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.