Signs of Contradiction

With the dramatic stepping down of Pope Benedict, and looking forward to the Conclave to elect the new Pope, the eyes of the world media are once again on the Vatican. As Catholics it's time for both thanksgiving and intense supplication. Grateful that after the time of the giant witness of the Blessed John Paul II, the Lord indulged the Church with another holy and wise pontiff. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was a teacher par excellence and showed us Christ in an entirely new way - even in his great act of humility of stepping down, teaching a power-hungry world the true meaning of sanctity and the inner freedom which flows from it. But now 'Sede Vecante' is here - and each Catholic is summoned to recognise that "the time of great responsibility has arrived." And it would be complacency and ungratefulness on our part if we take the Holy Spirit for granted. As Archbishop Charles Chaput says: "Christ deserves our love – a love expressed in our

Leading up to the stepping down of Pope Benedict XVI and the new Conclave, we hear a lot of media talk on the Pope and the various reactions people have to what the Pope stands for or for what he does not. The media and the movies rarely get it right about what it means to be the Pope or what is he there for. The longest standing institution in human history, the centre of western life and civilization which has held untold billions of people in it’s 2013 years of history and operating in its own culture, Papacy is an immensely complicated subject and not surprisingly, the most misunderstood office on earth. So here's a short photo essay on the office of the man who carries one of the most awesome burdens borne by any leader – the spiritual care of more than one billion people – how did it start, who instituted it and brief glimpses of it’s history.  There is a dramatic scene in the Gospel of Matthew at Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus puts the Apostles in a spot by asking: