NINE YEARS AGO...

DECLARATIO

(Video)

 

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects.  And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

 

 Reposted...

Sunday, 7 November 2021

 Can any reader tell me what has replaced the Duke of York pub at King's Cross in London?

The Duke of York pub was demolished some years back. The infamous Duke of York showdown took place on the 25th November 2006.  It was the biggest event ever featured on the TES website.

DETTERS ARRIVED LATE BY WHICH TIME GENE HAD GONE HOME   -  AFTER ACCUSING A TOTALLY INNOCENT BYSTANDER (A CHARLES HAWTREY LOOKALIKE) OF BEING DETTERLING.

Those were the days!

 

I have not heard anything of Annie for years. My feeling is that she has passed to the Lord. I doubt if she could ever have recovered from the terrible sufferings inflicted by the Clique.

LEST WE FORGET

 THE LATEST FROM DETTERLING...

                                            Detterling aged fifteen trainspotting in 1959

Detterling is threatening to use a Norwich Pharmacal Order against me.

He writes that he will obtain a "Norwich Pharmacal Order against Google Blogspot to obtain full personal information about you which will serve to confirm the information I already have about you." 

Ha!Ha! Ha! That's the best laugh I've had since I put salt in the Head's sugar bowl at the staff Christmas dinner in 1980.

 

Hi Gene, Dickie here...

The Psalmist writes:

The fool says in his heart

There is no God

Yes Gene, that fool was me until your intervention. I think that the way you put everything so succinctly by asking ' Does an evil monster such as Stalin who does nothing but evil and a saintly lady who does nothing but good, Saint Mother Teresa, go to the same fate after death?' Of course not. There must be heaven and hell and a God.

I note that your friend, that aging curmudgeon Detterling, states there in no heaven nor hell. How can he call himself a Christian? I thought he was a paid-up member of the C of  E. Oops! Sorry I forgot. The C of E does not believe in anything. I should know. I was a boarder at a C of  E Public School.

Gene we must meet up one day in Oxford to discuss the theological implications of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Best wishes,

Dickie

Dear Obergruppenführer Detterling...

Mr & Mrs Anonymous of Torquay here. We are greatly interested in this online psychotherapists' seminar you mention and would like further and better particulars.

 I am currently working on a paper for the online psychotherapists' seminar I joined during the first lockdown, based on the history of "Granny Barkes Pissed Her Pants in British Home Stores", going back eleven years to its first airing on this deplorable blog, and tracing its development over those eleven years from 212 words of garbage to 470 words of garbage spread out even more thinly.

Torquay in Summer

Obergruppenführer Detterling

 

'Electrifying' Vincent van Gogh self-portrait exhibition hailed by critics

IMAGE SOURCE,FERGUS CARMICHAEL

Image caption,

The Courtauld Gallery has gathered 17 self-portraits by the Dutch artist

A new exhibition of self-portraits by Vincent van Gogh in London has received rave reviews from art critics.

The show was awarded five stars by The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Evening Standard and iNews.

Nineteen works feature in the show, 17 of which are self-portraits by the tortured 19th Century Dutch painter.

The Courtauld Gallery curator Dr Karen Serres said the collection was "the first to explore the full span of Van Gogh's self-portraiture".

The Guardian's Adrian Searle said it was "a magical and at times mysterious show" and "an exhibition of electrifying intimacy".

He wrote: "Toothless, bearded, haggard, injured, shaved, well fed, on the mend, jaunty, natty… this superb show cascades through the many faces of Van Gogh - and reveals the anguished brilliance that lay beneath."

He added: "It is filled with presences, absences, substitutions, and echoes of different kinds... It shows the artist at his most self-aware and at his most vulnerable. Every painting is both a kind of analysis and a rescue attempt."

Several critics noted how, despite almost all of the paintings in the show being self-portraits, the techniques and styles vary wildly.

IMAGE SOURCE,VINCENT VAN GOGH FOUNDATION

Image caption,

Van Gogh, who suffered from poor mental health, took his own life in July 1890

"The only constant is that he never smiles," noted The Telegraph's Alastair Sooke

"The show proposes a new argument. It's time, it suggests, to finish off the myth of Van Gogh the mad genius, involuntarily splurging 'raw emotions' onto the canvas; rather, each self-portrait was a complex product of conscious artistic decisions.

"He painted in between crises, staring into a mirror to fortify himself and start again... More than 130 years after his death, his gaze, in paint at least, still stabs your soul."

It is widely assumed today that the painter, who took his own life in July 1890, was suffering from mental health issues during his lifetime, which influenced his work.

Rachel Campbell-Johnston of The Times said Van Gogh "paints with a force and a frankness in the belief that his work would help him to get well".

She continued: "The Courtauld has pulled off a coup. Against the pale grey walls of two small, understated galleries blaze some of the most vividly evocative self-portraits art history can offer.

"It is the soul of the artist that you find burning within them. I defy you not to feel moved. The spirit of Van Gogh haunts this show."

IMAGE SOURCE,PA MEDIA

The Evening Standard's Ben Luke said the exhibition was "rigorous and thoughtful, with smart pairings and groupings".

"And it has a compelling argument: that we inevitably see the artist's paintings of himself through the prism of his mental health and suicide, but they should instead be seen as him pursuing a unique artistic language despite rather than because of his illness," he wrote.

"Yes, they were vehicles for expression, but it was a more rational pursuit rather than one governed only by torment."

The only critic from a major media outlet not to award the show five stars was Time Out's Eddy Frankel, who gave it four.

"He painted 35 known self-portraits, and a good chunk of them are on display in this neat little exhibition; some of them are masterpieces, some of them are total duds," Frankel wrote.

"Lots of these earlier pieces are tentative, unsure, questioning - some aren't even any good." He concluded: "What the impressionists did for light - exposed it, exalted it, wallowed in it - Van Gogh did for his own emotions. His story is tragic, but we're lucky he told it, and told it so beautifully."

IMAGE SOURCE,FERGUS CARMICHAEL

In her five-star review, Hettie Judah of iNews noted how self-portraits gave Van Gogh an opportunity to experiment.

"Often, Van Gogh used himself for convenience," she wrote. "He could experiment with ideas about how to construct a modern portrait free from the pressures that might have come with a commissioned work.

"He also played with his image as an artist: in some he is a cravat-wearing bohemian in his Paris garret, in others a working painter in a heavy blue smock. There are, too, flashes and clouds of introspection."

Van Gogh Self Portraits opens at The Courtauld Gallery on Thursday and runs until 8 May.