Writing from Canada, I am aghast at the absolute stupidity of the political system in the United States that cannot deal with the problem of illegal immigration.
What is more scandalous is the position taken by certain Catholic bishops in the United States on this issue.
What a bunch of putrid, communists, What useful idiots who have lost any sense of being a Shepherd of Christ and instead have put their hopes in a political machine whose roots are in anti-Catholic and racist known as the Democratic Party. The bleating about these poor children by the same hypocrites who kill them in the womb is nauseating.
The bishops who support this sham can go to Hell, with their money.
American Catholics, without every penny from the collection. Starve the bastards.
“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, 'You are mad; you are not like us.” ― St. Antony the Great
Monday 18 June 2018
Sunday 17 June 2018
Blasphemy and Sodomy tolerated by Timothy Dolan
The "art" promoted on "Out at St. Paul's", a "gay" Catholic ministry in New York cannot be posted here, it is an abhorrent blasphemy of Our Lord.
Joseph Sciambra has it in this article.
God bless Joseph for his courage. As for Timothy Dolan, well...
http://josephsciambra.com/archdiocese-of-ny-lgbt-ministry-we-can-be-catholic-and-eat-our-gay-cake-too/
Joseph Sciambra has it in this article.
God bless Joseph for his courage. As for Timothy Dolan, well...
http://josephsciambra.com/archdiocese-of-ny-lgbt-ministry-we-can-be-catholic-and-eat-our-gay-cake-too/
Labels:
Homoheresy,
Joseph Sciambra,
Perverts,
Timothy Cardinal Dolan
Sunday 10 June 2018
Regina's Jesuit Campion College swallows the Gay lifestyle
Good, no HUGE news!
I have just heard that the "rainbow" logo of Campion College has been taken down. Out of respect for those at the College who did not agree with it, I have removed the logo and the commentary from the Facebook page, the link shows the post does not exist.
Let us all remember in our prayers the good Jesuit Fathers and administrators on campuses who strive to do the Lord's work and to remain faithful.
https://www.facebook.com/CampionCollege/photos/a.150978831588605.22931.150978544921967/2017034291649707/?type=3&theater
I have just heard that the "rainbow" logo of Campion College has been taken down. Out of respect for those at the College who did not agree with it, I have removed the logo and the commentary from the Facebook page, the link shows the post does not exist.
Let us all remember in our prayers the good Jesuit Fathers and administrators on campuses who strive to do the Lord's work and to remain faithful.
https://www.facebook.com/CampionCollege/photos/a.150978831588605.22931.150978544921967/2017034291649707/?type=3&theater
Labels:
Church's "gay" lobby,
Homoheresy,
homosexualist lobby,
Jesuits
Wednesday 6 June 2018
Tucho and his fights
Just really busy.
So, you can read about how Archbishop Kissyface is now married to a diocese and the current Archbishop has been told to hit the road.
https://onepeterfive.com/respected-predecessor-of-new-la-plata-archbishop-tucho-fernandez-ordered-to-depart-his-diocese-immediately/
If that doesn't make you puke, you can always read about the Vatican Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin attending the Bilderberg Conference.
http://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2018/06/cardinal-pietro-parolin-will-be.html
So, you can read about how Archbishop Kissyface is now married to a diocese and the current Archbishop has been told to hit the road.
https://onepeterfive.com/respected-predecessor-of-new-la-plata-archbishop-tucho-fernandez-ordered-to-depart-his-diocese-immediately/
If that doesn't make you puke, you can always read about the Vatican Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin attending the Bilderberg Conference.
http://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2018/06/cardinal-pietro-parolin-will-be.html
Labels:
Cardinal Fernández
Thursday 31 May 2018
Arrogant, egotistical monster - Peronist Bergoglio has his Riefenstahl
By Maureen Mullarkey
Jorge Bergoglio found his Leni Riefenstahl in
Wim Wenders. I went to see Wenders’ “Pope Francis: A Man of His Word” expecting
hagiography. What I watched came closer to pornography. It was the pornography
of blatant propaganda, that notorious key to “the heart of the broad masses.”
Lust for dominance is airbrushed into a semblance of piety; avarice for
celebrity is lighted and staged to look like humility.
