Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Pope Francis’ Cardinal-shaming Mini-popemobile
Pope Francis’ Cardinal-shaming Mini-popemobile
Jan 16, 2026 6:14 AM

A couple of months ago I teased Pope Francis engaging in a “war on the Vatican’s luxury cars” while driving one of the greatest luxury cars of all time — the Popemobile. Although he probably won’t be able to give up his 160 mph, armor-plated, bullet-proof sedia gestatoria anytime soon, he’s make a bold, symbolic point with the latest addition to his fleet: a 1984 Renault 4.

Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, says Francis accepted the 1984 Renault 4, donated for free by a priest in northern Italy who used it to visit poor parishioners. The four-door car, in papal white, is manual shift and has a new engine. Benedettini told The AP on Wednesday: “The pope intends to drive it.”

The donor, the 79-year-old Rev. Renzo Zocca, says he took Francis for a short drive in the car at the Vatican on Saturday and that Francis told him he knows how to drive it.

Zocca said he thinks Francis will use it for mutes on Vatican grounds.

Imagine how fortable it must make some of the cardinals to park their new BMWs and Mercedes in the Vatican parking lot next to the thirty-year-old Renault with the license plate “SCV 2.”

Well played, Francis. Well played.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Alms and Homage
In my Acton Commentary today, “The Great Exchange of the Magi,” I reflect on the fact that, due to the material poverty of the holy family, the gifts of the magi can be considered alms in addition to homage: The magi set forth an example of the heart that all of us need to have when es to stewardship of our material blessings. They knew their own poverty of spirit, and gladly gave the riches of this life for the...
The Fountainhead of Bedford Falls
[Note: A version of this article ran last year around Christmastime. I’m posting it again because I love talking about Frank Capra and everyone else seems to love talking about Ayn Rand.] Frank Capra and Ayn Rand are two names not often mentioned together. Yet the cheery director of Capra-corn and the dour novelist who created Objectivism have more mon than you might imagine. Both were immigrants who made their names in Hollywood. Both were screenwriters and employees of the...
5 Minute Explainer: Competitive Federalism
Concepts you should know about explained in five minutes (or less). Leo Linbeck III, President and CEO of Aquinas Companies, provides an explanation petitive federalism and petition and governance relate in society. See also: 5 Minute Explainer: Subsidiarity ...
Christmas by the Numbers
As the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world, Christmas is a time of produces many things — joy, happiness, gratitude, reverence. And numbers. Lots of peculiar, often large, numbers. Here are a few to contemplate this season: $34.87 – Average amount U.S. consumers spent on real Christmas trees. 33,000,000 – Number of real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. each year. 7 – Average growing time in years for a Christmas tree. $70.55 – Average amount U.S. consumers...
A Living Wage for a Living Tree?
The Ballors went with a live tree this year. We bought it at Flowerland and I do not know the name of the farm whence it came. Over at the American Conservative, Micah Mattix reflects on the Christmas tree market, which in his neck of the woods is “notoriously unstable.” In Ashe County, North Carolina, says Mattix, a dilemma faces the small tree farmer: “It is not sell or starve, but it is sell or go without a new septic...
ICCR’s 2013 Proxy Follies
As 2013 draws to a close, it’s time to inventory the year’s proxy resolutions introduced by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. ICCR, a group purportedly acting on religious principles and faith, is actually nothing more than a shareholder activist group engaged in the advancement of leftist causes at the expense of their fellow shareholders and the world’s poorest. ICCR recently released its 2013 Annual Report. Its “2013 Proxy Season Recap” (pp. 16, 17) presents a snapshot of initiatives ICCR...
Civilization: A Christmas Miracle!
In my mentary this week, “Gratification and Civilization,” I examine the connection between making your kids wait until Christmas morning to open their presents and the development of civilization. Self-denial and self-sacrifice form the basis of human life together. As Matthew Cochran puts it in a piece last week at The Federalist, “Civilization depends on the tendency of men to produce more than they consume for themselves.” A key factor of driving forward the development of civilization, then, is the...
O Tannenbaum and Fair Trade
A couple of further points in reply to Micah Mattix’s response on buying Christmas trees, based on his original post here. 1) I think Mattix’s characterization of the buyer as “selfish” goes a bit too far, and is not an accurate characterization of a good deal of market activity. “Self-interested” would be more accurate, and would allow for selfish actors, but would also allow more generally for benevolent actors. For instance, a nun who runs an orphanage has decided that...
‘60,000 Kids:’ Department of Homeland Security In The Human Trafficking Business?
Judge Andrew S. Hanen, a federal district judge in Brownsville, Texas, is accusing the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security of plicit in human trafficking from Mexico. Here is what appears to be happening: a parent pays a “coyote” or smuggler in Mexico to bring the parent’s child from Mexico to the United States, illegally. Typically, these coyotes are smuggling drugs as well. When DHS captures the coyotes, they will then often “deliver” the smuggled child to the parent, despite...
Power Tends to Corrupt Theologians Too
John Howard Yoder Photo Credit: New York Times Today at Ethika Politika, in my essay “Prefacing Yoder: On Preaching and Practice,” I look at the recent decision of MennoMedia to preface all of Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder’s works with a disclaimer about his legacy of sexually abusive behavior: Whatever one thinks of MennoMedia’s new policy or Yoder’s theology in particular (being Orthodox and not a pacifist I am relatively uninterested myself), this nevertheless raises an interesting concern: To what...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved