Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion Letters

Vatican spin on ill Pope

byStaff writers
3 April 2005
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

IS Vatican City turning into “Spin City” now that the Holy Father’s remarkable trajectory of life is entering a final stage of immutable silence and ineffable suffering?

The question is important, not least because the Pope has led the world’s largest religious organisation with the demonstrable vigour and strength of a spiritual and physical athlete.

His 26 years as the Bishop of Rome have coincided with some of the epoch-changing events of our time.

In a world changing faster than a kaleidoscope, the Holy Father exemplifies to his 1 billion followers the virtues of constancy with calibrated change a conservative embrace of the turning wheel.

This Pope has been the ultimate paradox, the outsider-insider who became the most doctrinaire radical to step into the spiritual shoes of St Peter.

He has been the right pontiff for an age that has been forced to wrestle with multiple, forked yet yoked realities — a celibate clergy implicated in sexual misdemeanors; abortion on tap and designer babies; the sanctity of marriage and sad reality of divorce.

He has created saints and given large swathes of the developing world a stake in preserving yet another paradox, a subtly altering status quo.

Now, his descent into the darkness must be carefully choreographed to present well. Like a near mediaeval throwback, he must scrawl spidery words on tablets of paper.

What the Pope is really saying will be a matter for interpretation. There is immense potential for misuse of his authority.

The Vatican bureaucracy is already thought to have become too powerful.

Related Stories

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

Small wonder, say wondering critics, that the Vatican is defiantly putting out a sunshine story and insisting there is no call for the Pope to lay down his burdens. On a daily basis, he makes only the most important decisions while the curia runs the global business.

Vatican communications expert Archbishop John Foley insists the spectacle of a silent and suffering Pope is really a sort of “Jesus lives” story for the 21st century. “I think it’s a beautiful example he is giving and a beautiful apostolate he is exercising,” he says.

Perhaps he has a point. The “beautiful example” is really meant to be the shallowness of counting productivity only as time sheets, dockets, man hours, visible movement and vital speech.

The Pope’s newly published book, Memory and Identity, says as much.

“All human suffering, all pain, all infirmity contains within itself a promise of salvation, a promise of joy,” he writes.

So, for the first time in living memory, a Pope is meant to publicly live out the story of Christian suffering and human dignity.

The theory is that it will unite Catholics worldwide, as never before, in prayer and hope for their spiritual head.

The great unknown is what happens if and when the patience wears thin.

CHRISTOPHER MADEIRA

Aspley, Qld

ShareTweet
Previous Post

ARE WE THERE YET?

Next Post

World mourns death of Pope

Staff writers

Related Posts

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies
QLD

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

20 May 2022
Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition
QLD

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

20 May 2022
Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning
QLD

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

19 May 2022
Next Post

World mourns death of Pope

Cardinals' memories

Bishops of Australia express deep sadness

Popular News

  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Fr Liam receives bravery medal after shark attack rescue

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • What is lust?

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies
QLD

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

by Joe Higgins
20 May 2022
0

BRISBANE grandmother Gwendoline Grant has clocked up 15,000 hours cuddling and caring for sick and premature babies...

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

20 May 2022
Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

19 May 2022
Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health

Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

19 May 2022
Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

19 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping