Young Pope : Episodes 2-10: Was it Enough?

Because there is too much material to cover, I will write this blog to wrap up the material of the show, and finish the analysis in a separate and concluding blog. This blog will be a work-in-progress.  

The Holy Father is revered.

There is a lot of eye candy in this T.V. series. Its refreshing to see things like kissing the popes feet as a sign of submission. However, we have to wonder what emotions are the producers trying to evoke? The cardinals that have been in the popes circle come to him begrudgingly and it makes you wonder if its true humility. Because this pope is known to send cardinals he doesn't like to Alaska (more on that later) they may be doing so because, if they do not, they might get exiled. Or there is the mentality that if you can't beat him, join him. Its plain to the viewer, the reverence made to the Successor of Peter is not due to love. Pius XIII lets it be known that he is not interested in collegiality. He is no longer a brother bishop, but the Father of Fathers. He takes the tiara back from the Smithsonian, and is the first pope Since Paul VI to wear the tiara. His address to the cardinals would make anyone shake in their Episcopalian slippers. The speech is quite intriguing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmbyWGCwX90 I would say if there was one clip that sums up the show it is this clip. In essence, the new pontiff draws a line in the sand, and he makes people choose which side they want to be on. There are too many quotations to quote in this blog. "I don't expect any applause... what I do expect is that you will do what I've told you to do.... I know you will obey, because you've already figured out that this pope isn't afraid to lose the faithful if they've been even slightly unfaithful, and that means this pope doesn't negotiate."

So there you have it. Pius XIII will either destroy the Church, or purify it. After watching the whole series, I am not sure he even knows what he is doing, but he will not let his cardinals know that.

Mystery is restored.

The Young Pope series does have something that peaks my interest. The newly elected pope does not allow himself to appear in public. There is an attempt to restore the sublime mystery of Catholicism. He fires the person in charge of travel. His publicist says he is going to commit image suicide, and he is okay with that. He said "I doesn't exist. Only God exists." While the rest of the show is the story of how Pius XIII tries to pull as many strings as possible from behind the walls of Vatican City, this should make a lasting impression on us. There was once upon a time where Catholicism wasn't about trinkets with the popes image, it was not about audiences, it was not about Papal visits or the popes face on the front page every day. It was about doctrine and dogma. For hundreds of years, the popes were not jet-setting, but defending the faith from Rome. For 1400 years, Catholics did not know even what the Holy Father's visage looked like. It wasn't till MAYBE Gregory XVI's time before Catholics saw a lithograph of their sovereign pontiff.  The clergy and the faithful merely trusted and obeyed, because whoever was on the chair of St. Peter was a vicar. He came, and he went. So an unbroken line of faceless pontiffs came, protected and guided, and left the Faith intact for his successor. Pius XIII tries to build a morbid curiosity. He says that when he was a just a bishop and cardinal, we would not allow himself to be photographed. So we glean two things. He is not into selfies, which automatically makes me like this fictional character. But at the same time, it means that he has been plotting something this whole time.

There is an episode which dives deeper into this topic.  

The pope is not a rock star.

The Holy Father is told he has given the people "all stick and no carrot." So he makes a decision to visit a war-torn African village that is serviced by a Catholic humanitarian effort/mission. The Mother Superior of the effort sounds like a modern day Mother Theresa, but when we meet her, she is everything he despises: a proud, lesbo, tyrant that the villagers worship, but what they don't know is hording the precious water for herself and her lover. Pius XIII is not amused, and its kinda fun to watch him destroy her. The above image is a comic scene in the show where we finally have the pope in public, but the villagers are showering their supposed savior with adoration. Pius definitely doesn't feel like an icon or a rock star. The view gets to juxtapose the two figures, and the irony is not lost. The social commentary of HBO's show is obvious to me that the the Catholic Church is mostly based on people's emotions. The media phenomenon strips real "diligis" love for the person, and substitutes love out of convenience.

Was popes = rock stars Vatican II's fault? I don't believe so. I know Pius XII was very theatrical. And if international travel was safe... His Holiness of fond memory might have been a globe trotter, too. Were their popes in the past that would have pumped social media for all its worth? Sure, absolutely! But these World Youth Days and selfies with the pope are disgusting, and must stop! I keep thinking of St. Pius X's words "it is not fitting for the servant to be applauded in the house of the Lord."  