Contrary to the court press, Damon Linker
recently ascribed “psychological acuity and Machiavellian cunning” to Pope
Francis. And he is correct. But Linker’s interest lies in the Catholic Church’s
eventual alignment with contemporary mores, especially legitimization of
homosexuality. Yet there remains a larger, more compelling issue: the
sacralization of politics via the person of the pope himself. Francis is not
reforming the church but denaturing it, reducing it to a social tool.
Commissioned by the Vatican, the film ups the
ante on papalolotry. Its deluge of glorifying images stimulates devotion to Bergoglio
himself, papa to all the world. A quasi-erotic glow infuses the whole. It is
the eros of surrender to a liberator, a defender against ideological bogeys:
“the globalization of indifference”; “money drenched in blood”; “fear of
foreigners.” The old creed proclaimed Christ risen. The new Bergoglian one,
emblazoned on St. Peter’s dome during the 2016 light show repeated here,
proclaims: “Planet Earth first.”
Read the rest here:
Labels:
More Bergoglian heresy,
Vatican Circus
Wednesday 30 May 2018
Ours is the victory
Labels:
Abortion,
Bishop Athanasius Schneider,
Ireland
Tuesday 29 May 2018
Pope Francis is against the "interruption of pregnancy"
I'll just leave this here.
https://infovaticana.com/2018/05/29/francisco-se-refiere-al-aborto-como-interrupcion-del-embarazo/
https://infovaticana.com/2018/05/29/francisco-se-refiere-al-aborto-como-interrupcion-del-embarazo/
Dear brothers and sisters:
I am pleased to welcome you and greet you
all, starting with the President, Dr. John Lee, whom I thank for his words.
Your qualification of "catholic
doctors" commits you to a permanent spiritual, moral and bioethics
formation in order to put into practice the evangelical principles in medical
practice, from the doctor-patient relationship until reaching the missionary
activity of improving the conditions of the health of populations in the
peripheries of the world. Your work is a peculiar form of human solidarity and
Christian witness; In fact, your work is enriched with the spirit of faith. And
it is important that your associations commit themselves to raise awareness
about these principles to medical students and young doctors by involving them
in associative activities.
The Catholic identity does not compromise
your collaboration with those who, from a different religious perspective or
without a specific creed, recognize the dignity and excellence of the human
person as the criterion of their activity. The Church is in favor of life, and
her concern is that nothing is against life in the reality of a concrete
existence, even if it is weak or defenseless, even if it is not developed or is
not very advanced. To be Catholic doctors, therefore, is to feel health
professionals who, from the faith and from communion with the Church, receive
the impulse to make their Christian and professional formation more mature,
their tireless dedication, and the inexhaustible necessity of penetrate and
know the laws of nature to better serve life (see PAUL VI, Encyclical Letter
Humanae Vitae, 24 ).
The fidelity and coherence with which the
associations of your Federation, in the course of the years, have given faith
of their catholic appearance are known, putting into practice the teaching of
the Church and the guidelines of its Magisterium in the medical field. moral.
This criterion of recognition and action has favored your collaboration in the
mission of the Church to promote and defend human life from its conception to
its natural end, the quality of existence, respect for the weakest, the
humanization of medicine and its full socialization.
ADVERTISING
This fidelity has entailed and entails
hardships and difficulties that, in particular circumstances, can demand a lot
of courage. Continue with serenity and determination along this path,
accompanying the magisterial interventions in the fields of medicine with the
corresponding awareness of their moral implications. Nor has the field of
medicine and health been effectively spared the advancement of the technocratic
paradigm, the adoration of unlimited human power, and a practical relativism
where everything becomes irrelevant if it does not serve one's own interests (cf.
Lit. in Laudato si ', 122).
Faced with this situation, you are called
to affirm the centrality of the patient as a person and their dignity with
their inalienable rights, in pris The
right to life. It is necessary to confront the tendency to debase the patient
as if it were a machine to repair, without respecting moral principles, and to
exploit the weakest by discarding what does not correspond to the ideology of
efficiency and benefit. The defense of the patient's personal dimension is
essential for the humanization of medicine, in the sense also of "human
ecology". Worry about compromising in the respective countries and in the
international arena, intervening in specialized environments, but also in
debates related to legislation on sensitive ethical issues, such as the
termination of pregnancy, the end of life and genetic medicine. Do not miss
your request in defense of freedom of conscience, doctors and all health
workers.
