duminică, 1 octombrie 2023
sâmbătă, 30 septembrie 2023
Habemus Papam by Nanni Moretti - 8 out of 10
Habemus
Papam by Nanni Moretti
8 out of 10
The idea is
challenging, the result is worth watching, if not overwhelming, the Pope is one
of the most important figures in the world and has been for…what, millennia,
his position as leader of the Catholic Church gives him power, he can be a
negotiator, someone who can interfere in conflicts, but he can also be a ghoul.
We know of
the horrendous popes of the Middle Ages – not all, of course – who got involved
in disgusting schemes, had no qualms about sinning, and as for that, they sold
indulgences, which was one of the main reasons why Martin Luther would decide
to break away from the Catholic Church, with his Lutheran ‘sect’
There has
been a long journey, and the Catholics have made some ‘progress’, they now
admit the world is not flat, reversed some condemnations, do not see Giordano
Bruno and others as messengers of the devil, at least I believe that they have
gone beyond that, but they have a long way to go…
CS Lewis http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/09/surprised-by-joy-shape-of-my-early-life.html is one of the scholars that I
admire, and he has quite a few books on religion, almost convincing this reader
that God looks down upon us and the rest of it…he does make a good case,
indeed, as good as it gets to use the title of a movie
One of the arguments
would be if this astonishing intellectual is so transformed, Surprised by Joy,
then the rest of us, who are much less capable, intellectually inferior should
stop mocking and rejecting and embrace the doctrine…after all, there is Joy, Resurrection,
Heaven, meeting Peter, Jesus and all
How Far Can
You Go http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/08/how-far-can-you-go-by-david-lodge.html form Magister Ludi David Lodge will
give you another perspective, the comedy looks at the shortcomings of being a
Catholic, expressed in the title, because you cannot go very far, or anywhere
with the doctrine
Some of the
vies of the pope and the Catholic establishment have changed, but in important
aspects, I think it is not a bit, in How Far Can You Go there is the problem of
using birth control, which some decades back (and throughout its nearly a
couple of thousands of years of history) was anathema, forbidden in any form,
shape
From what
gets out of the Vatican (maybe they are just rumors, gossip, fake news) the new
Pope, Francis, who is such a sweet guy, with his old Renault (I mean seventy
years old car or so), is in conflict with some of the old guard, the more
conservative fellows, who want things to stay the same way, just like in AD 200
Pope
Francis has said some things about homosexuals, suggesting tolerance, but they
are a long way from being ‘Woke’, and then he has had his own blunders, with
that bishop in Chile and some other crisis, which the institution has aplenty,
what with the thousands of cases of abuse, and not some mild situations
They have
had a horribly large number of priests taking advantage of children, no less,
one prominent drama involved a bishop in Australia (maybe the head of the outfit
there) but there are terrifyingly long lists of abusers and victims, and if the
Holly Institution does something about it, it is still a mess, and not in the
sense of religious service, but a complicated, long standing horror story that
will not see an end soon
Then there
is the problem of the celibate which is still the absolute law of the Catholic
Enterprise, albeit there have been some noises, and attempts – it seemed that
Pope Francis wants to change this inflexibility, at least in places where it
would make such a huge difference, like say the Amazon, not the behemoth, but
the forest
In remote
locations, they do not have candidates, and it would make the difference
between Being There http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/02/being-there-by-jerzy-kosinski-what.html and not having anyone at all –
besides, from what I read in The Economist – that is the best source of media
information, I started reading it some forty two years ago, and ‘undercover’,
in the days of the Ceausescu regime, it was not something you did, but I went
to the British Embassy, which housed on the premises the British Library and
then I got my hands on what I still admire as spectacular reading and analysis
– the Catholics loose the battle with other denominations, Pentecostals and
such, that are loud, inventive, use modern technology, and get much more new
adepts than the Pope’s beano
Now that I
mentioned Being There, I will abandon the old train of thought – which anyway
had little to do with Habemus Papam, so then I am justified to just jump off
the highway, like in these action movies and take a detour – and say that I
feel that Being There is not just glorious as a film in itself, with Peter
Sellers, the cast in top form, but it does cast such a shadow over what is
happening now in the world
In Being
There, we have a gardener, Peter Sellers, who has done nothing his whole life,
except well, gardening, and he has No education, he is in fact illiterate, and
when his employer dies, it looks as if All Is Lost http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/01/all-is-well-or-all-is-lost.html but somehow, he meets some
important people, and to cut the long story short, he may end up in…The White
House, and you may say ‘come on, give me a break…How does that work’, and I
would tell you ‘look at Trump’, and this orange ruffian is half the man the
gardener is, and CNN said this morning that Biden is actually looking bad, in
terms of statistics for next year, so god damn it, you think we will get this
eejit again, next year?
Now for a
question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more
than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which
we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make
lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not
know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
As for my
role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html