He will have to practice prudence and be a man of prayer.

Pius XIII is a strange character. One one hand, he is often seen confiding in a trusted advisor that he has no faith. Other times, he is teaching others how to pray. There are two Pius XIIs on the show, but there must only be a single undivided successor of Peter. The Pope who will have to deal with the crisis must first and foremost of a sound spiritual life. None of us know if a priest is in the state of Grace or the state of Mortal Sin. But with the help of the lay people's prayers and support, and the sustaining gift from the Almighty, the future pope will be  faithful always. He will be a good humble example of what it means to be a priest, bishop, and pope. The world is watching for the next scandal to come from the Vatican. His Holiness will have too much at stake and too much on the line to abandon his daily meditation and prayers. The fictional sovereign pontiff was able to move God Himself by his prayer. The real pope will have to have a Faith so great he could move mountains as well. And he will have to be charitable, on top of it all. True charity! Not global warming or immigrants, but genuine prudent charity. 

The Pope will have to defend his kingdom.

The World demands the complete annihilation of everything Christian and will not stop until she has what she wants. The scene was extremely curious. You have two handsome, powerful men. One represents the progress (regress) of Modern Man. The other is the Vicar of Christ till He comes in glory. The pope hands the President of Italy a list of demands and that any modern man would laugh at. In fact, he does get laughed at, but takes it with a smile. Then he breaks it down for the president. He is here, not for popularity, but for God. The list:

1. Greater Assistance to Catholic families
2. No to common law marriages.
3. No to gay marriages
4. More money to Catholic schools
5. Further tax and banking benefits to the Holy See
6. Absolute prohibition of abortion in all cases
7. Absolute prohibition of divorce in all cases
8. No to any temptation to accept euthanasia 
9. Retsriction of the re-entrance freedom of Muslims and Hindu
10. Opening of discussion to the Lateran Act
11. A full review of the territorial boundaries of the Vatican State

This is probably one of my favorite parts of the show. This is the real mindset of a Church Militant General who is in a war to restore Christ as King. Even if the Bishop of Rome is the laughing stock on the world stage, he will be a man of principal! When he stands naked before God with the indelible mark of a shepherd, he will say "I worked to restore Your Order, O Lord."

His Holiness must re-institute the Traditional Latin Mass.

This is a given. I have written most blog entries on why this is necessary and will not bore you with the details. What I would like to bring up is something that I heard on a Dr. Taylor Marshall vlog. A guest priest and Dr. Marshall spend 1:40:00 talking about how to restore the crises in the church, and it starts with the nature of the bishop. While I don't agree with them on everything, I do agree with the modernist priest on one thing he said. "Some Traditionalists think that if there were only a Cappa Magna in every Cathedral" then the crisis would be fixed. YES!! Exactly my point. And why there are so many topics spun from The Young Pope. Its not about external decor. Having pretty churches, having, nice vestments, having sodomite priests say the Latin Mass, having modernist bishops wear 18 inch tall miters with gloves and gold wrought crosiers are not going to fix the problem. Getting back to Pre-Vatican II teachings and having true Catholic Faith and identity of our forefathers will. The Latin Mass manifests the Deposit of Faith, and its return would form our disposition to the grace that God would give to make the change we so desperately need.

This next pope must be in line with his predecessors.

No more innovation.  No more heresy. No more "who am I to judge." We just want a Pope who is in agreement with the 2000 years of history and will defend the deposit of faith. I have my doubts as to whether history will say Pope Francis was in line with his predecessors. We will see how history remembers the current pontificate.

