Funeral of Pope Francis

[cakeorwine]

Watching it now. I'm not religious - but it is a fascinating watch and a beautiful setting.

But that doesn't explain why they don't go to funerals of any heads of state abroad.

It’s not a ‘don’t’. It’s a didn’t. The late Queen didn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s policy, though it could set precedent. We’ll have to see. But as head of the CofE the British monarch wouldn’t attend the Pope’s funeral for fairly obvious historical reasons, so William going this time reveals nothing about Charles’ future intentions.

Which books did we Prots ditch - do you know? There is the Apocrypha in between the OT and the NT, with Tobit and Esther et cetera in it. Were those the ditched ones or something else entirely?

( I was once telling my then RC neighbour about the cost of upkeep of the almost thousand-year-old church building I go into, C of E. She said, "You shouldn't have taken them all off us, should you?" I'm still chuckling.

Sorry. I'll go away and try to pay better attention if I come back.

I think Harald V, is unwell. TBF he's only 2 months younger than Pope Francis.

Yeah, someone else mentioned that. I wasn't aware. But yeah, perfectly reasonable in those circumstances.

I think at this stage the historical reasons aren't really a valid excuse. It's quite some time ago and I think everyone has gotten over it by now.

I find this whole argument bizzare. To show respect a state sends a senior representative(s) to pay respects on behalf of the country. Job done.

Did the pope attend the queen's funeral? No. Did the Vatican send someone to the queen's funeral to represent it? Yes. Was anyone offended? No

It is just looking for things to be annoyed about.

Perfect answer 😂😂

You're entitled to your opinion but there is a hierarchy that shows varying levels of esteem. If everyone else is sending heads of state, then sending a person of lower status shows, in my opinion, less respect.

I just checked and apparently the pope doesn't go to funerals of heads of state either. I think if they are expecting heads of state to attend theirs, they should also attend those of other heads of state.

Well I don't think the vatican are actually expecting that only heads of state come are they? I mean they haven't complained in anyway have they? I expect they invite all the countries to send representative(s) to the funeral and then then are absolutely fine with whoever that country choses to send to represent them.

I mean it might be rude to send some minor official but most countries have gone for some combo of PM/President/Royal depending on their setup. A lot will also depend on whether the country itself is catholic or has a large catholic population.

I think at the Queen's funeral there was a Cardinal and also a diplomatic representative of the Vatican and several other Catholic bishops. All seems perfectly fine to me.

Yesterday my Anglican DH remarked to me (Catholic ) that Catholic churches in the UK tend to be less elaborate affairs than those over the channel, to which my retort was, "Yeah, cause you lot fucking nicked them all!" 😡 😅

I do think Russia and Israel were making a point though with very low key representatives. I don't think China sent anyone at all. Which to me seems wierd. I would have thought given Trump's tariffs they would be making efforts to reach out to the rest of the world.

A funeral is not the place for trade discussions.

No but being seen to pay due respects to the leader of a major world religion seems sensible if you wish to have good relations with other countries and diplomatic discussions do happen at these events.

Well, the Catholic situation in China is very — strained and strange, stemming from when whichever Pope said that Catholics would be excommunicated if they became members of the Communist party. [ETA it was Pius XII, towards the end of the Chinese civil war in the 40s.] There are essentially two groups of Chinese Catholics, one which operates with the approval of the Chinese authorities, the CCPA (Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association) with the Chinese government appointing their bishops, and an underground organisation, which professes loyalty to to the Pope. The ‘unofficial’ clergy have been harassed, sometimes imprisoned or ‘disappeared’.

For about the last decade there’s been an agreement between the Chinese government and the Vatican that the Vatican could veto any bishops put forward by the Chinese authorities, but diplomatic relations between China and the Vatican are on a strained footing, to put it mildly.

The funeral of a pope is famously the place for all sorts of trade and foreign policy discussions.

Thankfully, they didn't. Also, Macron gave Zelensky a lovely warm greeting before him and the orange clown had their little meeting - Trump got nothing. And that is exactly what he deserves.

It's all about optics @AnnaMagnani

Thanks. I was vaguely aware of some of this but good to have it summarised.

Anyway that is what a snub looks like. Sending no one (China) or sending your Culture minister (Russia)

The UK by sending PM, Foreign Secretary and Prince was definitely not in this category.

Bits of Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, bits of Esther, Baruch, bits of Daniel, Wisdom, Sirach/Ecclesiasticus. There are other books that are canonical for other traditions, notably the Book of Enoch, important for Ethiopian Jews and Christians. There's much less variation in NT canon, though someone told me Luther was doubtful about the Letter to the Hebrews.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon

There was a big, long-read article on this recently in a paper, which I’ll link if I can find it. Might have been the Irish Times.

Agreed. I went to a papal mass and Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral choir were there. It was obvious that they were so much better than the Vatican choir. Both interns of sound and professionalism and behaviour.

@HarpSnail Communion under both kinds is very common now.