By posting this picture from an anti-Catholic protest in Germany, the folks at Irreligion.org totally pay the highest possible compliment to the Pope without realizing it. I don't recommend you visit the site, but credit where credit is due... the dinosaur just needs a beard, though.
On a forum where I hang out, Christian Pipe Smokers, a member has coined the term "Pope-slapped", which is a fun term for (as near as I can gather) "receiving a papal smack-down".
It was meant, I think, in a playfully pejorative way, as the one who coined it is definitely not a Catholic, or even very sympathetic with Catholic practices.
The press has lately noted with some genuine astonishment the fact that the late Pope John Paul II "whipped" himself, or as ABC News sort-of more accurately phrased it, he made use of an "ancient ritual of self-flagellation". The word "ritual" is not really helpful or correct in this case, methinks. Flagellation is an ancient practice, not so much a ritual.
The press, and others, are surprised to find that the Pope in fact "Pope-slapped" himself. They are surprised for a couple of reasons, I suppose.
For one, John Paul II was often thought to be a kind of post-modern, media-savvy pope, popular with the kids... with his baby face and gentle smile, he was sort of harmless and fuzzy as popes go, though the secular opinion makers somehow contrived to be continually shocked and disappointed that he remained stubbornly Catholic. In the modern mind, images of private self-flagellation and warm public smiles and waves are not easily juxtaposed. Cuddly father figures who ski and play soccer just don't whip themselves over dusty old concepts like Sin and Penance. His baby face concealed an Inner Beard of apparently impressive proportions.
And then there is the practice, itself. Flagellation involves two concepts absolutely alien to contemporary thinking; a living, ancient tradition, and self-mortification. The modern West has been all about moving forward and leaving behind - dropping like a hot rock - anything too reminiscent of the past. Traditions are things you throw off. This sort of thing was supposed to have died out with the Inquisition and the Crusades and Galileo and (oh, where's a handy cliche when you need one?)... did I mention the Crusades? Truthfully, the practice goes back way past the Middle Ages to the Desert Fathers, at least.
Self-denial and discipline are also unpopular ideas. Oh, you can sell any sort of diet plan, but the ones that sell best seem to be the ones that promise to make an end-run around the slow and arduous spiritual process of training in Moderation. The exercise programs and their varied machines all hint at miraculous results in "20 minutes, three times a week". The idea of physical disipline for the sake of spiritual health is generally seen as nonsense talk, except for a few New-Age health spa types, and bring Sin into it and they are amused at best and positively affronted at worst . Even most Christians don't get the concept of actual, you know, penance.
The Church, the ancient and living Church, when seen clearly is a lot like seeing a real, honest-to-Pete dinosaur - say a Triceratops - walking around in Manhattan... a thing that (by all natural indicators) ought to be not only dead, but long extinct. Finding a fresh Triceratops carcass would be a nearly unfathomable mystery, but seeing a living specimen, walking - to hear it and smell it, to feel the pavement shake - that would hardly fit into one's brain.
And yet, that is what the Church is. Her critics even love to call her a dinosaur, and talk about her stone-age doctrines, but they are thrown into deep confusion when the dinosaur seems to move and breathe ("Just out the corner of my eye... was that? Naw... couldn't be..."). It doesn't fit into their heads. When the modern world imagines a popular and loveable public figure whipping himself over his sins, they feel the breath of the dinosaur on their very faces for a moment. It's disconcerting.
Over the last several decades, some in the Church (those more infected with the modern virus) have talked about The Dinosaur Effect as a kind of scandal or an embarrassment. It shocks and confuses people, they say, makes them uncomfortable. They have proposed hiding the dinosaur, dressing it as a more popular and less threatening animal, maybe, like a Panda or (that's it!) a Dolphin (people love dolphins... they poll very high). The spectacle of the Church as a living, breathing, ancient and impossible creature with eyes and scales and teeth makes them wring their hands.
But a huge fake panda or dolphin people can probably see in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Church is meant, in some sense, to be gawked at, to make jaws drop, even if in a kind of horror, as people might look at a dinosaur in Manhattan. We are commanded to love our neighbors, not to make them love us.
"Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man." - Luke 6:22
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