The Vatican’s decision to mark the opening of the Year of Mercy with a message about climate change caused dismay in some quarters. In a show entitled “Illuminating our Common Home”, images of the natural world were projected on to St Peter’s Basilica. Blogger Fr John Zuhlsdorf described it on his blog as “different images of animals, bugs, lizards, birds with the corresponding critter noises, punctuated by sound effects, new age zings and zoongs”. He added: “It’s like the LSD psycho tunnel at the Detroit airport. But… it’s St Peter’s.
“What looms on our horizon now?” he asked. “Holy Mary, innocent of carbon footprint… pray for us. Holy Mary, conceived without climate change… pray for us. This has gone beyond ridiculous.”
LifeSite news responded with a petition to the Vatican, entitled “I oppose use of St Peter’s for ‘climate change’ light show”, which gathered 4,000 signatures. Rorate Caeli, the traditionalist site, described the light show as a “neo-pagan obscenity for the feast of the Immaculate” and noted that, while “the heart of Christianity, transformed on a maxi-screen for the show of the New World Power Ideology”, the Nativity crib “was left in darkness”.
Meanwhile Fr Ray Blake challenged the Pope to push his green lifestyle to new boundaries. “It would be too easy to dismiss Laudato Si’ as being window dressing, but a start would be for the Holy Father to abandon air travel,” Fr Blake wrote. “It is fine for the Pope to use small cars but what a tremendous sign if he abandoned fossil-fuel transport altogether …
I am sure there are new technologies that the Holy Father could highlight. The Vatican City is made for the electric car, and if the Holy Father must travel abroad there is ‘slow flight technology’.”
Elephant in the Vatican
Churchpop.com claimed that the elephant whose bones were found under the Vatican shortly before the Second Vatican Council, sparked the Reformation.
According to the Churchpop editor, the elephant possibly determined the course of history. “Pope Leo X was known for having an overly extravagant papal court, including, among other things, regularly throwing lavish masquerades at the Vatican. Soon-to-be Protestant reformers were already angry at the Church, but the fact the pope now had a special pet elephant from India named Hanno was viewed as the perfect over-the-top example of how corrupt the papacy had become.
“Just one year after the elephant’s death, Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses. One historian writes that Hanno the elephant ‘formed the basis for one of the first published criticisms levelled against him by German supporters of Martin Luther’.”
✣Meanwhile…
An Italian artist has created a 250,000 sq ft image of Christ in a field in Verona. The artist, Dario Gambarin, used a tractor to make the giant image of Jesus to mark the start of the Year of Mercy. The artist used different depths and colours with the help of a plough, while white spray paint and nylon cloth were used for the eyes. The piece, entitled Suffering Christ, is intended to show the “difficult moment faced by humanity”. Last year the artist produced a giant drawing of Cuban Fidel Castro and he has also made images of President Barack Obama and Pope Francis on their respective elections.
✣ A diocese has taken down the Facebook photo of a nun with a deer she had shot after it led to complaints. Sister John Paul Bauer killed the deer on November 30, the first day of the hunting season. However, the Erie diocese of western Pennsylvania apologised after the page received 1.5 million views, with animal rights’ activists linking to it. Sister John Paul told the diocesan news site that she always prepared for a hunt by praying the rosary. “It’s a tradition,” she said. In the past she has killed two other deer and a 200-pound bear. “It’s a conservation effort,” she said. “If you don’t kill the deer, they will starve.”
✣The week in quotations
“Lord, I am a sinner. Come with your mercy.” This is beautiful… and easy to say every day Pope Francis
General audience
Christianity is neither an accident nor an error, but [a] gift to the nations Orthodox rabbis Statement issued by the Centre for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Co-operation
I will not keep my mouth shut Archbishop Scicluna in response to criticism of political remarks
Malta’s Times Talk TV
We can’t let ourselves be overcome by weariness Pope Francis
Angelus address
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