The pope has died

@PantyBear
And also with you x
Isabella Rossellini is formidable in the film

My friend is a bishop. (Outing to say who) I think many of the hierarchy have a very dim view of those who converted for this reason. Aside from the practical issues of having to support families. It is very telling that when the ordinariate got its own bishop, last year. Not a single RC diocesan bishop attended his ordination.

I haven't but Isabella Rossellini as a nun in the Vatican sounds worth watching. I'll check it out.

Sorry. I wasn't trying to cause any offence. I was a young person when I was last part of this world but I remember the sort of politics that I was aware of in the cathedral/church/school communities and I'm maybe projecting the bits I didn't see and imagining how it might look as an adult. I get the significance of the foot washing and I think it's a very powerful ritual. Peace be with you.

Not sure if you've seen Conclave @PantyBear but I would really like the Sister played by Isabella Rossellini on my side in pretty much everything!

That sounds like my kind of Airbnb. Couldn't we all use a few nuns to help with housework, childcare, etc?

But seriously, respect to the man for not living like a Roman emperor as he could have chosen to do. You're totally right that it's hard to win as a pope. You're damned if you live in wealth and you're damned if you live in poverty.

It would be nice if other popes followed suit and lived like normal people (plus or minus a few nuns) and sold off all the palaces and gold to try and do some good with them.

I think Pope Francis actually lived in the Casa Santa Marta at the Vatican (the guest house where the Cardinals will stay during Conclave) and was looked after by the nuns there, having chosen not to move into the palatial Papal Vatican apartments. I'm not sure there was any ascetic mortification involved or desire for such, just a reasonable personal choice in keeping with his wish to be in touch with ordinary life as far as he could.

We can't have it both ways though, he'd have attracted as much if not more criticism had he been fonder of the trappings than he clearly was.

ETA I actually found him being driven to his last resting place in his Popemobile strangely moving, much more so than an elaborate procession.

@PantyBear The washing of the feet comes from Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God washing the feet of his Apostles.
If all you can be is rude, then I am not interested in your remarks.

It's pretty much his job to perform rituals so you can't really fault the man for it. And as pointed out it's standard practice in every Catholic church. What does get performative in my experience is when they get lay people to volunteer to do it as well. It must be hard to do that without looking like a bit of a prick. Maybe best to do that in another church where you're not known. It's probably why penitent societies in Spain came up with those KKK costumes.

I didn't know Basil Hume was into women priests. Good man. Incidentally I was an altar server at a mass he did in the late 90s. He had this big entourage of about 50 priests saying mass with him and each of the priests had a couple of kids to use as book stands or things to put candles on our whatever. It was like something out of Monty Python. Good times.

That's no way to live. Being poor and suffering is not the same as being a good person. I'm with David Hume on not seeing any worth in these "monkish virtues".

He wasn't telling us anything about an identifiable person, or even what country she lived in. Yes, she was obviously very devout.

Thanks but no need to apologise!

The word can have very negative connotations and I didn’t explain it very well.

@Conversationkiller654 sorry about that. Performative has negative connotations for me
@DeanElderberry The Priest shouldn’t be sharing what is said in the confessional - that is strictly confidential
I am sorry for what the lady experienced and can only think she must be a devout woman to be feeling like that.

I’m well aware of that RedRosesPinkLilies!

I was replying to another poster about performative acts. I was saying that when you are Pope, in a sense that’s part of your job, not that the annual washing of the feet is performative in the sense of it therefore being without meaning. Very much the reverse!

But everything the Pope does, within the Catholic liturgy, or when spontaneously meeting and greeting individual in crowds, is performative in the sense that he is doing these things sincerely but he knows he is also being watched by thousands of people, and very often, he wants to send a certain message.

Yes.
Pope Francis visited prisoners every Thursday . (one of the Catholic corporal works of mercy )
He made his final visit on the Thursday before he died.
There was nothing “performative” about it.

It is really good to read a discussion on here about Catholic theology with so many contributors who a) actually know something about Catholicism and b) are willing to concede that there is sometimes value in being counter cultural.

Absolutely agree.
But in my experience the stance on contraception is dishonest because it is ignored by everyone I know.

It’s a nonsense to suggest Catholics are not using contraception. There are very very few larger families attending church and certainly vanishingly few with 7+ children.

Because it doesn't let people like the priest mentioned above, who recommended contraception, or the priest I knew who met a menopausal woman in a confession box who had not been to communion for decades because she had been told that having another baby would kill her, and now wanted to 'come back', to talk about that openly. And that in turn prevents open discussion of all the issues around sex and reproduction.

It comes from the Aristotelian notion of telos - the purpose of sex is reproduction, nothing else, as such sex for any other purpose is disordered. Plenty of consenting sex is sinful. It is an ethical system we ought to return to, or at the very least, hope the Church can somehow influence the wider world. I think we need to be honest about how dangerous sex is psychologically for people who do not try and control their appetites. This is God's will we are talking about not some utilitarian enslavement to the pleasure principle.

I'm not sure what you meant about the stance on contraceptives being dishonest.

Arguably though, contraception makes sex too easily available and demeans it as a loving act.
I think that is where the Church is coming from. Overtime the availability of contraception means sex is no longer part of a long term loving marriage. It’s just an expectation of any relationship- even one night.
Having to pay more attention to periods of fertility and of less fertility in the month actually increases the value of sex to individuals in the couple. It’s not just about pleasure, it’s also about respect.

We did use contraception. By the time of my 4th child’s christening the Priest who baptised him actually said to me ‘No more children. It’s hard on the mother’.
Priests do live in the real world.

We also have personal choice - I look to the Church for guidance and support - not for absolute rules.

Contraception is the huge central dishonesty of thought that needs to be taken out and looked at - with a side order of admitting that human sexuality isn't just something to be done out out duty to procreate, and that pleasure is not, of itself, sinful.

Apart from anything else, that will make it possible to be really honest about the stuff that is sinful - violating consent, violating those unable to consent.

I'm not sure of what I think of the married priests who converted from C of E purely on the issue of women in the priesthood....

Our priest (not a convert) had a "life" before being ordained so maybe that is another way to entice people (men) in.

On Easter Sunday, the word "vocation" was brought up in the homily and I noticed a couple of teenage boys looking petrified !!

Cardinal Basil Hume thought women priests would happen before married priests. The latter being too expensive to maintain. But it's a weird situation now - married priests can convert from the C of E. One such presided at my mums funeral. But Catholic priests can't marry. It's just not sustainable. OK some Catholics will leave if there is change of any sort. People left after vernacular Mass cake in. But nothing like as many as dropped out when Paul VI ruled out contraception?