13 September 2017

Carnival time?

It was rumoured that, immediately after his election to the Roman Bishopric, Jorge Bergoglio said to his Caeremoniarius, who had offered him the garment indicating his new status as Servus servorum Dei, "The Carnival is over, Monsignor; wear it yourself". This was subsequently denied ... conclusively, I was very relieved and happy to assume. Back in those days, we had fewer data to go on with regard to how very nasty our Holy Father can be.

But now Monsignor Basil Loftus (in the article from which I have derived so much recent enlightenment) has apparently alluded to this story. And the Monsignor is a pretty extreme Bergoglianist, not to say a hyperultraueberpapalist.

So is the story, after all, true? Or is the Monsignor being even more Bergoglian than Bergoglio, and hinting that he would have liked the anecdote to be true?

Sometimes, of course, ben trovato fabrications are indeed truer than Clio, a distinctly unpermissive lady, would in her rather pedantically preserved virginity prefer to concede. I once had an academic colleague of whom it was said among our fellows that he had been Head Boy of ******* [a very minor English Public School]. This was not factually true but it was ... er ... truly true.

It told you more about him than any mere facts could convey.

I think we will leave Fr Basil at this point. Indeed, I do in fact agree with one argument he proposes: to the effect that the Episcopal Conferences in the Three Kingdoms should be open about what goes on in their meetings, just as the USA Conference is. And, when all is said and done, he is a brother priest whose ministry I pray will be ever fruitful, just as I hope and pray to be clear-sighted about the many shortcomings of my own.

12 comments:

TLM said...

He is a scourge on the Church.

vetusta ecclesia said...

In which edition of the CH did the Nicholls article appear?

John Vasc said...

Perhaps the remark "The Carnival is over" was an apophasis - a pretended denial of what was in fact very much the case - since the whirlwind Roman Carnival, did we but know it at the time was only just beginning.
A great pity that a more fitting costume could not have been worn to make that clear.

Sue Sims said...

And the Monsignor is a pretty extreme Bergoglianist, not to say a hyperultraueberpapalist.

The interesting thing is that Mgr Loftus was, if I recall correctly, extremely Gallican in his views until 13th March 2013, when there was a miraculous conversion.

Anonymous said...

@JV. I gather you mean a clown costume? Why not? There are already pictures on the internet of him putting on a clown's bulbous red nose.

philipjohnson said...

For Bergoglio The Carnival Time will be over when he meets his Maker Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Papabile said...

Has the Holy Father ever donned the mozetta? I mean, has he EVER worn it?

Patrick Sheridan said...

Sue Sims, and I have observed that RC traditionalists were rather Ultramontane between 2005 and 2013, when a similar sort of conversion took place.

Fr John Hunwicke said...

Well, Patrick, I can only speak for myself. But I can truly say that, during the Ratzinger years, I photocopied to Orthodox friends his words about the Petrine Ministry being nothing but the guardianship of Tradition; and asked "Surely this describes a First Millennium Papacy?"

Fr Ray Blake said...

The great theme of Ratzingerian theology of the Papacy was to separate it from a personality cult and to align his Papacy with his predecessors, through using their words primarily, but also their regalia, also of course by writing "Jesus of Nazareth" as a private theologian.

His resignation was his greatest act in cutting the papacy from its late modern Ultramontane accretions which have very quickly returned since his departure.

Christopher Boegel said...

The only authority a Pope has is defending Revelation and Tradition.

Everything else is his personal agenda - on ample display since 2013 - as it was in the 1960s and 1970s.

DeHereticoComburendo said...

I’m a Bergoglian Gallican and a Ratzingerian HyperUltramontanist. I call it my “Magnum Principium” – I have devolved to the various areas of my brain the personal autonomy to develop their own critical syntax for discrete papal historical periods. It's a kind of chronology-based situation ethics. So far, I think it’s working.