The Titanic is an image of confidence after collision. That is the present Church. The postconciliar structure still speaks in the voice of authority, still claims the mantle of Peter, still receives diplomatic respect, still issues programs and messages, still organizes camps and conferences. Meanwhile, the water keeps rising.
Leo XIV addressed children at the Vatican summer camp beneath a giant inflatable Titanic.
The symbolism was so blunt that satire arrived late. The ship is already sinking. The slide is already built. The children are already playing on the disaster. The man in white stands beneath it and tells them that they should spend less time on screens, build real friendships, pray with their families, and remember that human beings are persons rather than machines.
The advice was good. Children should spend less time staring at screens. Families should speak to one another. Prayer matters. Technology should serve man rather than absorb him. Leo’s words at the Vatican camp contained a plain truth about modern childhood.
The surrounding image swallowed the message.
The Vatican has reached the stage where a sinking Titanic inflatable can sit inside its own summer program for years without anyone in charge grasping the metaphor. A ship famous for confident modern engineering, human pride, mass death, and catastrophic misjudgment has become a play structure beneath the Roman apparatus. Children slide down the wreck while churchmen speak about friendship and technology.
That is the whole postconciliar Church in one photograph.
Continue reading at Hiraeth in Exile