At your next congress, which will be held
in Zagreb in a few days, you will reflect on the theme "The sanctity of
life and the medical profession, from
Humanae vitae to Laudato si
'". This is also a concrete sign of your participation in the life
and mission of the Church. This participation, as the Second Vatican Council
emphasized, is so necessary that "without it the same apostolate of the
pastors often can not fully achieve its effect" (Decr. Apostolicam Actuositatem, 10). Be
increasingly aware that today it is necessary and urgent that the action of the
Catholic physician be presented with a character of unmistakable clarity in the
field of both personal and associative witness.
In this sense, it is desirable that the
activities of the Associations of Catholic doctors be interdisciplinary and
also involve other ecclesial realities. In particular, know how to harmonize
your efforts with those of priests, men and women religious and of all those
who work in the pastoral care of health, being with them together with the
people who suffer: they have great need of your contribution and yours. Be
ministers, besides that of priests, of fraternal charity, transmitting to those
who approach you with the contribution of your knowledge, wealth of humanity
and evangelical compassion.
Dear brothers and sisters, many look at
you, as well as at your work. Your words, your gestures, your advice, your
choices have an echo that goes beyond the strictly professional field and
become, if they are coherent, a testimony of lived faith. The profession rises
to the dignity of a true apostolate. I encourage you to continue the
associative path with joy and generosity, in collaboration with all the people and
institutions that share the love of life and strive to serve it in their
dignity and sacredness. May the Virgin Mary,
Salus infirmorum, support your
purposes, which I accompany with my Blessing! And please, pray for me too.
Thank you.
Labels:
Abortion,
More Bergoglian heresy,
Vatican Circus
Monday 28 May 2018
New FrancisCardinal alleged to have a concubine and children. Well, at least it's a woman!
The latest potential Bergoglian scandal is breaking. Adelante la Fe is reporting that one of the new Cardinal elects of Pope Francis, Bishop Toribio Ticona, Titular Bishop of Timici and Prelate Emeritus of Corocoro in Bolivia has a concubine and children.
On Twitter, Edward Pentin is reporting that he has requested comment and confirmation from the Vatican.
Edward Pentin
PS We use the term "married" because his wife speaks properly of her husband.
On Twitter, Edward Pentin is reporting that he has requested comment and confirmation from the Vatican.
Edward Pentin
@EdwardPentin More
@EdwardPentin More
In response to reports (https://adelantelafe.com/escandalo-francisco-nombra-cardenal-a-obispo-casado-y-con-hijos/ …) that Bolivian Cardinal-Designate Bishop Toribio Ticona, 81, has a "wife" and "children," I've asked #Vatican to confirm whether story is true, and if so, whether the #Pope knew of it before he named him Cardinal. Will post updates
FORWARD THE FAITH
SCANDAL: Francisco appoints Cardenal to Bishop "married" and with children
05/28/18 9:45 am
by Adelante la Fe
Pope Francis announced on May 20, 2018, that in the consistory of June 29 of this year at the Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, he will create a cardinal to Bishop Toribio Ticona, Titular of Timici, Prelate Emeritus of Corocoro in Bolivia The 81-year-old Bishop was born on April 25, 1937, was ordained a priest in 1967, and consecrated titular Bishop of Timici and Auxiliary of Potosí, Bolivia on May 31, 1986, in 1992 he was appointed Prelate of Corocoro retiring in 2012.
In his repeated visits to Oruro, at the beginning of his episcopate, being at that time Bishop of Oruro, the future Third World cardinal, Julio Terrazas Sandoval, CSsR, prided himself on visiting the Bishop of Oruro, calling him his "godfather", since he affirmed that he owed Terrazas his promotion to the episcopate, because he served several times as President of the Episcopal Conference of Bolivia, evidently being very influential among the other bishops and the Apostolic Nunciature.
