Posted on 05/12/2009 11:09:18 AM PDT by presidio9
I realize that Wikipedia is not accepted as authoritative, in any official sense, however, I think its a safe bet that the article about Pope Benedict XVI/Joseph Ratzinger was written by the Vatican.
In that article—written by the Church—it states very clearly that the name Benedict XVI is actually a formal pontifical name—chosen, you are correct, as his first act as pope.
I’d be willing to bet you, that if Ratzinger has a driver’s license, or owns any real property back in Germany, the baptismal name “Ratzinger” is used—and has NOT been changed to “Pope Benedict XVI.” In the same way that Queen Elizabeth II was NOT named that before her coronation (rather her baptismal name was and still is: Elizabeth Alexandra Mary), and is still a Windsor, Pope Benedict XVI is still a Ratzinger, though his formal name—connected with is title as Pope, is Benedict XVI (not merely “Benedict.”)
It is no sign of disrespect to call a man by his family/baptismal/personal/legal name. Non-Roman Catholics are under no obligation to honor someone with a formal pontifical name—of an institution we do not recognize as actually catholic (universal)after all—especially in America, where our Constitution formally disavows titles (why we say Mr. President).
It may sound “stupid” to you, but non-Roman Catholics do routinely refer to Ratziner by his personal name—and that’s how the rules of English are established, by usage, not by a central hierarchical human authority—even that of popes.
So please do not presume to correct usage, or profess knowledge of things you really do not know.
Thanks for the video.
Looks like the Pope was kind of lost as to what to do, but Raymond Arroyo was sure surprised when he walked out.
That’s just creepy!
It’s wasn’t your AIM to kill a pinetree in your lung, was it?
Thank you my FRiend!!!!
“It may sound “stupid” to you, but non-Roman Catholics do routinely refer to Ratziner by his personal name—and that’s how the rules of English are established, by usage, not by a central hierarchical human authority—even that of popes.
So please do not presume to correct usage, or profess knowledge of things you really do not know.”
I believe Joseph is his personal name.
A regnal name, or reign name, is a formal name used by some popes and monarchs during their reigns. Since medieval times, monarchs have frequently chosen to use a name different from their own personal name when they inherit a throne.
The new name (or sometimes the old one, confirmed) is followed by an ordinal to give a unique name for the period when the monarch is on the throne. However, in the case of a personal union, the same ruler may carry different ordinals in each state, as they are each assigned chronologically; but some may have more precursors of the same Christian name (usually from a different dynasty).
In parts of Asia, monarchs take era names. Even where that is not the case, rulers may — instead of a whole dynasty, as is the case with Georgian, referring to several Georges of the Hanoverian dynasty — become eponymous of their age, e.g. in Britain: Victorian (even applied to the rest of the world, and less correctly to its alleged prudish mentality) or Edwardian.
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Roman Catholic Church
Main article: Papal name
Immediately after a new pope is elected, and accepts the election, he is asked by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, "By what name shall you be called?" The Pope-elect chooses the name by which he will be known from that point on. The senior Cardinal Deacon, or Cardinal Protodeacon, then appears on the balcony of Saint Peter's to proclaim the new Pope, informing the world of the man elected Pope, and under which name he would be known during his reign.
Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum:
Habemus Papam!
Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum,
Dominum [forename],
Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ Cardinalem [surname],
qui sibi nomen imposuit [papal name].
I announce to you a great joy:
We have a Pope!
The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord,
Lord [forename],
Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church [surname],
who has conferred (lit. "placed") upon himself the name (papal name.)
During the first centuries of the church, men elected bishop of Rome continued to use their baptismal names after their elections. The custom of choosing a new name began in AD 533 with the election of Mercurius. Mercurius had been named after the Roman god Mercury, and decided that it would not be appropriate for a pope to be named after a Roman god. Mercurius subsequently decreed that he would be known as John II. Since the end of the tenth century the pope has customarily chosen a new name for himself during his Pontificate; however, until the 16th century some men used their baptismal names.
The last pope to use his baptismal name was Pope Marcellus II in 1555, a choice that was even then quite exceptional. The names chosen by popes are not based on any system other than general honorifics. They have been based on immediate predecessors, mentors, political similarity, or even after family members—as was the case with Pope John XXIII. The practice of a man using his baptismal name as pope has not been ruled out and future popes could elect to continue using their baptismal names after being elected pope.
