Apparently some weaselly papal nuncio arranged the Davis visit, and the Pope was "blindsided" by it. I'll bet that nuncio will be wiping asses in a nursing home or purifying water in a jungle somewhere as part of his next assignment--no more farting through silk for him!!!

http://www.advocate.com/religion/2015/10/02/vatican-disputes-kim-daviss-version-papal-meeting

in reference to the Davis fiasco, about a caller to Joe Madison's SiriusXM show yesterday, who worked in the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops organization....and he said to take note of who the President of that group is - the Pope Benedict (Ratzinger)-appointed Archbishop of Louisville, KY.

She wasn't in a private meeting, she was in one of those funky little thingamabobs that all Popes do, pretty much every day. It's called a Papal audience, but it's really five minutes of blah blah blah, a quick prayer, and sometimes, not always, a few pics. There are lots of people in there, from a dozen to a hundred.

She's a liar. Add that to bigot, and asshole, I guess!

I'm betting Ratzinger's buddy in KY was pals with that nuncio--maybe they'll both be farting through sackcloth and wiping shitty asses in a third world nursing home--it would serve them right. What a dumbass--he's pushing seventy, and his last years in the holy vestments are likely to be spent in less comfortable surroundings than he finds himself in now. I do hope that the Pope kicks that fucker to the curb.

I get the feeling that Francis, the ex-nightclub bouncer, does NOT like to be fucked with. We'll have to see if anything comes of this. He's an old guy with sciatica, he pushed himself through a grueling schedule, he got a good response and he had a real positive visit, and this puddinghead jerk from KY fucks up the ending...I'll bet he's pissed.

He also met with a same-sex couple, and that was private--one of his old chums from Argentina, and his partner. Of course, he set that meeting up himself.

I was watching it on EWTN, and switched between that and CSPAN (until they dropped it to cover Congress), CNN, & MSNBC. Then I ended up watching mostly the local coverage here in Philly the last 2 days since we hosted the WMF conference (and the Pope) over the weekend (2 of the 3 local stations had all-day broadcasts both days).

The EWTN commentators and guest priests were literally Fox-lite. Rather than perhaps giving some insights into the primary message of helping the poor, the clergy scandals, and ways to diversify to bring people back into church, they basically spent a lot of time throwing darts and even grenades at Francis and the inclusiveness message being put out there. When Nutter commented in his opening remarks that one of his mentors was openly gay and Catholic and this is why he hoped the church would change to embrace everyone, once he was done, the commentators literally went on a tirade (completely blanking out Wolf's speech) about how insulting Nutter was.

It's funny but I have worked with Italians (from Italy) and it seemed that Francis was also speaking Spanish with an Italian accent! As it is, the languages are so similar that I recall about 15 years, 2 acquaintances (one from Italy and one from Cuba) decided to "test it" and they spoke to each other in their native languages and could understand each other. That confirmed my wonderment at why colleges put French and Italian together in their language departments.

crazy wing of the church is flipping out. They just want to "get" old Frank so bad--I hope he beats them senseless! I am rooting for the guy.

One of my first languages was Spanish, and when I went to Italy and started speaking Italian, everyone thought I was from South America. After a few years in Italy, when I went back to Spain (where I first learned to speak many many decades ago), everyone thought that I was Italian!

My mother did that same experiment on a train from Paris to Rome, using Spanish to converse with a couple from Italy. There were a few little bumbles but they managed. Wow, that was a lifetime ago!

The Italian accent is so easy to acquire--you have to work hard (or be tone deaf) to NOT incorporate it!

Oddly enough, if you know two out of three (French/Spanish/Italian) you can, in fact, figure out the other one. With French it's a bit harder because of the way the words are pronounced but for vocabulary there is that same Latin root (eg. French fenetre, window, Italian finestra). It's important to have an attuned ear, certainly. Still, I found knowing French (and I'm not great at it anymore, but it comes back if I muddle along) helpful in learning Italian. And with those, I can understand about sixty to seventy percent of a conversation in Portuguese, if they're not babbling at breakneck speed, which comes in handy at times with Brazilians!

and I can read it pretty well but don't know it well enough anymore to try to speak it conversationally with the modern slang. Ironically, I easily picked up more conversational Spanish just from living in a dorm in college with some hall mates from Puerto Rico. They used to bring me what we all used to call "Puerto Rican mud coffee". That was some powerful stuff and I still have the little perk pot. And yup, although you can figure out the roots across the 3, French definitely sounds way too different from Italian or Spanish.

And with Portuguese - back then, we had a bunch of folks in my dorm from Cape Verde (this was at UMASS by the way) and that's what they spoke. I was also a big fan of Brasil '66 (and '77) so I learned that it if "almost" sounded like Spanish but wasn't, it was Portuguese.

The "mud coffee" I mean. It will wake the dead! The finca is still in the family though I don't know if anyone is doing anything with it, I think they may have tenants up in there. You can live off the land if you're not too fussy about frou-frou food!

Tons of Cabo ve' folks down in southern MA and on Cape Cod....back in the very old days, Provincetown was nothing but Portuguese speakers in the off season, and it was a forgotten, tiny little town at the end of the Cape--now it is some of the priciest real estate in New England.


Ahhhh, Sergio Mendez!!!! Let's walk down memory lane, shall we?

was from Fall River, MA. Our dorm head was also Cape Verdian. Geez... it's like ages ago now.

And I always liked their version of Pais Tropical for some reason -

And what swell memories!

they support Ben Carson? I love that they announce this 'private' meeting as a response to his meeting with Davis, it suddenly gets pulled out.

Basically people who say I am disordered and that my rights are an idea of Satan's do not have my trust in terms of the validity of their verbiage. What I don't get is why anyone does.

ask anyone to believe me....

I think the reason Frank lives in the dorm behind the Vatican is because he is afraid those bastards will KILL him. He has a few of his old school friends and a few trusted acolytes, and that's that.

He cooks his own food because he's afraid of being poisoned. He eats communally for the same reason.

I think he wonders--like lotsa people do--about the strange death of John Paul I so soon after he got the white smoke call.

I think he wants to (gradually) change the church's teachings on a lot of issues. He's still a shit towards women (and I think he's too old/entrenched to change on the whole women-as-priests thing), but I think he wants to lighten up on the whole excommunication game--doesn't see any point in pushing paying customers out the door with onerous "no forgiveness" rules.

The Davis thing really screwed up his great trip, but I gotta say, I am IMPRESSED with both the quality and word choice in executing the pushback. Now, instead of Kim Davis--The Pope is On Her Side, we have Kim Davis EXPLOITED and BLINDSIDED the Pope--and then LIED ABOUT IT.

That guy is no fool!

with the religious right in terms of marriage equality. This event was last November, Francis, Tony Perkins, NOM, Heritage Foundation, three days in Rome produced by the Vatican.
http://time.com/3597245/vatican-evangelicals-mormons-gay-marriage/

The Davis thing was very, very predictable to those who have been paying attention.

There is a sense of progress, and often that precedes actual progress.

actual progress. If Francis wants change I am his helper by being his critic. If he does not, it's no skin off my nose to criticize him.

You go on ahead and gripe all you want, no one is stopping you; the more the merrier. Many voices, many ideas.

I think the fact that he called out Kim Davis as a liar and released film of him meeting his old gay pal and his partner is one of those "actions speak louder than words" moments, and it also points up the reality that he dealing with some entrenched assholes who do not want change and who want to hold on to their power.

He needs a food taster. I nominate the asshole cardinal(s) who funneled Kim Davis into that Papal audience, if he doesn't send them off to a spartan, poverty-stricken shithole to minister to the dying, instead.

This seems to apply to folks like Bernie. Attend marches 50 years ago so you can't be tone deaf?

That's not something I'd say. It's something you are saying.

Any time someone of the Pope's stature visits a country, they'll set up events where invited people meet, get in line and get a quick acknowledgement and, in this case - a blessing from the Pope. I think Kim Davis was in such an event and her posse blew it out of proportion to make it look like it was more one-on-one than it was.

And it wasn't a private meeting, it was one of those generic audiences--he didn't say shit to her either.

Kim Davis, Mega-Liar! Once again! She tried to claim that zillions of people were holding a prayer vigil for her in Peru, too.

Put her back in jail.

of that which one has sown, or perhaps to the fleas one is likely to adopt if one lies down with dogs.

"You can't cheat an honest man." - WC Fields.

with someone, it doesn't mean he supports their position, be it Kim Davis or a gay couple.

that one member of that gay couple is a personal friend of the Pope.

In any organization - that organization has "official" policies that employees are directed to abide by and promote publicly when acting in their official capacity, regardless of how they may personally feel about those policies. Case in point is Kim Davis, who acted counter to the official (legal) policies of her job. In the case of the Vatican - their official policies have been well-known, well-publicized, and well-engrained over many centuries, regardless of how the individual members within the church feel about them.