Monday, April 15, 2013

Francis, New World Pope

Rock stars have an intimate knowledge of how the world can run away with your fame, sucking you into a life of glamor, fame and excess. Overnight you can literally catapult from a nobody to the very backbone of the industry you previously were ignored by. Even more stunning can be the mis-characterizations of positions you previously held and the vitriolic reaction to a 'credible report' which is dubiously sourced.

Enter Time magazine -
Francis, the first New World Pope, faces some old and vexing problems. He must confront headlines reminding him of the church’s failures in dealing with the scandal of priestly sexual abuse. He must reform the Vatican’s finances by way of a bureaucracy that originated in medieval times and is burdened by aristocratic privilege and the Machiavellian instincts of feudal Italy. He must respond to the opposing demands of a divided flock—with many Catholics in North America and Europe asking for more-liberal interpretations of doctrine even as many in the burgeoning mission fields of Africa and Asia warm to the conservative comforts of the faith. Unlike some of the cataclysmic challenges in the church’s past, these problems are internal—but as such, they are more difficult to resolve.
This wouldn't be nearly so problematic if it hadn't been for the utterances of his predecessors:
Pope John Paul II
"More than ever, we need a new international order that draws on the experience and results achieved in these years by the United Nations," he declared during a service to mark the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Peace, celebrated on January 1.
and Pope Benedict XVI -
In a speech made at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on Monday December 3 2012, the Pope called for the “construction of a world community, with a corresponding authority,” to serve the “common good of the human family”.
and the creation of a world central bank -
“Of course, this transformation will be made at the cost of a gradual, balanced transfer of a part of each nation’s powers to a world authority and to regional authorities, but this is necessary at a time when the dynamism of human society and the economy and the progress of technology are transcending borders, which are in fact already very eroded in a globalizes world.”

On April Fool's Day, Francis visited the site believed to be the tomb of St. Peter -
Pope Francis on Monday took an emotional, close-up look at the tomb of Peter, the church's first pontiff, buried beneath St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican said.

By doing so, Francis became the first pontiff to visit the necropolis, where pagans and early Christians were buried, since extensive archaeological excavations were conducted at the ancient site decades ago, the Vatican said.

The 45-minute "visit of devotion to the tomb of St. Peter" was private, the Vatican said, but it later released a video of it.

The basilica was built over the location where early Christians would gather in secret, at a time of persecution in ancient Rome, to pray at an unmarked tomb believed to be that of Peter, the apostle Jesus chose to lead his church.
To top things off, there are Catholic reports of St. Peter's ghost literally possessing Pope Francis.

Taking all of this into consideration, there are some bizarre things happening that warrant close examination.

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