The Vatican flag
(Abstract)
The Vatican flag is based on two colours, yellow and white, giving their tonality to the main papal insignia: the three crown tiara and the two golden and silver keys. As a median colour of the visible light spectrum, yellow represents what the Chinese tradition calls “the Middle Path”, which gives access to the total knowledge, the illumination or the divine Light. As the colour containing the entire visible spectrum, white corresponds to the initiation opening successively all the gates of the spiritual knowledge.
The pontifical power is associated with two insignia, which concern the deepest Christian mysteries:
- The three crown tiara representing the bridge, the vertical axis, between the inferior states and superior states of the being;
- The golden and silver keys symbolizing respectively the spiritual authority of the principle knowledge and the temporal authority of their application.
In this respect, the infallibility is not attached to the individual, but to the function of any representative of a traditional form. In a certain sense, any initiate inside an ancient tradition is infallible within his function practices. As René Guénon pointed out, the most surprising is not that the Pope is infallible as a representative of the Catholic Church, but that he is the only one who is.
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