Priest Burns Picture of Pope in Church in Protest at Resignation As 'Rock Star' Cardinals Gather to Choose Successor

By Hannah Roberts and Sara Malm
Daily Mail UK
March 4, 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287827/Priest-burns-picture-pope-CHURCH-protest-resignation-rock-star-cardinals-gather-choose-successor.html

Burning effigy: An image of retired pope Benedict XVI was set alight in a church in northern Italy during Sunday mass

Fiery temper: A priest in the picturesque mountain village of Castel Vittorio in Liguria, north-west Italy, held up a photo of the former pope and set fire to it with a candle

High greeting: Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi waves to the crowds and the media as he arrives for the first meeting at the Vatican this morning

Time to choose: Cardinals Angelo Sodano, center, and cardinal chamberlain Tarcisio Bertone, right, head opening talks ahead of a conclave to elect a new pope in the Vatican today

Leader: Pope Benedict XVI's last weekly public audience in St Peter's Square in Vatican City attracted record crowds to hear his final words before he stepped down on Thursday

A Catholic priest set fire to a photograph of Benedict XVI in the middle of Sunday mass in northern Italy.

The now Pope Emeritus' first Sunday in retirement was marred by the actions of the clergyman in a petite medieval village on the border to France who accused him of deserting the church.

Father Andrea Maggi, 67, said the former pope was 'like the Captain Calamity of the Concordia who had abandoned his ship.' 

Parishioners in Castel Vittorio, a hilltop village of 350 inhabitants, in Liguria, were shocked when the priest set showed them a picture of the ex-Pope and then set fire to it with a candle.

Father Maggi explained his actions by saying: 'a shepherd shouldn’t abandon his flock.'

Castel Vittorio mayor, Gianstefano Orengo, who was summoned to tackle the errant priest said: 'It was a shocking gesture.

'I understand that Don Andrea is going through a delicate period from a psychological point of view.'

The local bishop said he was ‘mortified’ by the 'reprehensible and grave disturbance of ecclesial communion.

He said: 'I am mortified by the actions of Father Andrea, who in other respects has proved a priest who is generous and sensitive in his pastoral conduct.

'The gesture has caused confusion among the parishioners- many left the church.'

But Don Maggi remained defiant saying he 'had done the right thing'.

He told La Repubblica: 'I had said to myself the day that he goes I will burn this.'

While other clergy claim to found the Pope's retirement courageous, Don Maggi insisted: 'I thought to myself, "Are you the Pope or are you Captain Schettino of the Concordia who abandoned his ship?"

'If eight years was enough of being Pope, he didn't need to accept it. He created 90 cardinals, he wasn't some novice or ingenue, who didn't know what they were getting into.'

Meanwhile in the Vatican, cardinals from around the globe received a 'rock star' welcome as they gathered for the first round of meetings before the conclave to elect the next pope.

Huge crowds and media crews forced the cardinals and and their aides to push their way through the masses when they arrived this morning to set the date for the papal conclave.

'A Latin American Pope is possible, everything is possible!" said Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins as he entered.

The core agenda item is to set the date for the conclave and set in place procedures to prepare for it, including closing the Sistine Chapel to visitors and getting the Vatican hotel cleared out and de-bugged, lest anyone try to listen in on the secret conversations of the cardinals.

Although the main item on the agenda is setting the date, a final day may not come today as the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, has said the date won't be finalized until all cardinals have arrived in Rome.

The meeting will also cover the time table for procedures preparing for the election, including closing the Sistine Chapel to visitors and getting the Vatican hotel cleared out and de-bugged, lest anyone try to listen in on the secret conversations of the cardinals. 

The first day of the cardinal's meeting has already been marred in scandal with this weekend's shock resignation of Scottish Cardinal O'Brien.

Britain's most senior Roman Catholic admitted on Sunday that his ‘sexual conduct’ had ‘fallen below the standards expected of a priest, archbishop and cardinal’.

The 74-year-old former archbishop will face a Vatican investigation into his behaviour and could be subjected to further punishment if evidence of wrongdoing is found.

In Italy, the Vatican is still reeling from the fallout of the scandal over leaked papal documents, and the investigation by three cardinals into who was behind it.

Italian news reports have been rife with unsourced reports about the contents of the cardinals' dossier.

Even if the reports are false, as the Vatican maintains, the leaks themselves confirmed a fairly high level of dysfunction within the Vatican bureaucracy, with intrigues, turf battles and allegations of corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the highest levels of the church hierarchy.

In one of his last audiences before resigning, Benedict met with the three cardinals who prepared the report and decided that their dossier would remain secret. But he gave them the go-ahead to answer cardinals' questions about its contents.