Post Like a Pirate!

trunk monkeys

You, sir, are a rogue. En garde! Qua’tre point six! Ha ha! I mock your rampant sabre. Lunge, parry, lunge, defend en six, crickey the pants just split, let’s hope none of these big hairy muscular pirate chaps are interested in the pale flesh of an English bum. Oh no, it seems they are.

Oh. Oh. Oh…

@Benedick: Ye, “Thar Be Devil T’ Pay!” sir, be a rogue. En “I Likes The Cut Of Your Jib Matey!” garde! Qua’tre point six! Ha ha! I mock your rampant sabre. Lunge, parry, lunge, defend en six, crickey th’ pants just split, let’s hope none o’ these unseaworthily big hairy muscular pirate chaps be interested in th’ pale flesh o’ an English bum. Oh no, it seems they be. Oh. Oh. “Ahoy, Me Hearties! ” Oh…

@Benedick: Speaking of which, the Pope stepped down today.

Not to seem harsh but isn’t the point that you die in office? Isn’t that the whole point? Gays can’t marry but the pope can retire? Women can’t officiate but the pope can retire? Priests can’t marry but the pope can retire?

It’s a mad world, my masters.

@Benedick: isn’t the point that you die in office?

Unless it’s martyrdom, you’re Poping it wrong.

@Benedick:
I heard some noobs discussing this on NPR today. it seems one of the worries about the whole retirement thing for some is that it might “diminish semi-divine infallible of the pontiff”

ex-fucking-cuse me
you know what. anytime anyone who shits between their heels is referred to by anyone as semi-devine it is time to change the fucking channel.

@CaptHowdy: Which is doubly amusing, since papal infallability is only a 19th-century doctrine.

General note: Whenever somebody cites “tradition”, the source isn’t likely much beyond living memory.

@nojo: what about “semi-divinity”?

which sounds like some kind of candy bar.

in other news web cat in soviet russia

@CaptHowdy: Didn’t hear the NPR piece, but that sounds like a casual misunderstanding of infallibility.

Because really, you can’t be serious about that. You can reach for papal elections/decrees as “divinely inspired” without getting into trouble, but if you invest divinity in the person of the Pope, you’re heading straight into Jeebus territory. If I gave a shit, I’d scream Heresy.

@nojo:

interview

It was a decision hailed by analysts as courageous, but many church officials worry that the resignation will basically weaken the papacy, removing the semi-divine nature of the institution and exposing future popes to possible pressure to step down, either from the outside or from the inside of the church. So they’ll want to find a candidate able to resist any kind of pressure.

googling

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

The result, long before any doctrinal split, is a clear distinction between eastern and western Christianity. The patriarch in Constantinople is part of the machinery of state of a semi-divine emperor. The pope in Rome views a secular ruler as something between a colleague and a political opponent.

@CaptHowdy:

so I guess my question is, if – as you said – I gave a shit, does semi-divine nature of the institution refer to the institution of the church or the institution of the pope (or papacy)

@CaptHowdy: Confused NPR reporting, then. Although it surprises me, coming from Sylvia Poggioli.

As far as semi-divinity goes, maybe the Church, maybe the Papacy as an office, both of which “as directed” by Jesus. But that still doesn’t work. Divinely inspired, sure. Blessed by God Incarnate, sure. But semi-divine in itself? No fucking way. Not after the Schism. Somebody needs a bitchslap.

@CaptHowdy: @nojo: From NYRB, which almost always know what it’s talking about.

Ratzinger’s decision to resign has the momentous effect of desacralizing the Papacy, reducing it, in the minds of the faithful, to the office of a great religious leader and nothing more. In short, the Catholic Church now has to contemplate the coexistence of an Emeritus Pope and a Pope-Pope. The new Pope will certainly exercise the full powers of the Papacy (on the assumption that the ex-Pope will truly withdraw to a life of seclusion and prayer), but he will no longer have a divine aura.

The rest is here.

@Benedick: Even better…

The Pope is—or was—an absolute sovereign who also had, in the eyes of his believers, a unique aura as the Vicar of Christ on Earth, representing the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity—a Deputy God, in other words.

I’ll allow that, until Garry Wills overrules.