The pope's fashion statement

Pretty weak.

I think the response here is very good:

http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=354494&p=179

(Regular type is your article, italics are her commentary)

With increasing regularity, Benedict has been re-introducing elaborate lace garments and monarchical regalia that have not been seen around Rome in decades, even centuries. He has presided at mass using the wide cope (a cape so ample it is held up by two attendants) and high mitre of Pius IX, a 19th-century Pope known for his dim views of the modern world, and on Ash Wednesday he wore a chasuble modeled on one worn by Paul V, a Borghese pope of the 17th century remembered for censuring Galileo.

[Even when he means to be 'helpful', as he seems to in this article, Gibson will never pass off a chance to make a knife-stab at the Pope. These malicious little stabs are totally unnecessary - especially when in the course of doing it, Gibson reveals he has not done enough research or is just simply downright wrong!

First, the cope. The cope has been worn by every modern Pope, not just by Pius IX; and the copes worn by Benedict XVI have not been any wider or more ample than the copes commonly used by his predecessors. Perhaps Gibson is thinking of the cappa magna - which is the extremely long cope that requires train-holders - last worn by Pope Paul VI, and still worn today by cardinals and metropolitan bishops. In fact, there is a picture of the Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, wearing the cappa magna, held up behind him by acolytes. (I will make an appropriate post with pictures in the CHURCH VESTMENTS thread.)

Second, he misrepresents Blessed Pius IX - who did not 'take a dim view' of modernity, only of certain aspects of it which he enumerates in his encyclical about the ills of modernity.

Third, he also misrepresents Paul V by making it appear he was the Pope responsible for Galileo's sentencing by the Roman Inquisition. Paul V was Pope in 1616 when the Church first asked Galileo not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still at the centre, and for the next several years Galileo stayed well away from the controversy. His 1633 trial and sentencing by the Inquisition came under Pope Urban VIII who had been Galileo's friend adn admirer even when he was a cardinal.]

On Good Friday he donned a "fiddleback" vestment dating to the Counter-Reformation era of the 16th century, and he has used a tall gilded papal throne not seen in years.

[Once again, Gibson gives the wrong impression - as if the fiddleback has not been used since the 16th century. He should have said it was the common form of the Roman chasuble from the 16th century until the 1970 liturgical reform which re-introduced the so-called Gothic chasuble which is far more ample and flowing. Incidentally, this was not decreed in any way by Vatican-II. Nowhere does it say so in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Vatican-II decree on liturgy.... And the throne of Leo XIII has been used by previous modern Popes including John Paul II - only it was used in the Sala Clementina and the Sala REgia of the Apostolic Palace.]

And that's not to mention the ermine-trimmed red velvet mozzetta, a shoulder cape, or the matching camauro, a Santa Claus-like cap that art students will recognize from Renaissance portraiture.

[The ermine-trimmed mozzetta has been worn by every Pope in winter until John Paul II decided not to use it, the same way he decided he did not have to wear red shoes all the time. And Benedict wore the camauro appropriately when he had to be out in the winter cold for a General Audience. Mentioning these items without any context for why and when they are worn is just wrong, because it provides incomplete and therefore misleading information. As if Benedict decides what he wears in public out of sheer caprice.]

****

And so on. I think she's got you, David. In fact, her critique is more interesting than your article because she seems committed to getting at the truth, rather than seeming smart in the eyes of the cynics.

All this "a 19th-century Pope known for his dim views of the modern world" and "a Borghese pope of the 17th century remembered for censuring Galileo"-stuff is what people call an "argumentum ad hominem", even though in this case it is slightly hidden by not addressing a characteristic of the Holy Father himself but instead implying he is just like the Popes that the author labels as i.e. having dim views of the modern world. So add bad logic to bad history and you do indeed get "pretty weak".