Pulling the pallium over people’s eyes

TODAY a new word enters our vocabulary: Pallium.

So what’s a pallium when it’s at home? Wikipedia has the answer:

The pallium, in its present Western form, is a narrow band, “three fingers broad,” woven of white lamb’s wool from sheep raised by Trappist monks, with a loop in the centre resting on the shoulders over the chasuble, and two dependent lappets, before and behind; so that when seen from front or back the ornament resembles the letter Y.

I sense your eyes glazing over, but stay with me on this one.

'Ooooh! Suits you sir!' Ratzinger gets a new pallium. Nice!

The awarding of the pallium became controversial in the Middle Ages, because popes charged a fee from those receiving them, earning hundreds of millions of gold florins for the papacy and bringing the award of the pallium into disrepute. This process was condemned by the Council of Basle in 1432, which referred to it as ‘the most usurious contrivance ever invented by the papacy’.

The only person on the planet allowed to wear, or dish out palliums (pallia?) to metropolitan archbishops is Pope Ratzinger,  and in order to do so he needs sheep to fleece (real sheep, not his congregations).  But the sheep first have to be blessed.

Thus we come to the nub of this post. A YouTube video showing the ex-boy Nazi doing just that.

This is no ordinary video clip. This a clip from Ratzi’s newly-launched YouTube channel, in which cutting edge, 21st  century technology is being harnessed to give the masses periodic peeks into the primitive superstitious practices that lie at the heart of the Roman Catholic Church show the world what a modern, progressive, forward looking engine of change the Church really is.

According to this report, the slick site features the columns of St Peter’s Square in the background with links to official Vatican Web sites at the top. A large video player features prominently above clips of the pope and other Vatican officials.

Users can view the site in Italian, English, Spanish, and German, and plans are in the works to include other languages, said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.

Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council, added:

With the YouTube platform, we now have the capacity to give young people direct access to the thinking, to the thoughts, to the words and deeds of the pope which they can share with their friends.

How cool is that?!

The Vatican plans to use it mainly as a news channel featuring the pope’s daily activities and speeches, and it will provide links to other Catholic TV sites around the world, he said.

One video shows the pope discussing the Internet as “a new way to speak to God”.

Said Ratzinger:

The proclamation of Christ in the world of new technologies requires a profound knowledge of this world if the technologies are to serve our mission adequately. It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent’.

Yeah, yeah …. whatever ….