It turns out that “shitposting” is a technical term.
There’s a great literature, approaching a whole subfield of academic communications studies, treating the practice of tossing cheap and easy provocations into digital space in order to generate maximum chaos and consternation with minimum effort.
I didn’t know that until I did, which was only on Tuesday afternoon EDT, when I learned it while searching for a term of art that would play with the digital natives for whom I was trying to explain what Pope Francis had just done again.
In case you missed it, Pope Francis reportedly doubled down on “faggotry”—frociaggine—this time saying there’s an air of it in the Vatican.
The Vatican press office apologized—kind of, sort of—for his first use of the offensive term, but it’s quite possible the pope didn’t get the memo about his apology.
Five words ripped from context and almost universally misconstrued—“Who am I to judge?”—have fueled much of Francis pontificate’s narrative engine, which sputtered when news of the first use got out a couple of weeks ago.
The second reported use of the slur is more than a major headache for the Vatican’s communications apparatus. It is the sort of thing that sets off cascading failure. In nuclear terms, it is somewhere between Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
If CYA were an Olympic event, the difficulty score for the spin operation on this one would be off the charts—impossible to execute and mortally dangerous to attempt—and basically not worth trying.
Olympic scoring
Olympic gymnastics scoring is a complicated business, by the way. There are two parts to it: Difficulty and Execution. The calculation of a gymnast’s score for any routine adds the Difficulty score to the Execution score and subtracts “neutral deductions” for things that are usually technical errors relating to attire, warm-up routine, time violations, etc.
An international panel of judges—usually six—evaluates each gymnast’s execution of a routine. The gymnast’s execution score is an average of the judges’ individual scores, only there’s a wrinkle. The highest and lowest of the six judges’ execution scores are dropped.
During international competition, the regular dropping of highest and lowest scores keeps judges from favoring their own athletes too much and / or treating competitors from rival national teams with undue harshness.
In a word, the scoring method is designed to keep everyone honest.
I thought of that the other day, in connection with the Francis pontificate, when I was trying to come up with a way to explain what the last eleven years have been without referencing any of the narratives associated with Francis’s reign.
If you credit one of the two principal and competing narratives, Pope Francis is either a revolutionary reformer with something like the ecclesiastical version of the Midas touch, or he is a gaslighting grifter who’s at least half a heretic and thoroughly corrupt.
Subtracting the narrative(s)
We could embrace the complicated and drop both narratives, as though they were the highest and lowest scores from judges on an execution panel at the Summer Olympics.
If we subtract the narrative element—the effects of it, at least—then, what’s left is a hodgepodge of extraordinary legislative measures, simmering crises that frequently explode into scandal, and ersatz pontification that often has lots of sizzle but rarely serves any steak that’s edible.
Pope Francis’s reform of the Roman Curia has not given us a functional governing apparatus. Francis still mostly governs without it. His reform of Vatican finances has neither curbed corruption nor set the Vatican on course to break back into the black. His reform of Vatican justice has given us sham trials. His reform of ecclesiastical oversight and discipline has given us Zanchetta, Ricard, and Rupnik (inter alia).
Even if that were not the case, it would be tough to excise the narrative elements completely, and so for two distinct but closely related reasons: Francis is great copy regardless of whether you like him, and Francis is feeding both narratives—sometimes in turns, sometimes simultaneously—with a powerful will.
Dog bites man / Man bites dog
It may be small wonder that an 87-year-old South American religious cleric harbors the views he reportedly expressed, and less-than-headline-worthy that an ex-bouncer and a son of working-class immigrants should have such language to entertain. When the ex-bouncer cleric is the pope of Rome, however, remarks like that are going to make the papers, even if it is something of a “dog bites man” kind of story.
The undeniable shock value of the remarks is only a small part of it.
One would expect the pope—any pope—to take a hard line on Church teaching and discipline. At the same time, one would in the normal course of things expect the pope to speak kindly of people, especially of people carrying a heavy cross.
That’s one reason the pope’s nasty remarks make a “man bites dog” story, or half of one at any rate, the other half being his thoroughly documented penchant for putting variously compromised figures in high places.
In the Vatican, at least, Pope Francis has already inverted the order of things by putting people like Msgr. Battista Ricca in offices of trust and responsibility, then talking trash about the too many unfortunates admitted to priestly formation.
Instead of taking a hard line on principle and in practice, while speaking kindly and dealing gently with souls, Pope Francis winks at misbehavior and calls people nasty names behind closed doors.
Same old, same old
Subtract the narrative element and put the headline-worthy acts of stunning misrule in brackets for just a minute.
You’re mostly left with, “Meh.”
Pope Francis is an erratic 87-year-old South American religious cleric with frequently poor judgment and some very peculiar ideas about how things ought to be. He governs by personal rule—a hallmark of leadership culture in his religious society, for good and for ill—and has some quirks of character and disposition that make him reluctant to adapt to circumstance.
Normally, none of that would make much difference, but Francis happens to be the pope of Rome.
What if the pope is just a guy?
For the purposes of that question, I don’t mean Pope Francis. I mean any guy who comes into the office Francis got in 2013.
The office Francis holds for the time being is one with special powers and peculiar guarantees, but the men who come into the See of Peter all have feet of clay—just like the chair’s very first occupant and namesake—and they don’t shed their nature when they put on the Fisherman’s Ring.
The sooner we all start dealing with that, the better it will be for everyone and everything.
I’m still not quite sure what shitposting is or whether Francis’s use of frociaggine counts for it, but—near as I can tell—it is the digital/internet love child of “shock radio” and “smack talk” in sports.
