From Ruth Gledhill in the Times UK:
One of the Pope’s senior advisers today pulled out of the visit to Britain after describing the UK as a Third World country marked by “a new and aggressive atheism”. A day before the Pope’s state visit to Britain Cardinal Walter Kasper made a series of embarrassing remarks in an interview with the German....
Sorry, that's all you can read without a paid subscription to the online version of the newspaper. Cardinal Kasper is at it again. Ruth Gledhill is about all I miss from the Times, but I do miss Ruth. Well, I'd love to read the article, but I won't pay.
That Cardinal Kasper! He has a knack for saying just the right thing, don't he?
Thanks, Lisa.
Oh wait! All is not lost. The Telegraph covers the story, too.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, a senior aide to the Pope, has pulled out of the Pontiff's visit to Britain after saying the country resembled a “Third World country” where “aggressive new atheism” is rife.
Although officials insisted that the 77 year-old had dropped out of the trip for medical reasons, as he had been ill “for some days”, his comments represent another embarrassing PR blunder for the Roman Catholic church at a critical time.
The[y] are all the more embarrassing because the Cardinal's position makes him responsible for promoting Christian unity around the world.
The Vatican, the hierarchy in England and Wales and the Government are all desperate for the first-ever state papal visit to Britain to be a success.
Count me out from amongst the desperate.
The cardinal’s abrupt withdrawal from the trip prompted speculation in Rome that it was linked to an interview he gave this week to a German news magazine, Focus.
In an article headlined “A Third World country” he was quoted as saying: “When you arrive at Heathrow you think at times that you’ve landed in a Third World country.”
His secretary, Mgr Oliver Lahl, said the remark was a reference to the diverse, multi-cultural population of Britain, which the Cardinal has visited three times in recent years.His secretary, Mgr Oliver Lahl, said the remark was a reference to the diverse, multi-cultural population of Britain, which the Cardinal has visited three times in recent years.
Well, Monsignor, that changes everything. We all understand why the cardinal would want to avoid the multicultural hoardes.
Meanwhile one of England's most senior Catholics, The Most Rev Peter Smith, Archbishop of Southwark, has warned that "crackpots and lunatics" may try to disrupt the papal visit.
The Protest the Pope coalition has promised its rally will be peaceful and that no attempt will be made to arrest Benedict for alleged "crimes against humanity".
For better or for worse, tomorrow is the big day. In all sincerity, I pray that the protesters and the police will exercise restraint and that the protests during the pope's visit will be non-violent.
All those dark faces! Poor dears. Wonder what the pair of them think of their numerous, less-than-Aryan, sub-Saharan flock.
ReplyDeleteYou can't make this stuff up. What tin ears...!
ReplyDeleteOf course, they come from a fourth-world country, a land out of space and time... there's the signpost up ahead: the Vatican!
ReplyDeleteThe Giardian also has the story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
ReplyDeleteAs the article in the New Statesman says of the Vatican "state":
ReplyDeleteIt is simply a palace with a large basilica and ample gardens, less than a quarter of a square mile in size, like so many golf courses. It has no "Vaticanians", just a few hundred celibate Catholic bureaucrats and some daily workers who come over the road from Italy. It is a palace with museums but no nationals; all its basic services are provided from Italy.
The Holy See lacks any stable human society. Its only "permanent" member is the pontiff, who prefers on many evenings to pope-copter off to his residence in Italy, Castel Gandolfo.
I don't condone violence, but the thought of a big butterscotch meringue pie eclipsing the papal visage warms my heart.
ReplyDeleteOh dear, so not looking forward to this :-(
ReplyDelete(as in the papal visit. The butterscotch pie on the visage, on the other hand, would be extremely welcome.)
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the epigram oft applied to South Carolina (with good cause it seems, given the silliness in their upcoming attempt to "divorce" the Episcopal Church) might not apply to the Vatican: too small for a country, too large for an asylum!
ReplyDelete{Thinks of His Holiness' countenance, covered w/ pie}
ReplyDeleteIt's be an improvement! [Heh: my wv is "tortzing"! Zing a tort in Ratzi's general direction! *LOL*]
But seriously: prayers for opposition---NONVIOLENT opposition---to B16's visit.