The Holy Father will deal with the perverts in the Church

I have been busy/too lazy to blogging. But how can I not when this parallel is slapping me in the face! We have the same exact scenario in the church as we do in the Young Pope. Did HBO know something the media didn't? When the consulted the priests, did the priests lay it all out? This is spooky! The show deals with two sexually deviant cardinals in two ways

1. Pius XIII's childhood friend, Cardinal Dussolier was an unchaste man. One of the parts I had to skip over is an orgy seen where he breaks his vow of celibacy with men and women. He is killed by his lovers spouse and the wages of sin is death.
2. Abp. Kurtwell is much like our Cardinal McCarrick, and loves him some young men. Kurtwell surrounds himself with handsome priest aides and his character also encompasses the priest sex offenders in the news by pursuing lay people, too. He is great at raising money, and is said to be the most powerful man in the city. Pope XIII sends a Monsignor who was abused as a child to handle the Kurtwell case. The victim-now-Cardinal is able to gather the necessary evidence to try Kurtwell, and there the viewer gets a sense of closure. The pope confronts the Archbishop and knowing what will happen next, sentences him to a new assignment. Pius XIII sends him to a sub-freezing isolated diocese that he keeps on standby for the reprobate/dissenting bishops who need an example made out of them. Justice is best served cold.

I want to make mention that HBO does try to pull something sneaky. The show first gives the viewer a glance into the pontiff's mind. At first, His Holiness tells his Secretary of State that he wants to "prosecute all the cases of homosexuality that is infesting Our Church... This time for real, without exceptions and without hypocrisy." When the Sec. of State implores Pius XIII to not confuse pedophilia with homosexuality, and that he is proposing going after "two-thirds" of the clergy, Pius XIII is un-phased. Later, HBO makes the character arch of the Pope end with him softening on this stance. He knows about the victim-now-Cardinal's sexual attractions, and still asks him to be his personal advisor. This shows a human element to the character. BUT, I say that whatever Lenny's pontificate does is 1,000 times better than what Francis is doing.

In a touching scene, we get one more look into Pius XIII's mind. When the pedophile Bishop is recounting his story, he asks the pope "what do you care about a 12 year old boy on his knees in front of a man in wet clothes in February of 1955?" Pope Pius XIII answer's "We care, Archbishop. We care about all children." If that is the case, then his efforts to rid the church of practicing homosexuals is precisely the remedy. We do not, however, get the same luxury of a look into Pope Francis mind. All he can say about the allegations made about him is "I wont say a single word."

All the errors that have been allowed to go on in the last 50 years must be annihilated. 

I don't know how this last part will work. But it is almost to the point where you have to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I will write a conclusion blog on my overall thoughts soon.

Young Pope and What They Got Right - Episode 1

Young Pope and What They got Right

Episode 1

"I am a contradiction"

So I have to start off by giving you my overall feeling. This crew definitely consulted people on how to be Catholic. And then they kept all of the externals and dumped the internals. HBO gives us exactly what the world wants in 2018. A flawed main character, who is so bad, hes good. Jude Law is lovable in this for sure. His American accent disarms you (all villains in Disney have British accents, right?) For the point of this Young Pope analytical series, I will assume that us traditionalists are stuck with the flawed character of Lenny Belardo AKA Pope Pius XIII to end the crisis in the Church and everything that means. We shall see if God can use a miserable character developed by HBO to save the church IMO.  Also, I have acquired a list that allows me to fast-forward through the naughty parts of the show, so you get a clean analysis in red

This show starts out with newly elected Pius XIII delivering his first address. It starts out extremely humanistic, Novus Ordo, Francis-forward. Then it takes a sharp turn, where you don't know if he is being ironic. Summarized: we have forgotten to masturbate, contracept, marry same sexes, have homosexual priests - married priests, euthanize, fornicate, divorce, allow woman priests, use invetro-fertilization! We then find out its just a dream. Okay, this is going to be a wild ride.

So right off the bat, we know HBO recognizes the Churches firm opposition in the way of "progress." All of the vices listed above is what Hollywood, the Left, most protestants and all Catholics-in-name-only want. If this is a show with an agenda, they will try to make the Church compromise on these topics either through Faith or Morals. 

There is a rather funny exchange next. The Vatican prepares the pontiff what looks like every breakfast item a 5 star hotel would be able to prepare. However, Pius XIII "Didn't they tell you? I eat hardly nothing. All I have in the morning is a Cherry Coke Zero" An overfriendly old sister comes in and pinches the pope on the cheek. He scolds her in front of the kitchen staff and we get an idea of how his pontificate will be.

This really gets to my point. Can we save the Church with this fictitious pope? He seems like an A-Hole so far. But can an A-Hole turn the bark of Peter 180 degrees, and return to Tradition? Well, I'll put it this way, I haven't seen anything yet that says no. In fact, a little brashness is going to be needed when everyone is so politically correct while basing everything on how they feel. So far he passes.