Ticona attended two Ad Limina visits in 2008 and 2017. He served as "mayor" according to the uses and customs of a community of 12 people in Bolivia. During the decade of the Bishop-Prelate Ticona in the Prelature of Corocoro the Catholic congregation went from 94.6% to 87.6%, giving growth to the Protestant sects. It is public knowledge that while working in Corocoro, at the same time, in the Bishopric of Oruro he maintained a marital life with a woman, the wife and children are proud to call themselves the wife and children of the "Bishop of Patacamaya" as is also known Bishop Toribio Ticona.
The family of the "Bishop of Patacamaya" Monseñor Toribio Ticona inhabited three different homes in the city of Oruro.
From the iron age of the pontificate in the ninth and tenth centuries there had been no certain and reliable news that a Concubine Bishop was "rewarded" with the Cardenalato. Being a Prince of the Church entails an important responsibility for those who are created as such, because their service is done directly to the Petrino Ministry, therefore, the promotion of a Concubine Cardinal carries two messages, one the desire of Pope Francis for the suppression of Celibacy Priestly, and the other the most serious, is to have a "scapegoat" with which I managed to break the hierarchy of the Bishops of Bolivia. This year will be renewed 2 archbishoprics and other 3 ecclesial circumscriptions of Bolivia, we do not doubt that the Barros case will be repeated in Bolivia, whereupon the Pope Francisco would have with the support of Evo Morales the control of the Bolivian Church that would be of leftist imprint.
Forward Faith
Sunday 27 May 2018
Ireland has fallen
There is not much that one can write about the results of the referendum to repeal the constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion in Ireland. On this Trinity Sunday, it's constitutional preamble is a mockery.
No one should be surprised about the outcome; sad, but not surprised.
The blame for this lays squarely on a silent pope and a cabal of derelict bishops who did little to nothing to preach to the faithful the evil of abortion. The blame is also on those bishops who permitted sodomites into the priesthood who undermined the faith of the people.
The people of Ireland will live to regret what they have done. We in Canada and the United States had little "choice" in the matter. In both our countries, abortion was forced upon us by supreme court justices. We were not asked, we did not vote for it.
You in Ireland voted for the devil.
You will pay dearly for your betrayal of Christ. You will celebrate now but later you will weep and gnash your teeth.
Not even Cromwell himself could have imagined this.
No one should be surprised about the outcome; sad, but not surprised.
The blame for this lays squarely on a silent pope and a cabal of derelict bishops who did little to nothing to preach to the faithful the evil of abortion. The blame is also on those bishops who permitted sodomites into the priesthood who undermined the faith of the people.
The people of Ireland will live to regret what they have done. We in Canada and the United States had little "choice" in the matter. In both our countries, abortion was forced upon us by supreme court justices. We were not asked, we did not vote for it.
You in Ireland voted for the devil.
You will pay dearly for your betrayal of Christ. You will celebrate now but later you will weep and gnash your teeth.
Not even Cromwell himself could have imagined this.
Labels:
Ireland
Friday 25 May 2018
Tuesday 22 May 2018
Something different from the Bergoglio imbroglio
On the brighter side, notwithstanding the stacking of the deck don't discount the fact that this man may be, please God, the next Pope.
TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2018
Cardinal Sarah’s Homily to the Chartres Pilrgims
GREGORY DIPIPPO
With the kind permission of His Eminence Robert Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, we here publish an English translation of the homily which he delivered yesterday in the cathedral of Chartres to the pilgrims present for the annual Notre-Dame de Chrétienté pilgrimage. Our deepest thanks to His Eminence, and to the organizers of the pilgrimage for the pictures, from the Notre-Dame de Chrétienté website.
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2018/05/cardinal-sarahs-homily-to-chartres.html#.WwQAPe4vy70
Labels:
Robert Cardinal Sarah
Monday 21 May 2018
Secular Media is now picking up the latest Bergoglian heresy
The secular media is now picking up the story one below here wherein Juan Carlos, the prominent victim of the sodomite priest, Karadima, has said that as a "gay" man, according to "Pope" Francis, God made him that way.
It is hard to find a reason why Mr. Carlos would lie about this. It is consistent with what Bergoglio has said before.
