Notice anything about the Apostolic hemline? A rarely seen glimpse of the papal socks. Is the Holy Father a bit bulkier around the body? Compare the pre and post flight pictures.
It looks like he has been forced to wear body armour. In Europe he wanders around with relatively little security, in the gun toting USA things are going to be very different.
13 comments:
Good point.
Right, because no high officials in Europe have EVER been assassinated. And no Pope has ever been shot in St. Peter's square. That would only happen in the 'gun toting USA'.
I have only been a victim of violent crime while in the UK... that gun free paradise. I feel considerably safer in Texas where at least I know the good guys have guns too.
The Pope will be in two cities with the strictest gun controls in the United States. He is NOT visiting the 'gun toting USA'. If the Pope were visiting TX then I could go along with the 'gun toting' line. But DC and NY? Hardly.
The body armor is a sign of the Secret Service showing an excess of caution. I don't have a problem with that. I think we can all agree that keeping the Pope safe is a good thing.
Bosh and double Bosh..... you show me a pope who gets on an airplane and off the airplane after a long distance flight who is wearing the same cassock and I'll show you a pope who has idiot handlers re: his care and comfort.
The 2nd cassock is longer than the first.
And will someone tell that dummy, Ganswwein, that he wouldn't have to hold down the pope's cassock if he'd inform the spaghetti bender tailors to discretely weigh that sucker down with a few well placed weights used by fishing enthusiasts. Your queen's tailor figured that out years ago, you don't see Her Majesty's skirts flying up.
As regards the body armor issue...I think you're paranoid. All of a sudden the pope has the tailor mid flight alter the chest size in that given cassock? Uh=huh....there's this bridge I have in Brooklyn, would you like to buy it? Remind me again where the pope was shot? Oh, yeah....by some gun-toting Mohammedan ... at the "gun free zone" in the Vatican. Europeons.... remind me which "civilized" societies had more atrocities in the last century? Oh, right...those people who pretended they didn't need guns, that the police would protect them from thugs.
Come on! Am I missing the joke? Are we forgetting that JPII was shot in Europe? The Pope is not going to be threatened by American street violence. The kind of men that would threaten a Pope could find a gun in Paris, London, or Rome.
The fact is that America is just a little more paranoid/thorough about security than Europe. It is simply a matter of picking one's poison. Half-hearted security serves little purpose, and a number of people have paid the price for it in both Europe and America. Too much security can be counter-productive but is the reality post-911 in the U.S.
Come on! Am I missing the joke? Are we forgetting that JPII was shot in Europe? The Pope is not going to be threatened by American street violence. The kind of men that would threaten a Pope could find a gun in Paris, London, or Rome.
The fact is that America is just a little more paranoid/thorough about security than Europe. It is simply a matter of picking one's poison. Half-hearted security serves little purpose, and a number of people have paid the price for it in both Europe and America. Too much security can be counter-productive but is the reality post-911 in the U.S.
I think you made an excellent point Father - I linked to it. Very good detective work, I might add!
My goodness, you've hit a nerve, haven't you?
Jeffrey, if Fr. Blake "hit a nerve" it wasn't the one you were thinking of. Father Blake is normally so reasonable and logical, it's always stunning when he's got a logic blind spot. As Martha Mary and others point out, it's the alleged "gun free" zones you have to worry about.
Vermont? the most lax gun laws - you don't need a permit to carry a concealed weapon .... and golly the statistics show that that's the state where statistically speaking one is likely to be shot. NYC and Washington .. .Mercy Maud, the liberal duffusses worked everyone in a tizzy grabbing guns (of all the schmoes stupid enough to turn them in) and where is it that you are most likely to get your butt shot off? Oh, right "gun free" DC.
Statistics have proven that when states permit concealed carry gun crime goes *down* not up.
And anyone who wanted to shoot at a pope could do it in any city in the world if he had a mind to.
Frankly, no one here gives two hoots about two gang bangers killing each other, which is where most of the gun crime happens....that's two goons off the streets.
No nerves hit. Just thought the comment was silly.
When I was looking for a religious order to join, (back before I learned that the Catholic Church abolished the religious life), I made a rule.
Never consider any religious community that wears its skirts shorter in religious life than I do as a laywoman.
It really narrowed down the choices.
...that was a bit off topic, I realise, but I thought the contrast between the short little skirts of those sisters and the length of the cassocks was a bit telling...
Mary Martha's comment - ditto.
May I point out that John Paul II was shot in harmless, non violent Europe?
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