We next see a cardinal transact business on his smartphone while in confession.Ah, now we're getting into belittling the Sacraments. Next we get to see a private conversation among four cardinals regarding whether the Holy Spirit lead them to make the right choice. We get the person we deserve. We get an idea of what Hollywood thinks scares the Catholic Hierarchy. Cardinal Spencer is too independent. Couldn't be controlled. Then we get an idea of what Hollywood thinks the Catholic Hierarchy wants... a pope that can be a puppet. Now, dear reader, have we had puppet popes before? Absolutely, says secular history. And I might even venture to agree. Did all of those popes know they were puppets? Nope. Do cardinals and bishops have more power after Vatican II? (not really, but they think they do.) So since the hierarchy in real life is so far gone... and they HBO is not friendly to Catholicism... and wants the viewer to hold the view that the cardinals wish only puppets to perpetuate a moderate and impotent papacy, we are starting to get down to why a our thesis.  

We are whisked away to the popes bedroom where the Holy Father is praying alone in his room. How edifying? The pope who fixes the crisis must have a strong prayer life. But what are the fruits of his prayer? The very next scene is the Pope asking his confessor break the seal of confession. Later, he makes his new secretary (the sister who took him in as an orphan) stand in the middle of the Vatican, and and says "You are at the exact center of the Church. and now the center of the Church takes a few steps back.> This is obviously meant to give the viewer a sinking feeling if you are a lib watching the show. Or it might be a ray of hope if you like externals. Obviously, there can be no internal change if the pope is already breaking the seal of confession for what we presume is his own personal gain.So this is our departure. Hollywood has given us man who has overstepped too much. These are spiritual problems, and those will not fix the Church, no matter what else happens, unless Pius XIII repents..

Two last details from the first episode. Our pope is a smoker. That isn't as scandalous as it sounds, but smoking is the new sin. Also, good people don't smoke, unless, you are a part of the trendy crowd. Then cigs can be alright, I guess. The Cardinal Secretary of State reminds the His Holiness that smoking in the Vatican was forbidden by John Paul II! "Well, there is a new pope now." That is the overall attitude of his pontificate. It shows that he is the law giver and that he is not subject to the past limitations that his predecessors have set.

Finally, we see the pope with his confessor on the rooftop. The Holy Father makes his first real confession when he tells the confessor his sin. He doesn't believe in God. After he sees the look of horror on the priests face, he quickly puts a smile back on and tells the simply friar that he is just kidding. Alright, we have it. This is the crux of the problem. Can someone who doesn't have the Faith fix our problem. That is the new question I will examine. But wait... we say him pray to God when he was by himself! Maybe he does believe in God. Maybe, he is trying to test his boundries. Perhaps test the poor priest. See how he reacts... Whatever Jude Law is doing, he certainly is full of malice, and it makes for a very dynamic and curious character.

Stay tuned for Episode 2 analysis.

The Dictator Pope - Not Francis

Today's topic is what does it mean to The Dictator Pope!

No, this blog is not about Francis or the book. This blog is about the future pope, in my opinion, will look like a dictator pope to the world.

The definition a dictator is this (according to Google): a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained power by force.

Francis is being called the Dictator Pope, because he is the first pope in recent memory who speaks off the cuff, commits jarring actions (that still somehow surprise people,) or fires people like Trump. That doesn't make him a dictator! He needs to be called something else (by the next pope, but that is a topic for a different blog.) Trump is not a dictator because A) the president does not have total power, and B) because he obtained office not by force. For that matter, neither was Obama. Francis, in the same way, cannot be called a dictator because the truth is (and Vatican I has defined) that the pope does not have total power. Nor did Francis take the Holy See by force. Sure, the reason for Benedict's resignation makes people scratch their head, but Benedict is not in exile. Even if he was threatened to leave, Benedict has made no attempts to claim he is the true head of the Church. So where does that leave us? It leaves us with pope who does things by executive order. And Francis is not the first nor will His Holiness be the last.