Mr. Carlos believes that he is a homosexual. Bergoglio has said that God created him this way.
Pope Francis, you are a filthy liar!
And every act of sodomy that Mr. Carlos commits will be on your soul on the day of your particular judgement.
It is hard to find a reason why Mr. Carlos would lie about this. It is consistent with what Bergoglio has said before.
Mr. Carlos believes that he is a homosexual. Bergoglio has said that God created him this way.
Pope Francis, you are a filthy liar!
And every act of sodomy that Mr. Carlos commits will be on your soul on the day of your particular judgement.
Saturday 19 May 2018
Blasphemous Bergoglio affirms the pervert Karadima's victim in his homosexuality
"They had said to him almost that I was a pervert. I explained there that I'm not the reincarnation of San Luis Gonzaga, but am not a bad person, try not to harm anyone. He told me to "Juan Carlos, who you're gay it doesn't matter. God made you so loves so and I don't care. The Pope loves you so, you have to be happy with who you are"
The first is of a man raped and abused, sodomized and betrayed who no doubt because of that has suffered immeasurably. His youth was stolen, his faith betrayed. A man who suffers from that day to this day, thinking that his life of homosexuality is normal. Let us pray for him, that he will heal from the evil done to him by filthy, vile evil men who deserve Hell.
God will forgive Juan more quickly than the filthy, lewd, man who is Pope which brings the second part of this story into focus. A man who betrayed all these abused in Chile and now puts forward a good show. He leaves this poor man in his sin telling him that "God made you gay." He lies to Juan Carlos and he blasphemes God.
God made nobody "gay" any more than he made anyone a murderer or a thief.
Bergoglio is a scandal. Every time he opens his mouth it is as if to spout more blasphemy, more lies. He is a vile and despicable Pope, a man who has disgraced his Office. A boil on the seat of Peter that needs to be lanced.
O LORD, how long until you will deliver us and send us a holy pope who will restore all things in You?
https://infovaticana.com/2018/05/19/cruz-asegura-papa-le-dijo-dios-te-gay/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
http://eponymousflower.blogspot.ca/2018/05/in-interview-in-newspaper-el-pais-media.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheEponymousFlower+(The+Eponymous+Flower)
Friday 18 May 2018
Francis Bergoglio should lead the pack
The Bishops of Chile have finished their meetings with the Bishop of Rome to discuss the crisis inflicted on children, mostly boys, in that country; a crisis caused by homosexuals -- sodomites, in the priesthood.
All of the bishops have resigned, whether the Bishop of Rome will accept all of these is not yet known.
Why should all resign; did not one have clean hands?
Why did Bergoglio wait so long to act, he was warned of the problem over two years ago that Juan Barros witnessed a notorious filthy pervert rape and sodomize a group of boys, repeatedly.
On a recent trip to Chile, Bergoglio slandered and rashly judged the victims for their cries to him for action. On the aeroplane home, he slandered them again making up lame excuses for his earlier gaff.
This is the same Bishop of Rome that invited Godfried Danneels to participate in a Synod on the Family, the same notorious protector of pervert priests and in particular, a pervert bishop who sodomites his own nephew.
The same Bishop of Rome who has propped up a certain Monsignor Ricca who was found in a Costa Rica elevator in a flagrant act of sexual perversion with a young Swiss Guard.
This arrogant boil on the seat of Peter, Jorge Bergoglio, should be the first one out the door.
Labels:
Bishop Juan Barros,
Francis of Rome,
Perverts,
Vatican Circus
Sunday 13 May 2018
Bergoglio the Heretic, Bergoglio the Schismatic
My regrets to disgrace the Lord's Day with such a headline, but how can we be silent in the face of such evil emanating from Rome? How can we sit by whilst the man charged by Our Lord Jesus Christ as the centre of unity, the one is to confirm his brethren in the faith is instead a divider, an egotistical monster, a diabolical narcissistic.
I hope those in the Vatican who read this blog print this out and say, "Look what these nasty bloggers are saying...we should try to sue this one again.!"
His handlers spin this man as some great friend of the faithful. No film can redeem this pathetic cretin, this malefactor!
