Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Bad Choice in Transportation

Once Popes knew how to enter a room... the chair had stature and power to signify and support the stature and power signified  by the papal office...

Now we have a new conveyance.  I could live with the popemobile and even understood the necessity of protecting the Pope while he traveled.  But I honestly do not know what to make of this new, well, it is not a chair and not a stair and not stationary and not mobile without help... whatchamacallit...

You tell me which you prefer... if it has to be one, I vote option A above... and I vote that the moving step stool be ditched eternally...  I do not know whether it was invented as a nod to making the Pope seem more accessible or ordinary but it is just plain silly....  really silly!

Click on this link, about 10 seconds in, to see the little therapy tool used to rehabilitate those with hip, knee, ankle, or leg injuries... Even all gilded up it is dorky.




4 comments:

Terry Maher said...

How about a preference for neither. Do we have a pope?

But, since I did at one time, I'll say that of even more significance is the headgear. Pius XII is wearing the traditional tiara, nicknamed the Triregnum because it is actually three crowns. Why that? Many theologies of the tiara have evolved, but the fact is the papal tiara came about to represent the supremacy of papal authority over any other, as is reflected in the words of papal coronation, which in English translation are:

Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns and know that thou art Father of Princes and Kings, Ruler of the World, Vicar of Our Savior Jesus Christ in earth, to whom is honor and glory in the ages of ages.

The three crowns mirrored the separate three crowns the Holy Roman Emperor wore as HRE, King of Italy and King of Germany, but in one crown surpassing the double crown worn by the HRE.

Well then, what an improvement that popes are no longer crowned or wear tiaras since Paul VI, or carried on a chair, huh? Now it's just a bishop's mitre.

The mitre itself is borrowed and adapted from Imperial court headgear, an abominable confusion of the left and right hand kingdoms desecrating the office of overseer, and of which the abomination of the papacy is itself an elaboration.

We should view either as a picture of why there was a Reformation and what we are NOT.

Rev. Allen Bergstrazer said...

Il segway papale. Silly indeed. Looks like Donald Trump's kitchen step stool.

Janis Williams said...

Rev. Bergstrazrer,

Donald Trump! I love it.

My question is: What happens if someone puts the brakes on too fast?

Looks like a really poor imitation of a Roman chariot...

Scott Diekmann said...

It looks like the conveyance of someone who expects to be worshiped.