Day's Links - 2016-03-24 - Maundy Thursday

"Attention whore" is a term used for someone who is so craving of attention that he or she will do practically anything to attain it. It is someone who loves being at the centre, and cannot stand not being the talking point. One can imagine the person shouting "Me! Me! Me!" as soon as people look away.

A lot of people have made successful careers out of being attention whores, not least in the entertainment industry. In fact, the less talented the actress - typically it is an actress - the likelier she is to turn to attention-whoring to keep the limelight on her, and that certainly helps in an industry in which being in the news and in front of the cameras is half the work.

One famous example of an attention whore is a former child actress, who with limited talents decided that she would launch a music career, thus staying in the limelight. This woman's way of attention-whoring was getting on all fours and imitating the movement of a giant cat on stage. I am not sure how long that kept her in the headlines, and doubtless she has been up to other attention-whoring acts.

Attention whores exist outside the entertainment industry, of course, and they come in many varieties. They exist in the church as well, as exemplified by our current pope.

Bergoglio's way of being an attention whore involves getting on his knees on Maundy Thursday and proceeding to make as much of a mess as possible of an optional rite which even a 7-year old would be able to carry out in accordance with its instructions. Here we have a man who I am repeatedly told never kneels during the Mass - ignoring the rubrics which require it - yet on Holy Thursday, he will have no doubt getting on his knees to the applause of all anti-Catholics willing him on to show his disobedience to the Church which has given him so much. This year we even had a change of rubrics as her his instructions, and even the man could not stop himself from making the washing of the feet all about him, as he decided to was the feet of refugees, a third of whom were non-Catholics, in direct contravention of the rules that he himself re-wrote.

Bergoglio the attention whore...If I did not call him that, I would be doing honesty a disservice. Only an attention whore would take one of the most recognisable ceremonies of the most Holy Week in all of Christendom and make it all about himself and his various political and worldy interests.

Now that the novelty is wearing out, I assume he has to find greater and greater stunts to grab attention. This year we received confirmation that he cares not to foĺlow what he himself has instructed others to follow. The attention whore is a hypocrite, we must conclude.

We also know that he interprets the words "people of God" totally differently to how these words have been understood by all Catholics previously - that is, if he actually thought he was following the rubrics. Since we know he cares not for rules, we can at least take consolation in the hope that he understands the term in the Catholic sense, and that he simply disregards the Church's laws to keep all the attention on himself, and none on Christ, whom he claims to serve.

This time next year - if we have not been relieved of this horror show - we shall surely be treated to more attention-grabbing impiety. Maybe he will try to lick the people's feet clean. That would surely grab attention, which seems to be all the man is after.

As I wrote previously, attention whores exist outside the entertainment industry, and they come in many shapes and sizes. The Novus Ordo version of an attention whore - one of many versions, let's be honest - is having an 80-year old man who practically never kneels when he is required to do it doing it gleefully when it is not required and turning a day in which the Church celebrates some of it's greatest mysteries - the institution of the Eucharist and the institution of the priesthood being chief among them - in a week which should be all about Our Lord's mysteries all about himself.

His stunts led me to create a new tag for this kind of behaviour - "Bergoglio attention-whoring". I am running out of catetories in which to describe his various scandals, but be sure that this particular tag is one I shall use very sparingly, for only the most blatant attention-seeking schemes.

If only we could ignore the man like we do the other attention whores. Alas, we cannot, for he is pope and we are forced to grieve with the saints as they witness the attempted destruction of all they held dear. Still, we can do our best to resist and shame him like we ought to do all the other attention whores.

We owe our saints and martyrs no less.