His handlers spin this man as some great friend of the faithful. No film can redeem this pathetic cretin, this malefactor!
We have just in the last few weeks the perversion visits to the Vatican of celebrities and globalists who by their actions hate Christ and His Church but are welcomed in its halls.
We have seen the scandalous use of sacred vestments by pagans and perverts aided and abetted by the likes of Timothy Dolan.
We have as Father Z reports, the sudden bolting down of tables in Roman sanctuaries, just since the Summorum Pontificum conference last autumn.
https://onepeterfive.com/german-bishop-pope-francis-has-effectively-approved-of-the-intercommunion-handout/
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2018/05/sad-cranmer-tables-in-the-pantheon-and-many-great-roman-churche/
http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2018/05/02/one-cardinal-seven-bishops-and-four-new-dubia-this-time-on-intercommunion/
https://onepeterfive.com/german-bishop-pope-francis-has-effectively-approved-of-the-intercommunion-handout/
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2018/05/sad-cranmer-tables-in-the-pantheon-and-many-great-roman-churche/
http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2018/05/02/one-cardinal-seven-bishops-and-four-new-dubia-this-time-on-intercommunion/
More filthy insults by the Bergoglian boil on the seat of Peter (think of another name for a donkey)
And the vilest man who once told a woman who follows Martin Luther to "go forward" to receive Holy Communion, to expand it to all of Germany and eventually the world. Just as with Amoris Laetitia, this is the ultimate attack on Jesus Christ and His Holy Sacrament, His body, blood, soul and divinity.
Bergoglio is an evil man, there can now be no doubt, more and more daily come to see him for what he is.
The Cardinals and Bishops who are waiting for him to drop dead and start again are wrong. They are cowards and they must cease to be so. They must stand up and call out this heretical, malefactor for what he is. They cannot remove him, but they can denounce him.
So it is written, so let it be done!
Labels:
More Bergoglian heresy
Friday 11 May 2018
Bergoglio insults faithful Catholic youths - calls them rigid and hyopcrites
Here we have more insults from the Bishop of Rome; these directed to rigid youths. It is quite the lead up to the Synod.
Indeed, let us insult those young men and women who try their best with the grace of God to overcome the culture of death, pornography, sexuality and perversion to lead a good, clean and holy life.
Never in history has there been a Bishop of Rome who has been so insulting to so many for so long.
The most ignorant, boorish, pathetic man to ever occupy the Chair of Peter.
The man is a sociopath, an abusive father - never has a man unfit for the office for which he holds.
Indeed, let us insult those young men and women who try their best with the grace of God to overcome the culture of death, pornography, sexuality and perversion to lead a good, clean and holy life.
Never in history has there been a Bishop of Rome who has been so insulting to so many for so long.
The most ignorant, boorish, pathetic man to ever occupy the Chair of Peter.
The man is a sociopath, an abusive father - never has a man unfit for the office for which he holds.
No mercy for these smelly sheep.
Labels:
More Bergoglian heresy
Thursday 10 May 2018
Wednesday 9 May 2018
The New York Times, a.k.a. "Hell's Bible" reveals to us the betrayal by Gänswein, Marini
If it were already not enough of a scandal that Timothy Dolan participated in the abomination, sacrilege and blasphemy which took place in New York City now the New York Times reveals the backstory.
Gänswein (who has previously welcomed "gay" couples to the Vatican and ushered them in to see the Bishop of Rome) and Marini, Papa Ratzinger's Secretary and Master of Ceremonies were both involved and responsible.
They are traitors, puffed up in finery. They are filthy frauds.
This is how bad it is friends; that even those whom we thought were the good guys turn out to be just as rotten and filthy effing scum as the rest.
They betrayed Papa Ratzinger and they betrayed us.
I find it impossible to pray for their conversion. I leave their judgement to God.
Gänswein (who has previously welcomed "gay" couples to the Vatican and ushered them in to see the Bishop of Rome) and Marini, Papa Ratzinger's Secretary and Master of Ceremonies were both involved and responsible.
They are traitors, puffed up in finery. They are filthy frauds.
This is how bad it is friends; that even those whom we thought were the good guys turn out to be just as rotten and filthy effing scum as the rest.
