Monday, December 21, 2015

The God of Surprises: Papal Audiences and Events Dwindling at Christmas


Edit: this is a photo taken from Osservatore Romano by Caminante of a General Audience on December 5. Their editorial has some interesting observations, as papal audiences shrink to lower than expected numbers.  People aren't breeding like rabbits any more...and that the Romans  are beginning to grow tired of their Argentine cousin.

 Thanks Rorate.

(Image by L'Osservatore Romano, selected by the Argentinian blog Caminante Wanderer Revisited.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had a good laugh when I saw this photo, and immediately remembered my friend who is a young nun in Rome in a very old (early 1800's)Italian Order well known for the old-fashioned nuns habit they wear and the "old-fashioned" apostolate of the traditional convent-boarding school for girls. When permitted, and at holidays my friend often e-mails me long letters, catching up on news and talking about her wonderful times in Rome, and now in a big convent-school where she teaches not far from Rome.
From her letters, I know that the first reason given in this post about dwindling Papal audiences is nonsense....the reasoning of people having fewer children. She told me...and I well know...that the audiences of John Paul II and Benedict XVI (surprisingly, Benedict XVI especially), were always well attended. My grandfather used to tell stories of being in Rome in 1954, as a young man and being one of about 600,000 in Saint Peter's Square and down the Via delle Concilazione to see and hear Pius XII proclaim the Dogma of the Assumption. No Pope since has drawn such crowds....except perhaps for John Paul II's funeral in 2005.
But my friend basically tells me that the Italian people, and Romans especially, are sick of Pope Francis. They don't like him at all. The circus side-show of pictures of fish and animals and Muslims show on St. Peter's as if it were a movie screen two weeks ago DID NOT sit well with the Roman people, or Italians in general. My friend tells me that when the Roman people are against the Pope, then he's in big trouble!
She said that when Pope Francis starts to spout off as he usally does about being poor and humble and simple, etc, the Romans basically roll their eyes and say "Basta!! Enough!!" Or what we would say...."Shut up!"
They're sick of him....which isn't hard to understand.

Damian Malliapalli

P.J.David said...

Well said Malliapalli. Hope soon ,say in about six months time, Will have some surprise. What a mess is this Pope. We traditional Catholics are so much troubled these days.
We in Chennai have seen the deluge , chastisement of God and we may see one after the other in the near future, temporal and spiritual.
On the feast of Our Lady, 8 Dec. What a tragedy ,Light and sound show at Vatican ,St.Peter's . Cannot imagine the non-sense !

LeonG said...

On the contrary, I hope old Franky remains where he is for a lot longer because he is doing more damage to the liberal modernist regime than any previous papal incumbent. He is really a miserable shadow of a pope. He prefers his Talmudic, Mohamaten, marxist and gay buddies to any true Roman Catholics whom he dislikes and feels are "scary". Another five years of this man and the NO will be on the road to absolute disparition.

LeonG said...

On the contrary, I hope old Franky remains where he is for a lot longer because he is doing more damage to the liberal modernist regime than any previous papal incumbent. He is really a miserable shadow of a pope. He prefers his Talmudic, Mohamaten, marxist and gay buddies to any true Roman Catholics whom he dislikes and feels are "scary". Another five years of this man and the NO will be on the road to absolute disparition.

Anonymous said...

No, please don't which 5 more years of Pope Fracis. Five months maybe, but not five years. Think of the hard he and his people would do....think of the radical nutjob heretic idiots he would appoint as Cardinals if he had five more years. Do you really want 40+ more Pope Francis style cardinals....on top of the 20+ we already have now?
I think that the next Pope will be 100% the opposite to Francis. He might not be really young, but he'll have about 18 years in office which will restore a lot of what both Vatican II and especially Francis destroyed.
Damian Malliapalli