The Pope Likes Hermann Hesse

Kretschmann described the pope as a "thoroughly impressive personality." Francis had a "watchful eye" and a "watchful heart".

Rome (kath.net/ KNA) Pope Francis appreciates German literature: Hermann Hesse's story "Beneath the Wheel" has been read several times by the head of the Catholic Church, according to Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann. Francis had met the Green politician and avowed Catholic Francis on Friday at a private audience and brought him a copy of this book. After the meeting, reported Kretschmann, Francis received the gift by saying, "I've already read this three times".

The Pope and Kretschmann had at the 30-minute conversation for which an interpreter was also present, discussing in particular the environment and the refugee problem.

The Catholic Church itself "could happily praise to have such an alert, attentive Pope who follows everything that happens in the contemporary world so closely, "Kretschmann praised Francis after the encounter. He described the pope as a "thoroughly impressive personality." Francis had a "watchful eye" and a "watchful heart". Link... Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com AMDG

Vatican Participates in Satanic Art Exhibition to "Dialog"

Giacomo Grosso - The Supreme Meeting - 1895

Edit: came across mention of the Venice Bienalle which is featuring artists which have been "sponsored" by the Vatican in the Guardian two days ago.  Since then, Father Ray Blake has given a fairly unenthusiastic review.  The Vatican is spending 750,000 Euro on this exhibition which features masters of decadence like Courboursier, and the money being spent (granted, from independent sources), features modern forms of self-expression which are difficult to credit with actually being art.  What's even more frightening is that Cardinal Ravasi plans on encouraging the increasing involvement of these immoral expressions in Church settings.  It's easy to see that the Cardinal has little appreciation for the incompatibility these expressions have with the Church's message, as reported in The Independent:

AC & Frieda Harris - Thoth Tarot "the devil" - Artwork exhibited at the Venice Biennale

"Our presence at the Biennale is the first step in a long journey that involves not only the building of churches in a contemporary style, but the creation of new liturgical objects," Cardinal Ravasi said. He confirmed that contemporary artists will be paid to design new altars, baptismal fonts, tabernacles and lecterns. [God help us]

Among his favourite architects, he said, are the Spanish Santiago Calatrava and the Japanese Tadao Ando, as well as past Modernist masters, Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto. "We will get artists from all continents involved and in particular we need women artists; they have another language." A plan to fill one of the rooms of the pavilion in Venice with work by the Colombian-born sculptor Doris Salcedo, featuring flowers of the Amazon, was thwarted by incessant rain over the last week in the Italian city, he said.

It's difficult, moreover, to justify the Church's involvement in such an event, particularly in light of the overt Satanic dimensions of the Bienalle, which has been typically hostile to Catholicism in the past, is no less so now that the Vatican has decided to participate.  Blogger  Francesco Colafemmina at Fides et Forma blog actually points out the diabolical nature of the event by the presence of Tarot Cards designed by Aleister Crowley, whose name he only abbreviates as AC, so evil is this man's reputation. Colafemmina writes:

In this capacity, however, the Biennale will host some tarot cards painted by C.and Frieda Harris.  I quote the statement of the Ordo Templi Orientis (the entity created by AC esoteric initiation) published on its website:

"The international headquarters of the OTO and the Warburg Institute organized the inclusion of nine paintings of the Thoth Tarot (Thoth tarot cards NDT) of AC and Frieda Harris. [...] The Biennale is the first occasion on which he so many paintings of the Tarot will be exposed to the public for such a long period - about 5 months.  The participation at the Biennale has reached 400,000 viewers, so this occasion will be a way to introduce Thoth Tarot at a wide and sophisticated audience. We would like to thank Massimiliano Gioni and his assistant-curator Helga Just Christoffersen for the inclusion of the works, and the Warburg Institute, for having made possible the loan of works. It also adds that this year's Biennale includes works by two other  Thelemite painters (the pseudo-religion): Harry Smith and Xul Solar. "

I wonder, quite simply, how the Holy See may once again justify its  presence  in a similar measure from the decadent taste and irreverent fin de siècle. We are mutatis mutandis at the same level of 1895, the Patriarch Sarto Interdict, when the Biennale hosted the work of Giacomo Grosso "The Supreme Meeting." [Except fin de siècle artists were actually talented.] Set in a Church, it showed a girlie spread on a coffin ... After more than a century, we are still at the same point. But the struggle has become more thin, overtly occult, esoteric and ambiguous communications relaxations by a Vatican preaching more or less good and falling badly, very badly indeed.

For our part, we remember meeting ++Ravasi a few years ago at an art event associated with a certain decadent Basilica which features the same kinds of diabolical associations.