I can see no reason to attack PF on the grounds that a chasuble he recently wore is decorated with faux leopard skin.
I always think the best of people; so my assumption is that the leopard-skin is gloriously authentic. Who cares if it cost (as it must in these days when big-game hunting is so expensive a hobby) a very great deal of money? He's worth it.
In classical art, Heracles is commonly shown wearing the skin of the Nemean Lion, which he gloriously slew. Apollo is sometimes termed sauroktonos, because he killed the Python. (In a Roman copy of a Praxitelean original in the gallery at Petworth, an effeminate Apollo is shown peering with languid interest at a fairly small lizard running up a tree. I take this to be a jolly piece of subversive Hellenistic humour. Given a choice between Pheidias and Praxiteles, I am for Praxiteles every day of the week.)
So I am very willing to believe that our Holy Father has indeed bloodily defeated a mighty leopard in heroic monomachy. Motu proprio, as we say! The first truly military Roman Pontiff since dear Julius II, Papa della Rovere! A second David! Henceforth, I shall think of PF as Pardoktonos. You see, in the minds of many, the name "Franciscus" has unworthy undertones as of a pallid and soppy zoophile. We need to change all that. So, in the Te igitur, from now onwards, " ... una cum famulo tuo papa nostro Pardoctono ..." Come on, Fathers, you know it makes sense.
On a different planet, PF might have been referred to as Hpap Hanakrapunt. In Victorian English verse, I suppose Pardoctonus would have been "Jorge the Leopard-slayer". The author of the romance of Tristan and Iseult could have given us a vivid verse-picture of the Sovereign Pontiff as he skilfully carved up the carcase. Perhaps someone more learned than I am could offer a pastiche of Beowulf.
All we need now is a Second Callimachus or a Second Ovid to give us an account in High Epic style of so signal a victory. Or perhaps another Catullus (I have in mind the Fall of the Minotaur in 64). But stay! ... why do I forget poor Maro? Arma papamque* cano, pardum qui perdidit ultro ...
Adeste hexametri versus* quot estis omnes undique, quotquot estis omnes ...
Io triumphe!
* Let's have no pedantic quips about false quantities.
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4 comments:
How ignominious for the poor skinned leopard to be draped posthumously over the skin of a cobra.
When John Paul II or, initially, Benedict XVI was seen wearing some embarrassing piece of liturgical vestments, everybody blamed Marini the First. Maybe now it is Marini the Second who has business ties with poachers.
I don't like bullies.
I have faith in God.
I do not have it in my heart to dislike bullies like Poor Bergoglio (may God comfort his parents, who must be so ashamed), I only want to pray for any person who is so far from God that they want to triumph in this world as bullies. It is particularly sad when they do so having agreed to take on the role of a father, and there is nothing worse than a father who is a bully to his children.
I pray the poor man repents, although it is just as likely that the poor man has no idea what he is doing, and he is just simply too simple-minded to be able to really be the sinner so many of us think he is, he is just a shade of what he would be if he really loved the Lord and unborn children (I hope you see what I did there, the poor man has been a notorious evil-doer when the question is whether we care about the unborn or not. Vilify me all you want, I am on the side of the Holy Innocents and I rejoice in your anger, because it is a cleansing anger, and I have been a faithful Christian and a supporter of anti-papolatry since a long long time ago, and i know the Holy Innocents are on the side of those of us who are appalled at our current selfish Pope who has been given such a great gift -- to be a Pope --- and who cares so little for the martyrs who are dying every day,)
Let us pray for evildoers, wherever we find them!
Liam Ronan's comment above is perfection: witty, duly representing the grotesque reality of our present ecclesial reality, and metaphorically TRUE (if not biologically so)!
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