Free the cardinals!

Last updated on: March 5, 2013 at 11:16 am by mollie

Free the cardinals! 2013-03-05T11:16:57-05:00 mollie

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Yesterday tmatt asked readers to submit links to papal coverage that was particularly good or bad. I’m going to go ahead and put my responses in a separate post.

It begins, as all our best material does, with a comment thread from last week:

Julia says:

Can’t find it now, but there was an article on MSNBC.com (I think) that said JPII, in the 1990s, changed the ancient conclave rules so that the Cardinals could be let out of the Sistine Chapel now and then to sleep and eat, if necessary. I’m not kidding.

And it said that in the new hotel/residence on the grounds, the Cardinals are locked into their rooms!!! Where do the get this stuff? There are plenty of reliable sources, people and authoritative websites with the basic information.

And then there was this:

Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz says:

I couldn’t quite believe what you were saying, Julia, so I went looking — and you were right!It’s the last paragraph. Yikes!

Here it is, and it’s actually from NBC:

The conclave process, in which cardinals are locked into their rooms until reaching a decision, was a tradition that began in 1271 following frustration at the failure of the church to agree on a replacement for Pope Clement IV, who died in 1268. Eventually, cardinals were locked inside the papal palace in Viterbo by exasperated magistrates.

Pope John Paul II changed the conclave rules in 1996, allowing cardinals to leave the Sistine Chapel during conclaves to eat and sleep if necessary.

Wow is that quite the collection of Dan Brown-level conspiracy thinking and attention to historical detail.

Do these people think cardinals didn’t sleep or eat for years in previous conclaves? Or do they think they all just took a pew, had a three-year stockpile of food in the loft, and went at it?

But it might be this Vanity Fair piece “What the Pope Should Have Written for His Final Tweet” that wins the week’s record for most errors per word:

As we mentioned earlier today, the Pope, now about an hour away from officially commencing his post-papacy retirement, announced he would put up a farewell tweet around 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. That tweet is as follows: “Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives.” Eh!

Despite our own mixed reviews, digitally savvy Catholics just love it, as the message has already been retweeted more than 23,000 times. As a matter of comparison, note that Harry Styles’s January 29 communiqué “Time to sleeeeeeeeeeeep” has four times as many retweets. However, just one of these tweets is, according to Scripture, to be interpreted by the faithful as the words of God himself—and it’s not the tweet you think it is. (It is exactly the tweet you think it is.)

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the Pope’s final tweet—there’s that papal infallibility again!—it’s just that we wished he’d have gone out with more of a bang.

Now, I know that Vanity Fair, which has so much courage in going after Roman Catholics, will be doing its own funny mockery of Islam any day now. Any day. Any day. Can’t wait. It has to be coming very soon. But when they do, I sure hope they have fewer errors. “According to Scripture”? “Interpreted by the faithful as the words of God himself”? Where do they get this stuff?

Previous Post

March 4, 2013

Inside the History Channel's epic TV miniseries 'The Bible'

Next Post

March 5, 2013 Covering Cal Baptist, MTV, the law and gender identity

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 5Q+1 Academia Anglicanism Announcements Atheists & Agnostics Baptists Books Business & Economy Catholicism Creeping Fundamentalism Education Ethics Evangelicals Film First Person gays Godbeat Got news? Humor Interviews Islam Journalism Judaism Lutherans Mainline Marriage & family Middle East Mormons Music Nones Orthodoxy Pagans Pentecostalism People Podcasts Politics Pop Culture Race Radio & TV Religion religious liberty Same-sex marriage Science Sex Social Issues Sports Uncategorized Vatican Web/Tech What is this? World World Religions Worship

Select a Month August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 May 2010 July 2009 February 2009 October 2008 July 2008 January 2007 August 2006 July 2006 October 2005

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did Job's wife suggest he do during his suffering?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Flee to Egypt Rebuke his friends Burn offerings Curse God and die