The pope that I mentioned above, the one who will be stuck with the mess the last six popes have left us in, will have to take so many executive actions to get the Church back on track its not even funny. The liberal media will have a field day with him! That is why I am am going to review this show: HBO's Young Pope. This series will touch on what would it look like to have a Pope who didn't pander to the world. I have been forewarned, and will take necessarily precautions to avoid the sin. But you have to admit how alluring it would look like for what a pope that pisses off the liberal media would look like. But HBO is the most liberal of all the channels! This should be interesting!!

to be continued...

The Mass & mass Shootings

Today I would like to speak on the buzz words: mass violence, gun control, mental health from a Catholic prospective.

Mass Violence - 17, maybe more, died in a school shooting. That's 17 too many. One person is dying in a school shooting is too much. What makes 17 worse than 1? The fact that they were random? The fact that they were innocent? The fact they were unarmed? The fact that 17 is more than 1? Yes, all of the above. It's sick. I'm not sure what the shooters motive was, but the commom denominator in Mass Violence is the shooters don't discriminate. I am thinking of two other times when a person didn't discriminate. When the United States dropped not one but two bombs on Japan and wiped Nagasaki and Hiroshima of the face of the earth. Where is the outrage? There were hundreds of thousands obliterated who were random, innocent, and unarmed. Dead. Shame on the U.S. I'm also reminded of Abortion. "No one wants to get an abortion" I've been told. I'm sorry, people should take responsibility for their actions. A life ends because of an abortion. The men and children who died in Parkland were wanted. The children who are aborted are not wanted. We need to change the excepted idea that there are some people that are not wanted. Shame on the U.S. for perpetuating that message.

Gun Control - what's the answer? More background checks? The piece of shit (yes, I know I just got done saying that all people should be wanted, but he just forfeited his right to life by become cancer to society and should be removed) was mentally unwell. How could you have kept guns out of his hands? Baker Act him a month ago and declare him mentally unfit so that shows up on his background check? Should someone have sent him to counciling when his mom died or when the girl he was stalking didn't stalk him back? What's the answer? There are sooooooo many crazies out there. Who gets to decide when someone looses the privledge to having a gun. Yeah, I called it a privledge, not a right. I'm reminded of George Carlin's words. Think of the Japanese in California in WWII. Their "God given right" to bare arms was taken away in the snap of a finger.
Do we ban only Assult Rifles? I know you can hunt with one, but other than killing a lot of people at once, i cant think of many things you for which you can use them. Defending your family? It's a stretch, I think the U.S. interior/domestic aggressive task force would have the upper hand in a shoot out with you and some buddies vs. them. But you'd go out saying "I told you so." So, I have a gun. A trusty revolver. Theoretically, I could kill 6 people with it. If I stole my roommates gun, I could kill 12 people if I was a good shot. That's a Mass Violent shooting. I don't think you could ban just ARs and stop all Mass Violent shootings. You'd have to ban all guns.
Ok, so if we ban all guns, first off we turn them over to a government that doesn't value life at all. And we have to trust that the criminals handed over their guns too. It would be a crime to own a gun. Criminals are good at commiting crimes, so they'd probably be in the possession of a gun. I'm thinking of Chicago, which has extremely strict gun laws, and the highest rate of gun violence I can think of. Unless every weapon from every .22 to every nuke just somehow disintegrated at the same time, the bad can very scarily outweigh the good. I could see the people blaming this shooting on guns not accepting the blame when a law abiding citizen can't save his or herself and gets raped, killed, robbed when they have no way to protect themselves.
I'm reminded of the anecdote where I can set my revolver (or even an AR-15) on my porch and not one person passing by will be shot. That's because guns don't kill, people kill.

So that leads us to Mental Health.
I've already proposed the question. Who is responsible for ensuring everyone takes a mental health exam and getting the help they need. Food is more important than a mental health exam, and guess what? Not everybody has been fed yet. How are we going to help everybody that needs help? Could it be to treat others as you would have done unto you? That's a start. But people didn't follow the golden rule and just stop in the late 1990s when Columbine happened. But discipline was out and Godlessness was in.

So what's the answer? I would like to propose that everybody starts by valuing the life of not just themselves, but their neighbor. All people. The young, the old,  the blacks, your non Catholic neighbor. But I can't put a gun against your forehead and make you. It's got to come through prayer from within. Where can you find discipline? How about the desire to love all and value all people? Mass.

Requiescant in Pace