symbol of our identity as Roman Catholics. To be Catholic was to hang a picture of the pope on your wall, probably next to a picture of JFK, as in Red Death's childhood home.
Perhaps if we had been paying more attention, we might have picked up on the controversy over
Humanae Vitae. But neither of us had so much of a whiff of anything like that, let alone the intricacies of the second Vatican council.
The Bear cannot help but look upon those days of blessed ignorance with nostalgia. Now, as passengers in the Barque of Peter, the Captain is on the bridge barking commands to rock and knock us between bulkheads, pursuing a punishing zig-zag course as if to dodge torpedoes of orthodoxy.
One can hardly help forming opinions about Francis and what he says. He possesses an overexposure Kim Kardashian can only dream of. No remote father figure he. Francis is more like a carping mother
[PRUSSIAN NANNY, NOT MOTHER!]: constantly, constantly criticizing and exhorting. He will not let us alone. He lacks the wisdom to understand why this is bad. That doesn't matter, though, because
he lacks the discipline to step out of the spotlight and let the Church proceed upon her stately course. Somehow, Francis has convinced himself it needs every single idea that enters his head to correct course and ensure safe passage.
The Bear has said it before:
Francis sees himself not so much as Pope than as Prophet. He is the third source of revelation, along with Holy Scripture and Tradition. Unlike the prophets of old, however, his message is not one of sin and repentance, but worldly opinions and accommodation in the name of mercy.
One day, the world will learn, if there was ever any doubt in anyone's mind but Francis'S, that the Church can get along without Pope Francis. On the Vatican website, instead of his latest confounding homily, will be the umbraculum of the sede vacante Holy See without a pope.
The Bear doubts anyone in his family will cry for him.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/10/2016 23:00]