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It's hard to understand why, with the virtually unanimous universal acclaim for Pope Francis, his perfectness and flawlesness, and his virtues = which were seemingly absent or at least quite deficient in the Popes before him - his mythmakers continue to gild the lily (should it not remain pure and white as the driven snow?), in a spirit quite contrary to the very virtues of simplicity and humility that they mean to celebrate!
And now, Andrea Tornielli, cheerlesder-in-chief of Pope Francis and, along with Paolo Rodari, the Vaticanista most afflicted with Francis papolatry and Benedict amnesia, has written a story that the Pope had reportedly asked Alitalia, in a letter from his Secretary of State, not to provide the plane he will take to Rio for WYD with any special features, much less a bed for him, God forbid, unlike other Popes before him. And more of that sycophantic syrup that surely Pope Francis does not need, but that his media adulators/idolators willingly dispense all the time in treacly gobs and dollops.
Fr. Lombardi was asked about the story, to which he replied:
There was never any letter from the Secretary of State to Alitalia regarding the outfitting of the papal plane. The question of a bed was never even raised because today, airplane seats have become much more comfortable and allow maximum rest, for which there is no reason to request any special features, Even Pope Benedict did not have a bed on board in his longer flights, As for the departure, it will be from Fiumicino (site of Rome's Leonardo da Vinci international airport) as it always is when the Pope is in residence at the Vatican (he departs from Ciampino, the old international airport, only when he is in Castel Gandolfo, since it is nearer.
Followers of Lella's blog promptly noted that Tornielli's treacly story was withdrawn from the Vatican Insider site tout de suite after Fr. Lombardi's blanket denial of the story, but one of them recovered it from the Google cache. It is worth the trouble translating it, if only to appreciate the lengths to which media mythmakers will go to push their agenda, or, in this case, the phenomenon of Francis which is so obvious it does not need to be pushed at all. In the process, one is almost embarrassed at Tornielli's bid to be the Pope's most devoted lap dog,,,Here is his breathlessly adulatory report - on what is essentially trivia - which Fr. Lombardi belied:
No special flight for the Pope
He has asked for a plane without any special features.
With a letter from the Secretariat of State,
Francis refuses a bed on the flight to Rio
by ANDREA TORNIELLI
"Where do passengers embark normally embark from Rome? At Fiumicino? Then I don't want to create any inconvenience by leaving from Ciampino..." [Actually, both airports are still used for international flights, except there are far fewer originating from Ciampino. And a VIP flight leaving from Ciampino is much less likely to affect teh routine than if it left from Fiumicino! But of course, Tornielli will not volunteer such information as it will not fit his narrative.]]
Pope Francis will leave for Rio de Janeiro, in his first international trip as Pope, from Fiumicino rather than Ciampino as earlier planned. It is a decision he took to simplify the procedure. [How will it be any simpler, whether the Pope leaves from Ciampino or Fiumicino? Vatican officials will see off the Pope, and there will be a representative of the Italian government, if not the Prime Minister himself, to wish him a good trip. Unless, of course, the Pope has asked everyone who is not travelling with him to just stay home - in a further display of simplicity and humility.]
Moreover, the Pope has asked that a letter be sent to Alitalia saying he does not desire any special fittings for the plane he will take to Rio. He will seat in first class, but there will not be a bed which in the past was prepared for Popes during long intercontinental flights.
For Bergoglio, the first-class seat already represents a luxury compared to what he was used to. As a cardinal, he always travelled in economy class, and continued to do so even after he developed a problem with his hip, merely asking for a seat next to an emergency exit where he would be able to stretch his legs more. Just as he did on his last trip from Buenos Aires to come to the Conclave which elected him Pope, therefore he only used one part of his roundtrip ticket.
The letter from the Secretariat of State was sent before the company could announce which airplane it was assigning to the papal flight to Rio. The request from the Pope was welcomed by the company, since any special configuration requested for an airplane might not have been possible in a short time The work to install a bed would require time.
Alitalia is assigning an Airbus 330 for the papal flight, the same plane model that is flown on the regular Rome to Rio, and not the more upscale Boeing 777, top of the line in the Alitalia fleet.
And where might Tornielli have obtained the details he reports so adoringly? The fact that his story was withdrawn after Fr. Lombardi's statement does not exactly vouch for its authenticity, does it?
But why is it even necessary to make every news report on Pope Francis to be an apotheosis? Where will this contradictory 'glorification of humility and simplicity' lead to? Of Torneilli et al beating their breasts pharisaically in behalf of the Pope1
Tornielli's next report may well be that the Pope went to Fiumicino riding in one of the police cars and will never ever use a car with the license plate SCV-1, nor will he ever ride a Mercedes-Benz, only Fiats and Toyotas. He will refuse his first-class seat on the flight to Brazil and will choose to sit in economy with the working press and Vatican personnel. He will not eat the first-class meal but the economy fare. In fact, he may not eat at all, He will actually take over a serving cart from one of the flight attendants and serve meals to his travelling companions. He will not sleep a wink on the flight to Brazil, and when he gets to Rio, he will decline to stay at the residence prepared for him but will check in at a working-class hotel where he stayed on a previous visit to Rio. Or, he may agree to stay at the residence but he will ask to occupy a bedroom identical to that assigned to his secretaries.... And so on.
The day is not far when Tornielli will inform us that Pope Francis actually only has three changes of clothing because that's all he could ever need - one to wear, one in the laundry, and one for any emergency. And that he only has one pair of shoes which he will wear until it starts bursting at the seams, then he will buy a new pair. And that, at Casa Santa Marta, he actually does not sleep on that big formal bed but on an air mattress on the floor, and if it were not for his bad back, he would not even use the mattress. Anc that once a week, he relieves one dishwasher in the scullery at Santa Marta to give him a day off while he, the Pope, washes the dishes for the hotel's clientele. Eventually, he may report that the Pope has also decided that once a week, he will spend the night incognito and al fresco, with all of Rome's homeless vagrants. And how about serving at a hospice for terminally ill AIDS patients at least once a month? But I am a singularly unimaginative person, and I am sure the reality that awaits us will be far more amazing and jaw-dropping than the fairly dull examples I could think of. And all this while also leading the cleanest, purest and most efficient governance of the Church or any other institution in all of human history.
[The following was inadvertently dropped in an eariler posting:]
There is so much hagiography already about Pope Francis that his postulator when his cause comes up for sainthood will merely have to compile all of it and submit it as his positio to justify Jorge Mario Bergoglio's far-more-than-heroic virtues. Or maybe he may not even need that because, for a Pope who has already broken every rule and practice adhered to by Popes before him, he will probably also end up becoming the first saint in more than ten centuries ever to be canonized by popular acclamation and not have to go through the formalities of the Congregation for Saints.
I am sure Tornielli and his fellow 'Papolators' have that consideration in mind as they so relentlessly build up their image of this formidable, unprecedented and likely-to-be-never repeated dream Pontificate. Hence their compulsion to focus on trivia which, of course, reinforces the Pope's popularity the way celebrity trivia drives the fan base to new heights of idolatry. Not to mention that it supports all that the Pope's admirers have been implying, if not explicitly saying, since March 13, 2013, "The Lord sure knew what he was doing when he sanctioned Benedict's retirement!"
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/07/2013 03:40] |