Easter Tidings

Something like a billion people are commemorating and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ today, one of the central tenets of Christianity. The new Argentine Pope kicked off the festivities on Thursday, at the Last Supper Mass, by washing the feet of 12 inmates of a juvenile detention center in Rome. There's a little bit of a scandal because one of the detainees who got her feet washed by the Pope was not just a female but a Muslim to boot.

No pope in history has washed the feet of a woman, much less a Muslim.

In his homily, the Pope made no reference to the religious beliefs of the youthful offenders, saying that he was doing it to follow the example of Jesus Christ.

“This is the Lord’s example,” the Pope said. “He is the most important one and He washes [other's] feet because those who are the highest among us must be at the service of others. Washing someone’s feet is [saying], ‘I am at your service’.”

...Francis’ decision to disregard church law and wash the feet of two girls-- a Serbian Muslim and an Italian Catholic-- during a Holy Thursday ritual has become something of the final straw, evidence that Francis has little or no interest in one of the key priorities of Benedict’s papacy: reviving the pre-Vatican II traditions of the Catholic Church.

One of the most-read traditionalist blogs, “Rorate Caeli,” reacted to the foot-washing ceremony by declaring the death of Benedict’s eight-year project to correct what he considered the botched interpretations of the Second Vatican Council’s modernizing reforms.

“The official end of the reform of the reform-- by example,” ”Rorate Caeli” lamented in its report on Francis’ Holy Thursday ritual.

A like-minded commentator in Francis’ native Argentina, Marcelo Gonzalez at International Catholic Panorama, reacted to Francis’ election with this phrase: “The Horror.” Gonzalez’s beef? While serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s efforts to revive the old Latin Mass so dear to Benedict and traditionalists were “non-existent.”

Virtually everything he has done since being elected pope, every gesture, every decision, has rankled traditionalists in one way or another.

The night he was chosen pope, March 13, Francis emerged from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica without the ermine-rimmed red velvet cape, or mozzetta, used by popes past for official duties, wearing instead the simple white cassock of the papacy. The cape has since come to symbolize his rejection of the trappings of the papacy and to some degree the pontificate of Benedict XVI, since the German pontiff relished in resurrecting many of the liturgical vestments of his predecessors.

Francis also received the cardinals’ pledges of obedience after his election not from a chair on a pedestal as popes normally do but rather standing, on their same level. For traditionalists who fondly recall the days when popes were carried on a sedan chair, that may have stung. In the days since, he has called for “intensified” dialogue with Islam-- a gesture that rubs traditionalists the wrong way because they view such a heavy focus on interfaith dialogue as a sign of religious relativism.

Francis may have rubbed salt into the wounds with his comments at the Good Friday procession at Rome’s Colosseum, which re-enacts Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, praising “the friendship of our Muslim brothers and sisters” during a prayer ceremony that recalled the suffering of Christians in the Middle East.

Francis also raised traditional eyebrows when he refused the golden pectoral cross offered to him right after his election by Monsignor Guido Marini, the Vatican’s liturgy guru who under Benedict became the symbol of Benedict’s effort to restore the Gregorian chant and heavy silk brocaded vestments of the pre-Vatican II liturgy to papal Masses.

Marini has gamely stayed by Francis’ side as the new pope puts his own stamp on Vatican Masses with no-nonsense vestments and easy off-the-cuff homilies. But there is widespread expectation that Francis will soon name a new master of liturgical ceremonies more in line with his priorities of bringing the church and its message of love and service to ordinary people without the “high church” trappings of his predecessor.

...On Good Friday, Francis recited the Passion of Christ—the story of the last hours of Jesus’s life-- in St Peter’s Basilica and later presided over the Via Crucis, or Way of the Cross, at the ancient Roman Coliseum, where thousands of Christians were martyred in Roman times.

There were certainly none of those trappings on display Thursday at the Casal del Marmo juvenile detention facility in Rome.

The church’s liturgical law holds that only men can participate in the rite, given that Jesus’ apostles were all male. Priests and bishops have routinely petitioned for exemptions to include women, but the law is clear.

Francis, however, is the church’s chief lawmaker, so in theory he can do whatever he wants.

“The pope does not need anybody’s permission to make exceptions to how ecclesiastical law relates to him,” noted conservative columnist Jimmy Akin in the National Catholic Register. But Akin echoed concerns raised by canon lawyer Edward Peters, an adviser to the Vatican’s high court, that Francis was setting a “questionable example” by simply ignoring the church’s own rules.

“People naturally imitate their leader. That’s the whole point behind Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. He was explicitly and intentionally setting an example for them,” he said. “Pope Francis knows that he is setting an example.”

The inclusion of women in the rite is problematic for some because it could be seen as an opening of sorts to women’s ordination. The Catholic Church restricts the priesthood to men, arguing that Jesus and his 12 apostles were male.

Francis is clearly opposed to women’s ordination. But by washing the feet of women, he jolted traditionalists who for years have been unbending in insisting that the ritual is for men only and proudly holding up as evidence documentation from the Vatican’s liturgy office saying so.

“If someone is washing the feet of any females … he is in violation of the Holy Thursday rubrics,” Peters wrote in a 2006 article that he reposted earlier this month on his blog.

In the face of the pope doing that very thing, Peters and many conservative and traditionalist commentators have found themselves trying to put the best face on a situation they clearly don’t like yet can’t do much about lest they be openly voicing dissent with the pope.

By Thursday evening, Peters was saying that Francis had merely “disregarded” the law-- not violated it.

The far, far, far right of the Catholic Church-- like what the teabaggers are to the GOP-- is the Society of St. Pius X who are still flipping out that the Mass is said in languages people can understand, rather than in Latin-- although if they were consistent wouldn't they insist on Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic?-- and that the Church is reaching out to Jews and Muslims in friendship-- rather than smiting them. They're not too keen on Pope Francis so far. Their top guy in Latin America, Christian Bouchacourt (think Ted Cruz) was already bitching that “He cultivates a militant humility, but can prove humiliating for the church. With him, we risk to see once again the Masses of Paul VI’s pontificate, a far cry from Benedict XVI’s efforts to restore to their honor the worthy liturgical ceremonies.” No one asked my opinion, but I thought the way Francis should have kicked off the celebrations was by smiting the hedge fund managers, the modern day money changers in the Temple. Let fake Catholics like Boehner and Ryan go join the anti-Jesus Society of St. Pius X freaks.

Ted Cruz-- always liturgically correct