They betrayed Papa Ratzinger and they betrayed us.
I find it impossible to pray for their conversion. I leave their judgement to God.
By Jason Horowitz
May 3, 2018
VATICAN CITY — Archbishop Georg Gänswein said
yes to the dress.
The dashing former right-hand man to Benedict
XVI, the fashion-plate pope, he is now prefect of the papal household under the
more austere Pope Francis. In May 2017, Archbishop Gänswein sat in his stately
Apostolic Palace office as Andrew Bolton, curator in charge of the Costume
Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, showed him a look book of couture
masterpieces that Mr. Bolton felt matched with certain Vatican treasures.
Archbishop Gänswein, in a soutane with purple
sash, indifferently flipped pages of designer frocks until he lingered on a
luxurious Madame Grès dress inspired by a Franciscan habit.
“They all love that,” Mr. Bolton said of the
dress.
The archbishop gradually became enthusiastic as
he and Mr. Bolton discussed the role of beauty in the church and Mr. Bolton
explained his vision for the project that would explore the way the Catholic
church had served as an inspiration to designers through the centuries. Then
things really started rolling.
Mr. Bolton received authorization from senior
Vatican officials to borrow the vestments. He was also granted full access to
the Sistine Chapel Sacristy and became so close with its custodian priests in
his 10 trips to Rome that they entrusted him with the hidden chamber’s keys and
opened secret doors, behind which elderly nuns ironed the pope’s white
vestments.
Gänswein, Papa Ratzinger's Prison Warden |
The show that would ultimately become “Heavenly
Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” the biggest exhibit the Costume
Institute of the Metropolitan Museum has ever held, opening May 10, was on the
verge of becoming a reality.
It was the culmination of years of
negotiations, two stalled visits to Rome, and walking the tightrope between
Anna Wintour, the powerful editor of Vogue and a Met trustee, and the many
powers in the Vatican.
While the Vatican may be enthusiastic about
“Heavenly Bodies” now, it took years for it to warm to an exhibit that Mr.
Bolton first envisioned as including many religious traditions. Dealing with
one church proved to be enough.
In June 2016, a colleague of Mr. Bolton’s in
the Met’s European paintings department put him in touch with Arnold
Nesselrath, a Vatican museum curator. Mr. Nesselrath arranged for Mr. Bolton to
visit the Sistine Chapel Sacristy, a chamber of rooms within rooms containing a
hive of numbered wooden doors and drawers bearing embossed strips and
containing shawls and stoles, papal tiaras, papal rings and pectoral
crosses.
Mr. Bolton tried to explain the concept of the
exhibition to the keeper of the sacristy, a quiet Slovakian priest named Pavel
Benedik.
“He wasn’t quite sure what the request was,”
Mr. Bolton said of Father Benedik. “He was confused.”
Monsignor Marini the Fraud, with Bergoglio |
To expedite the process, Mr. Nesselrath
suggested that on his next visit, Mr. Bolton meet with Barbara Jatta, now the
director of the Vatican museum. For that trip, Mr. Bolton brought along Ms.
Wintour. Ms. Jatta arranged several tours for them, including another trip to
the Sacristy, where this time Father Benedik’s assistant, Antonio, showed them
around.
Ms. Jatta asked how many items the Met intended
to borrow, and Mr. Bolton responded: about eight. Ms. Wintour said he needed to
ask for at least twice that, prompting a skeptical laugh from Ms. Jatta. (The
Met eventually got more than 40.) Ms. Jatta then informed the curator that the
lending of the pieces was, anyway, out of her hands.
“These vestments don’t belong to the Vatican
Museum,” she said, according to Mr. Bolton. “They belong to the Sistine Chapel
Sacristy.”
Ms. Wintour was less than pleased.
“She turned around to me and said, ‘This isn’t
your finest moment, Andrew,’” Mr. Bolton recalled.
So he came back. Again and again.
“He was quite the dandy,” Mr. Bolton said.
And Father Benedik warmed to him. Nevertheless,
the priest lacked the power to authorize a loan and suggested that Mr. Bolton
talk to Archbishop Gänswein.
