It’s always pretty embarrassing when the dead don’t lie down, although a lot of money can be made from this on TV apparently. But we mean when someone who’s retired keeps coming back to get in the way. Our educational correspondent tells us it’s happened occasionally with headmasters, whose urge to burn with a lambent flame as educationalists has brought them back to join the chalk face. Since it’s usually been about thirty years since they faced any class, never mind today’s feral teenagers, this doesn’t last long .
Anyway even more embarrassing is when you’re a retired Pope and hang about. Not merely is there no one who can drop a word in his ear, and not just about the very occasional comment, but about the clothes? I don’t know if Italian Halloween customs are the same as ours, but if so, it’s only a matter of time before somebody `asks him why he’s dressed up for it. Purple buttons for bishops, red for cardinals- why not white for ex-popes and try to blend in a bit with 2016 ?
Even more embarrassing still, is when the ex-Pope’s secretary steps in as quoted in the Tablet of June 4th: ‘There are not two popes but an expanded ministry- with an active member and a contemplative member ‘.This of course is Archbishop Georg Ganswein , known also as Gorgeous George by the Italian press. In 2007, Versace used him as the artistic inspiration for her autimn 2007 ‘Clergyman Collection’. He also- without his permission, apparently- appeared on the cover of the magazine ‘Vanity Fair’. Does this pontifical popinjay ever think for a minute about what he’s saying? One cannot be a style icon like him and be stupid, I’m sure. But Georg gets about, a keen motorist, skier and amateur pilot, and not being the Pope’s secretary doesn’t seem to cramp his lifestyle, style. But this episcopal epicurean, I suppose, is missing the close contact and rich spiritual satisfaction of his previous job. Get used to it, Georg- you’re on the back burner, although not back far enough.
But more : ‘I personally can see no significant reason which would necessitate a reform of the Curia at the moment.’ Almost immediately the TV commercial for a firm of opticians sprang to mind.
A young child is once said to have caused a sensation at a Royal reception starring Princess Margaret by asking loudly ‘But what is she for ? ‘ Fill in the space yourself.