Often the man's choice of name upon being elected to the papacy is seen as a signal to the world of whom the new pope will emulate or what policies he will seek to enact. Such is the case with Benedict XVI who, in fact, explained the reasons for his choice of name during his first General Audience in St. Peter's Square, on 27 April 2005. On that occasion, he said that he wanted to remember "Pope Benedict XV, that courageous prophet of peace, who guided the Church through turbulent times of war," and also "Saint Benedict of Nursia, co-patron of Europe, whose life evokes the Christian roots of Europe."
There has never been a Pope Peter II. Even though there is no specific prohibition against doing so, men elected to the Papacy have refrained from doing so. This is because of a tradition that only Saint Peter should have that honor. In the 10th century John XIV used the regnal name John because his given name was Peter. While some antipopes did take the name Peter II, their claims are not recognized by the mainstream Roman Catholic Church, and each of these men only either has or had a minuscule following that recognized their claims.
Probably because of the controversial Antipope John XXIII, men avoided taking the regnal name John for over 600 years until the election of the other John XXIII. Immediately after John's election as Pope in 1958, there was some confusion as to whether he would be known as John XXIII or John XXIV, which he moved to immediately resolve by declaring that he would be known as John XXIII.
In 1978, Albino Luciani became the first pope to use two names for his regnal name when he took the name John Paul I. He did this to honor both John XXIII and Paul VI. With the unexpected death of John Paul I a little over a month later, Karol Wojtyła took the name John Paul II to honor his immediate predecessors.
Antipopes also have regnal names, and also use the ordinal to show their position in the line of previous pontiffs with their names. For example, David Bawden took the name Michael I when declared pope in 1990.
United Kingdom
Though most monarchs of the United Kingdom have used their first baptismal name as their regnal name, on three occasions monarchs have varied from this trend: Queen Victoria was christened Alexandrina Victoria, but was titled Princess Victoria from birth and took the throne under that name. When Victoria's son, Prince Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, became king in 1901, he took the regnal name Edward VII, in defiance of the wish of his late mother that her descendants would rule as double-barreled Albert-[Name]s indefinitely. The new king declared that he chose the name Edward alone as an honoured name borne by six of his predecessors, and that he did not wish to diminish the status of his father, with whom alone among royalty the name Albert should be associated. In 1936, after the abdication crisis, Prince Albert, Duke of York, assumed the throne as King George VI in order to continue Edward VII's tradition of not using the title King Albert. George's title applied in all of the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, as, at that time, the legislation laying out the monarch's title predated the 1931 Statute of Westminster and still applied in the Dominions unchanged.
...
References
1. ^ Lacey, 151.
2. ^ Staten, Joseph (2007). Halo: Contact Harvest. New York: Tor. pp. 384. ISBN 0-7653-1569-6.
External links
* Regnal Chronologies
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnal_name"
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Just for the record, you'll note I complimented Pope Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Church, for his courage to leave this meeting, and I also defended the official story that he did not receive a simultaneous translation of the offensive remarks. I mean no disrespect to the man Joseph Ratzinger, who is formally Pope Benedict XVI of Rome, only accuracy in English usage of names.
And yes, Christians not under the authority of the Roman bishop do have the right to comment about his actions & beliefs, right or wrong.
A personal name is one’s whole baptismal name. His first name is Joseph. And again, I guarantee you that any legal documents in Germany or elsewhere—outside Vatican City—say “Joseph Ratzinger” not “Benedict XVI” I even own a book authored by him—printed by a Roman Catholic publishing house AFTER his elevation to Pope, which is authored by....SURPRISE...JOSEPH RATZINGER.
I really don’t know why for Roman Catholics this is a big deal. Ratzinger is a good man, with a perfectly good name.
In uncompromising language, he welcomed the pope to "Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Palestine" -- a direct riposte to Israeli claims to the same city -- and enumerated many of the complaints Palestinians have against Israel. "DESECRATION" He said Israel had "desecrated" the Old City's holy sites since capturing it from Jordanian forces in the 1967 Middle East war and was defying international law by demolishing homes, seizing land, building Jewish settlements and erecting a series of walls and fences that had turned the city into "a prison." Tamimi won a round of applause from some of the assembled clerics for comments referring to Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip in January in which 1,400 Palestinians died. Addressing the pope at the end of a six-minute address, he said: "Your Holiness, I call on you in the name of the one God, to condemn these crimes and press the Israeli government to halt its aggression against the Palestinian people." Tamimi shook the pope's hand as he left the podium and the meeting broke up as scheduled immediately afterwards. The director general of Israel's Chief Rabbinate, Oded Wiener, said: "Sheikh Tamimi embarrassed the pope." He said Tamimi, a familiar and fiery figure in Palestinian public life, had pressured the Catholic organizers to be allowed to speak and that the Jewish members would no longer take part in a long-standing, three-way interfaith dialogue until the sheikh was barred from attending. "The Chief Rabbinate will not continue it as long as Tamimi is part of the Palestinian delegation," Wiener said..." "...The final speaker from the platform at an auditorium in a Roman Catholic institution was Tamimi, the chief judge of the Muslim religious courts in the Palestinian territories.
