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