“He’s like a movie star, it’s like meeting
George Clooney,” Mr. Bolton said of the archbishop, often called “Gorgeous
George.” Archbishop Gänswein, apparently on board, told Mr. Bolton to send an
official request to Msgr. Guido Marini, the papal master of liturgical
celebrations and the keeper of the sacristy.
The Met’s head of exhibitions, Quincy Houghton,
did just that, and Monsignor Marini’s office asked for approval — a “nihil obstat”
in Vatican parlance — from the first section of the Secretariat of State, which
is responsible for general church affairs.
“This is not a procedure where the pope gets
involved, or has to give his O.K.,” said the Vatican spokesman Greg Burke.
When permission was granted, Mr. Bolton
returned for many more trips and, with Father Benedik, refined the list of
objects to borrow, including a papal tiara with 19,000 precious stones,
including 18,000 diamonds. (It will fly to New York with its own bodyguard.) During
one 10-day stretch of 12-hour days inside the Sacristy with Katarina Jebb, who
scanned the objects for the catalog, the custodians entrusted Mr. Bolton with
the keys to the Sacristy.
With the loans secured, Mr. Bolton asked David
Tracy, a highly regarded Catholic writer — Mr. Bolton called him “the J.D.
Salinger of the theological world” — to contribute an essay to the catalog to
lend it intellectual heft.
It took a year before he agreed. Then Mr.
Bolton tackled the New York side of the equation, trying to ensure he wasn’t
accidentally touching any third rails.
He asked Emily Rafferty, a former president of
the Met with connections to New York’s Catholic community, for a hand. She
suggested Mr. Bolton work with James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at
large for America Magazine, who was appointed last year by Pope Francis as a
consultor to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications.
Father Martin said that one day, after
embarrassingly spilling hummus on his pants earlier, he went to a Met conference
room to review the storyboards the curators had pinned to the walls with
thumbtacks. He was impressed by what he described as the “real attention to
Catholic sensibilities” behind the pairings.
Asked by Mr. Bolton and colleagues if he
thought the presentation would prompt any blowback, Father Martin said there
may be some complaints about “celebrity culture being grafted onto the church,”
but that he thought it would be minor. “They will see something beautiful, and
that’s part of the Catholic imagination,” he said.
It was also Father Martin who, reviewing the
gift catalog, noticed that one necklace was described as adorned with a “winged
man,” and told the Met: “It’s O.K. to say ‘angel.’”
He also suggested asking Cardinal Gianfranco
Ravasi, the de facto minister of culture for the Vatican and an erudite former
prefect of the Biblioteca-Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, to contribute to the
exhibit catalog. Cardinal Ravasi had gotten to know many of the great designers
during his time in the fashion capital, including Miuccia Prada, Domenico Dolce
and Stefano Gabbana, and Giorgio Armani.
In February, the Met delegation, including Mr.
Bolton and Ms. Wintour, traveled to Rome to officially announce the exhibit
alongside Cardinal Ravasi, who not only participated in the news conference,
but also rubbed shoulders with Donatella Versace. She told him she thought his
crimson vestments were beautiful.
He said he replied: “The purple is even
better.”
Still, in a church where Pope Francis’s
dressing down has made dressing up out of style, questions remain about how a lush exhibit and
its related gala, organized by Ms. Wintour, squares with the pope’s desire for
a less ostentatious, poorer church.
“Francis with his simple clothes expresses
another concept. It’s not combative with the others,” said Cardinal Ravasi, who
said he considered fashion a critical cultural language and the lent vestments
expressions of the church’s power, beauty and splendor through the centuries.
The cardinal said fashion had biblical origins
(“It was God who dressed us. God was the tailor in Genesis”) and that he saw a
common thread between the dress code for a gala and the otherworldliness of
ecclesiastical vestments. Both of them signified, he said, a distinction from
the mundane and quotidian.
As for those who consider the accessorizing of
papal vestments with modern fashion a blasphemous exploitation, Cardinal Ravasi
said it at least shows those Christian symbols still touch a nerve.
“They aren’t using the symbols of the Roman
Empire,” he said with a chuckle.
Tuesday 8 May 2018
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