It’s a great way to get ratings and get the crowd going, but it’s no way to govern.
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For starters, Francis is just unlikable.
Beyond that, descriptors of him and his pontificate could provide much material for many a book.
Well, I suppose if that’s in the air at the Vatican who would know better than the Pope?
Lately I feel like I’m reading articles in the Daily Mail when it’s the latest news from the Vatican.
In this context, I prefer the scatalogical Anglo-Saxon term to the more delicate “faux pas.”
I think the coarseness fits Bergoglio better.
As I ventured in another thread…
“No question. Bergoglio’s will be remembered as…
“The Papacy With The Big Red Nose.”
In addition to Olympic gymnastics score keeping, perhaps Altieri could credit an oblique respect for the biblical and Judeo-Christian tradition?
“Shitstorm”? Clearly a reference to the Old Testament: “There on the plains of Moab they camped along the Jordan from Beth Jeshimoth to Abel Shittim” (Numbers 33:49).
Shitstorm-Shittim…What could be more “plain” than that?
“Pope Francis is an erratic 87-year-old South American religious cleric with frequently poor judgment and some very peculiar ideas about how things ought to be. He governs by personal rule—a hallmark of leadership culture in his religious society, for good and for ill—and has some quirks of character and disposition that make him reluctant to adapt to circumstance.”
My take is that Pope Francis views himself as a visionary leader with an endless number of great ideas to give the world. This is shown by his noticeable eagerness to share his opinion and give advice on most topics that come his way, as well as his obvious enjoyment at being a leader on the world stage. Like many “idea people,” he is an enthusiastic talker who doesn’t think much about what he says before he says it, and for the most part, an unsystematic thinker who doesn’t see the need to think things through carefully or to clarify what he has said. Once he gets out his “big idea,” that is all that matters to him.
Some people seem to believe that Francis has a secret master plan that he is slowly executing, but I don’t see how that is possible, given his other attributes. What he does have is a group of ideas that he is attached to, a tremendous desire to impress people, a large group of supporters and syncophants to prop him up, and as the Pope, a lot of power. As a leader, his style is to reward his friends and to punish his enemies, which keeps those supporters and syncophants around as long as they remain on his good side and are benefiting from their status.
However, for a Pope, this is a bad combination.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. The kind of person you describe can be a good head of an organization IF he delegates correctly. But unfortunately, this kind of person is very unlikely to be any good at delegating.
Evoking the scene in Poseidon (2006), where Ramsey (Russell) is just going through death’s doorway yet is able to push his arm forward and guide his finger to press the crucial button in the final last moment of his life. The trauma he experienced immediately before that, of choking on water and realizing it is all imminently ending for him, hasn’t confused his purpose and awareness or disarmed him.
Pushing a button. Escriva says pride dies 24 hours after death. So if we allow that we do not have full control of our character, we must also admit we can still act and have to act on faith and DO SOMETHING positively that is yet to be done while a time remains to our powers. And the alternative, REVERSE something done that should not have been done in the first place. In spite of character, we act on faith.
Pope Francis must retract the “legalize homosexual civil union” and disavow Benedict agreeing that professing “legalize homosexual union” would be agreeable. If Benedict had somehow fallen for it, His Holiness is obliged to disavow it for him.
Excellent.
It seems that there has been a leak of the transcript of the Pope’s talks to the Roman bishops and seminary heads. The leakers were major homosexual advocates denouncing Pope Frances and the Church. They understand his magisterial teachings very well with no nonsense about being confused. Anyone who wants details should go over to the Reason & Theology website for a through analysis. Beware the wrath of a patient man!!
He delights in being unpredictable and chaotic, in order to keep people off balance and reeling, and so maintain power in his mind….purely secular in aims and tactics. His official acts define his papacy, not his unofficial utterances, and his official acts show his true mind, not the unofficial.
What else is new?
As we approach the tail end of this disastrous dumpster fire of a Pontificate, many of the faithful like myself keep asking: “How much longer, Lord? Haven’t we suffered enough already?”
Dear Johann du Toit: “As we approach the tail end of this disastrous dumpster fire of a Pontificate . .”
Can we be so sure? With regular clandestine medical baby-blood transfusions PF might have many more years.
One can’t help wondering, too, about those other rich people & high-profile poliicians & religious leaders who seem to be remarkably active for their age . . !
From that perspective, late abortions are their lifeline . . !
May GOD have mercy on us. Come soon, please, dear King Jesus Christ!
This papacy has and continues to speak out of both sides of the mouth.Confusion is not of the Holy Spirit
“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
—-posting is an art. It therefore can serve a variety of ends in communication. As I practice it, it ranges from non sequiturs to highly refined irony; it is never purposeless and its purpose is never to cause chaos. Its purpose is to point (however sublimely) to Truth.
It has been said that’s gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. What Francis said may have been coarse, but was it wrong? I have heard Priests say far worse on this subject.
“The Church is intolerant in principle because she believes; she is tolerant in practice because she loves. The enemies of the Church are tolerant in principle because they do not believe; they are intolerant in practice because they do not love.”
~ Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, “God, His Existence and Nature”, Vol. II, p. 412
Vs.
“Instead of taking a hard line on principle and in practice, while speaking kindly and dealing gently with souls, Pope Francis winks at misbehavior and calls people nasty names behind closed doors.”
Interesting comparison.
Summarized as: anti-Apostolic.
I’m unsure what the adjective “South American” adds to Altieri’s descriptions.