[It really COULD be Card. Kasper's health. Problems w/ blood-flow to the part of the brain---which provides impulse control, to his sounding like an early 20th c. German! :-X]
Must the pie be butterscotch meringue?
ReplyDelete...too small for a country, too large for an asylum!
Oooh. I didn't say that.
What sort of pie do you think would be preferable, Mimi?
ReplyDeleteHumble pie? Of course, it doesn't make as much of a mess.
ReplyDeleteWould he eat any of it, though?
ReplyDelete"The expression derives from umble pie, which was a pie filled with liver, heart and other offal, especially of cow but often deer or boar. Umble evolved from numble, (after the French nomble) meaning 'deer's innards'. Umbles were considered inferior food; in medieval times the pie was often served to lower-class people." Wiki
ReplyDeleteNot fond of Bennie but growing close to as un-fond of ABC. Is Bennie chosing to bow to Archbishops who want to KILL GLBT sisters and brothers?
ReplyDeleteToo sad and angry making.
Well, Lapin, that would be pretty messy caught in the face, then.
ReplyDeleteToo sad and angry making.
So it is, Susankay.
Outré to recherché, Mimi.
ReplyDeleteThe Guardian piece that Ormonde notes is here. It is excellent:
ReplyDelete"The standard liberal remedies for the church's decline hold no attraction for the cardinal. "Look at the Protestant churches," he said: "They have married priests and women priests, too. Are they doing better? The Church of England has also taken on terrible problems with these developments. I wouldn't wish those problems on my church."
"This is not only stupefyingly tactless, and wrong (the Church of England has 600 priests in training, half of them women; the Roman Catholic church [in England] has 39 priests in training)."
Lapin, I'll stay with outré. You are the bizarre rabbit, after all, and "bizarre" is a synonym for outré.
ReplyDeleteMy intent was to refer to content rather than to personality. And it should have been "récherché", shouldn't it?
ReplyDeleteThe statistics on priests in training are pretty damning, aren't they?
Color me cynical, but it seems to me that Cardinal Kaspar is precisely one of the "crackpots and lunatics" [who] may try to disrupt the papal visit.
ReplyDeletewv= bakere -- to which, of course, I attach no significance, despite your all's discussion of pies. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Humble pie is derived from umble, which evolved from numble? OM*G, I learned that 40 years ago from Pogo, and all along I thought it was a joke!
ReplyDeleteLapin, the statistics are damning. The priest shortage in the RCC will not soon be alleviated at that rate.
ReplyDeleteOh Lisa! LOL.
I . . . it just . . . (sigh) . . . can . . . ?
ReplyDeleteWhy the hell are we constantly talking dialogue with these idiots?
Here's how dialogue works with people like this:
TEC: "We understand your reservations, your deep respect for Tradition, your feeling that the Petrine verses establish a Petrine ministry and authority, from which a lineage of papal authority derives, but - if you are willing to engage - we would like to explain our rationale for differing with you on many points. What do you say?"
RCC: "Damn fairies, flyin' around. Got the train . . . got the TRAIN! AIN'T NO DAMN YOOHOO IN HERE! Ham pie, ham pie, ham pie!"
You don't dialogue with an addict whose brain's gone to mush!
Humble pie is derived from umble, which evolved from numble?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile the ABC seems to have been eating something that evolved from mumble pie.
Mark, the imagined dialogue hits the nail on the head.
ReplyDeleteCathy, the ABC grew up in Mumbles, a suburb of Swansea. That's no joke.
Cathy, the ABC grew up in Mumbles, a suburb of Swansea. That's no joke.
ReplyDeleteI'd forgotten that!! That proves it.
I knew several candidates for ordination at university who explicitly said that the reason they were going into the C of E (as anglo-catholics) because of the sex abuse scandals in Rome, and the general corruption (morally and financially) of the heirarchy.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, thanks for your comment. Please come again but sign a name next time, any name, make one up, so I can distinguish one Anonymous from the other.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do wonder about is will there be positions available for all the seminarians, once they complete their studies?