So what have we learned that we didn't know before? This "spontaneous speech" took place in a "Roman Catholic institution." And yet even while knowing the type of person this muslim loudmouth is, the Roman Catholic authorities permitted him to speak.
The muslim cleric spoke for "six minutes" and even won several rounds of applause. Yet Ratzinger and his entourage, in a Roman Catholic institution, had no idea what was being said or why the muslims in the audience were cheering? (Unless some of the Roman Catholics in the audience joined in the applause. Who knows?)
We also learn Tamimi shook Ratzinger's hand (it's certainly not a stretch to believe Ratzinger knew who was shaking his hand. How easy is it to shake Ratzinger's hand? Tamimi is a "familiar and fiery figure." Being a good German, Ratzinger no doubt shook right back.
And finally we learn that contrary to the propaganda that's being put out by Rome, Ratzinger did not get up and nobly walk out of the meeting. Tamimi was the "final speaker" and "the meeting broke up as scheduled immediately afterwards."
Thank God, most Jews, especially those in Israel, are not so easily duped by such threadbare PR. Never again.
Ping to 68 and the YouTube in 69. You guys should fire your PR department.
>>Tamimi was the “final speaker” and “the meeting broke up as scheduled immediately afterwards.”<<
Then why was Raymond Arroyo so shocked that the Pope left?
>>and your unproven assumption that I’m part of some “crowd.”<<
HA! Your reputation precedes you!
>>Thank God, most Jews, especially those in Israel, are not so easily duped by such threadbare PR. Never again.<<
You made me Laugh! You’re quoting Reuters, as anti-Pope as you get. Well, except yourself, by your posting history.
I quoted Haaretz. The Israeli Jews themselves, who seem to feel the Pope did a good thing. There ya go!
Get DOWN wit your ole Anti-Pope self!
Oh and I see you called some of your friends here. No, not part of a “crowd” at all. Just some random posters that never posted on this thread. Right?
Anyone who’s been on the Anti-Catholic threads over on the Religion forum, knows the “Usual Suspects”
Not a slur, an observation.
So your conjecture is now "truth?"
Some things are beginning to make more sense.
Face it. The meeting was over and Ratzinger sat there. The last speaker had spoken, and no one but a few Jews seemed unsettled by what transpired. Watch the YouTube.
I don't hold out a lot of hope for clarity here. So much smoke and mirrors can obscure even the most obvious truth.
Interestingly, I've quoted from Reuters, the Times of London, the NYT, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Sacramento Bee, and a dozen other newspapers. Without fail, unless it is a Vatican press report, some RC poster will wail, "You're quoting from the (fill in the blank)!?!"
lol. Shoot, ridicule and deride the messenger. It doesn't bother me. It changes nothing. It only makes those who are afraid of the truth look...afraid.
I pinged a few names I thought would be interested in the truth rather than in these idiotic (and false) headlines. Was I wrong to include you in that number?
Pope Benedict yesterday walked out of an interfaith meeting in Jerusalem after the chief Islamic judge of the Palestinian Authority launched into an anti-Israeli diatribe. The pontiff, on his first day in Jerusalem, did not realize at first that Sheikh Taysir al-Tamimi, speaking in Arabic, was condemning the "crimes of the Jewish state" and accusing Israel of having "slaughtered women, children and senior citizens." But as soon as he was told the nature of the sheikh's tirade, he stood and left the meeting, which took place at Notre Dame church, before it had concluded. It's not as if the organizers shouldn't have seen this coming: Back in 2000, Tamimi did the same thing during a visit by the late Pope John Paul II.Well done.
Maybe, but my take on it was that he felt clearly uncomfortable in the situation. Lost? The only way I would say "lost," is perceiving a thought, "How do I get out of here?"
Watch the You Tube of Timimi's six minute speech and see that Ratzinger did not stand up and leave, nor did he protest anything. From the article by Reuters in post 68 we learn the event was scheduled to conclude after Timimi's speech.
lol. You stand up and leave! Which is what we’ve been told he did, but as anyone can see, he didn’t.
Your point is?
Just yesterday a Vatican spokesman insisted Ratzinger was "never, never, never!" in the Hitler Youth. Of course, this contradicts Ratzinger's own autobiography and the spokesman quickly withdrew his protest.
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