Quote:
Originally posted by Little E
Vatican City is a city, the proper title is the Holy Roman See whose legal base is (orriginally) derived the Italian constitution which grants the state soverignty. The UN Recoginizes the Holy Roman See, not Vatican City. But prior to the use of the Euro, Vatican City used the Lira, not an independent currency. It would have been cost prohibitive to produce their own money. Perhaps a ways back they had independent currency, but it was the lira before the Euro.
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And up until the early 20th Century (1910's, 1920's) Vatican City was NOT independent. The Holy See is located in Vatican City which IS an independent county/City-State. It is NOT a part of the country of Italy. To say the UN recognizes the Holy See but not Vatican City is like saying the UN recognizes the Congress of the United States but not the United States - one is the government and the other is the geographic location. Though, the stamp that I have from Vatican City has Vatican City printed on it as well as the cancellation also says Vatican City - and NOT the Holy See (other than the seal of the Pope Benedict XVI).
Tom, I'm not a Canon Lawyer but Canon Law is Canon Law is Canon Law. There have also been some changes to Canon Law over the past two millennia - but 10 Commandments have been around a LOT longer than Canon Law (and are the basis for it). Yes, people have done things they are not supposed to do - and have paid/are paying/will pay for those actions - and are not to be held as the norm at all.
With regards to Pope Joan - from
www.catholic.com:
Quote:
Q: Recently my sister, who is a Catholic nun, told me that one of the popes was a woman. She also said St. Brigid was a bishop! I have never heard this before and I feel so distressed. I would appreciate any information which you could share with me.
A: Your sister is wrong on both counts. First, there never was a woman pope. The old story of Pope Joan is sometimes used to suggest otherwise, but this legend has been thoroughly discredited. The appendix to The Oxford Dictionary of the Popes (written by a Protestant, J. N. D. Kelly) says the legend of a woman pope "scarcely needs painstaking refutation today, for not only is there no contemporary evidence for a female pope at any of the dates suggested for her reign, but the known facts of the respective periods makes it impossible to fit one in."
Second, St. Brigid was never a bishop, although she did start, along with the hermit Conleth, the religious community of Kildare in fifth-century Ireland. Conleth was a bishop and was the abbot for a house of men. Brigid was the abbess of a nearby convent, but was never a bishop.
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Old canards never die. They just get recycled. One example: The Angelus, despite its Catholic-sounding name, is a Catholic-bashing newsletter issued by the Pilgrim's Bible Church of Augusta, Georgia. A recent issue recycled the story of Pope Joan and cited medieval writers who believed there had been such a person. (This is one of the few instances in which Fundamentalists assume the infallibility of Catholic writers.)
The beginning of the newsletter presents the thesis: If there had been a female pope, she could not have been ordained, so ordinations performed by her would have been invalid, meaning that ordinations and priestly actions descended from those invalid ordinations also would be invalid, which means that on their own terms the papacy and the entire sacerdotal structure of the Church have been corrupted. If you don't buy that, remember that "Jesuit educationalists and historians have well nigh buried" the facts about Pope Joan.
Translation: If we can't unearth evidence proving Pope Joan existed, it's because wily Jesuits buried the evidence too deep. Heads we win, tails you lose.
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Gee, the renewed hype about Pope Joan sounds like the plotline of The DaVinci Code. . . . Maybe they'll make that one into an anti-Catholic movie as well. . . . .