Thursday, April 11, 2013

Rumour about bishops refusing to shake Ratzinger’s hand is false

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/typo3temp/pics/9554458ebe.jpgThe Soviet Union is dead and buried but part of that world is still alive. 

Certain attitudes in particular.

This is because as the late Fr. Józef Tischner, a chaplain and Solidarnosk theorist said, the “homo sovieticus” is a diehard. 

Not just on the other side of the former iron curtain but on our turf as well.
 
The story about bishops apparently refusing to shake Ratzinger's hand during one of his visits to Germany, reminds me of one of the so-called Radio Yerevan jokes. 

These are short stories based on questions and answers exchanged between listeners and the imaginary Armenian capital-based radio station. 

Here is an example: “Is it true they’re giving out free Mercs in Moscow’s Red Square? – It’s absolutely true, but allow us to make one small clarification: they’re not being given out, they’re being stolen.”
 
The little story about the Mercedes cars is very similar to the one about the bishops apparently not shaking Ratzinger’s hand when he was Pope. 

The story has been going round on Facebook and YouTube. A scene broadcast on Polish television during Benedict XVI’s visit to Germany on 22 September 2011, shows Pope Benedict XVI with a group of bishops who are “stepping back, refusing to shake his hand.” 

Is this true? 

The internauts ask themselves in amazement. “Of course it is,” they are told by those who have uploaded the video, acting just like Radio Yereva did. 

But this is not the case at all. 

Because what is lacking are those small clarifications that change the meaning of the tale the Soviets believed.
 
As was confirmed, the Pope was not stretching his hand out to the prelates but was introducing them to the German president. 

If the bishops were going to shake someone’s hand it was the president’s, not Benedict XVI’s. 

As Italian news agency AGI rightly reports, the bishops in the video (produced by the Vatican Television Centre, not by the Polish television station) were not snubbing Pope Benedict at all” because during that part of the ceremony they were supposed to shake the German president’s hand; so it was the prelates who shook the Pope’s hand who made a mistake, not those who “refused” to shake his hand. 

The “homo sovieticus” strikes again.