And of course it is carefully managed, but thinking that that it is **always **so in all situations is what conspiracy ideas are made of.
That’s not how it went down. She climbed over the fence on her own and was stopped by security. The Pope saw her and motioned to let her through and then the agent picked her up and brought her to him.
For someone whose public persona is carefully managed, the Vatican’s spokesmen seem to spend an awful lot of time “clarifying” various statements of his.
He was more of a communist, right?
This is maybe the stupidest thread I’ve seen in my life, but it’s worth noting that the streets around the parade route were surrounded by a security perimeter and everyone entering had to undergo screening.
Given that this is an area adjacent to the White House that frequently hosts VIP events, I would reckon that they are VERY good at securing this particular plot of land, and there are likely multiple back-up measures that may not be readily apparent.
So basically everyone on the route had already passed through security, and the cordons and guards were more for crowd control than physical security.
His particular task is to change public perception of the Papacy and, by extension, the Catholic Church itself. He, or some Vatican focus group, has decided that his public persona will be as regular guy keepin’ it real. This, I expect, is to distance the office from the public perception Ratzinger’s Papacy engendered. Since he took office, we have heard tales of things like him “sneaking out at night” to hobnob with the poor. Piss poor job of sneaking, I’d say, when it is publicized world wide. His public persona is stage managed, sometimes with greater skill, sometimes with lesser. The more sickly-sweet moments, like this one in DC, are examples of the latter.
Your tin foil hat is slipping.
The Pope is a political player on a multi-national scale. His public appearances and public relations are every bit as controlled as those of Vladimir Putin and Barrack Obama.
Don Draper doesn’t work for the Vatican. Neither does Karl Rove.
The Pope answers to God, not a focus group. He does and says what he does and says because it’s what he believes and because the college of cardinals trusted in his ability to lead the Church. He didn’t become a “regular guy keepin’ it real” out of the blue in 2013 because Marketing told him it tested well; it’s what he’s practiced for decades. There isn’t anyone telling him how to behave because there isn’t anyone who can tell him how to behave. What are they gonna do - fire him?
I’m not a Catholic or a Christian and I disagree with the Catholic Church on a lot of things. Their beliefs on sex and reproduction are backwards, they’re flat-out wrong about capital punishment, and they do a poor job of policing their own. But it’s quite clear both from his words and his behavior that Francis walks the walk, and the idea that he’s some sort of talking head who’s being fed lines based on what’s polling well at the moment is frankly baffling and ranks up there with believing that Obama’s a secret Muslim or that Trump is a stealth Democrat.
You assume that he works for the focus group and not they for him. You have the entirety of world history to show you that when (vast) wealth and power are in play that sincerity and honesty have no place at the table.
You assume the focus group exists.
Francis doesn’t seem to be very interested in either.
The Pope, Vladimir Putin and Barak Obama IN THEIR WILDEST DREAMS WISH they had the ability to control random events and their outcomes to the degree you so eagerly attribute to them and their staff.
Well, obviously they want you think they’re not all-powerful.
Not a scholar of Church history in Argentina, I take it?
How much of the RC Church’s vast holdings has he liquidated and distributed to the poor? If he is not interested in power, why has he not resigned the Papacy and grabbed a ladle at a soup kitchen?
He is no rebel. He was chosen by a group of old men who are apparatchiks in a self-perpetuating organization that is centuries old.
“The RC Church” is not a single corporate entity which the Pope has total control over the finances of. If you bothered to do some reading into how the church is organized instead of just assuming that every large organization in the world operates the same way as Wal-Mart or the Republican party, you’d understand that.
Who says he has to do one or the other?
I thought he was chosen by “some Vatican focus group”?
You don’t seem to understand that, when they are choosing a new Pope, the College of Cardinals is acting as a focus group.
Look, if you enjoy buying into his “just folks” imagr, it’ your choice. I was raised Catholic, I attended Catholic school, and it was studying the organization itself that eventually cemented my athesism. They are not an organization that has a history that points to this guy being a simple fellow who loves the poor. They haven’t had someone who matches that description since, maybe, that guy who got nailed to a tree.
No, they’re acting as an electoral college. You may as well say that the president is appointed by a focus group.
The organization isn’t what points to this guy being a simple fellow who loves the poor.
His life story and his behavior over the last four decades is what points to this guy being a simple fellow who loves the poor.
You clearly have an axe to grind with the Catholic church that renders you incapable of considering Pope Francis as an individual or a human being instead of as a bureaucrat. That’s on you, not him.
Of course Francis isn’t a bureaucrat. The bureaucrats wanted a head figure that wasn’t one and was just a regular fellow who loved helping and hanging out with the poor to take the focus off of the bureaucrats because their followers were declining so they had to change their public image.
So they searched their ranks looking for a guy just like Francis to try to change their public image to try to get more followers.
Right…right…an organization that has wrought misery and evil for millenia just up and chose someone who goes against all that as their leader. Why did they do that?