Today the pope will have his ring broken. In fact by the time of writing it is probably already broken.The ring in question is known as the Ring of the Fisherman. It is personal sign of office of the pope and is there to remind him of the fact that he occupies a job who's first holder was a fisherman.
It is solid gold.
A ring to remind the wearer of the humble origin of his church in the most valuable mental on earth.
Of course not all Popes have gone have been quite that humble. Pope Pius IX had a ring with a picture of himself on it. In diamonds. Proper bling that!In case anyone thinks I'm getting at the Roman Catholic Church here, I should point out that my own church with it prelates who sit in the House of Lords and live in palaces suffers from exactly this problem.
We use the language of humility more often that we are humble after all one of the things that people are drawn to in religion is its ceremonies and ancient powers. Jesus however was not a fan of religion and tried his best to beat it out of his followers. It did not take long to come back.
We need to notice this dichotomy at the heart of our contemporary faith how the church founded on the powerlessness of the cross is now so tainted with the scandals of inappropriate exercise of power. We need to own this our greatest failure and where we cannot be all we should be, be honest about what we are not.
Also I really wanna see the College of Cardinals do the Harlem Shake.
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